Tangerine NaNo: 10, 646
Tangerine Total: 60, 693
What I’m Reading Now: Last Night In Twisted River, by John Irving

It’s so hard to talk about rock and roll. It’s so much about how it makes you feel, how it fires what you already have inside you. The best rock – the best music – takes all your emotions and amplifies them, makes them more important, overlays a sense of urgency and intensity on top of your inner life. Happiness evolves into bliss; bliss becomes transcendence. Even in sad songs, if you recognize yourself inside them, it’s a comfort, even a joy to discover someone knows exactly how you’re feeling. When you’re at a concert, it’s like a compact with thousands of other people, folks eager for that sense of connection with the singer, with the band, with each other, with themselves. If you give yourself over, and I mean really give yourself, all of yourself, then everything quiet gets loud, everything muted gets acknowledged, and everything you need and want and desire is suddenly right there, out there, ( shouting out loud. )

A full, FULL post when I return. BUT! Last night at the Springsteen show, something truly amazing happened that kind of rocked me. I had a bunch of celebrity sightings - Robin Quivers, Mel Gibson, and some guy people were calling "Pat the Rat" were there - but nothing struck me as much as seeing celebrity chef Tom Collichio and celebrity dirtbag Artie Lange in the "pit" area of the stage. My dual initial assumptions - that Artie was going to be a drunk pig and that Tom would be far to classy to get in with the proles - were dead wrong. Never was this point more clear when Springsteen launched into "Rosalita" and both of them were absolutely into it, singing along with every word.

Bruce Springsteen crosses all boundaries, all class lines. These two people have nothing else in common*, but they got together for the love of The Boss. I had such an amazing time, garnered a new appreciation for "New York City Serenade," met some awesome people up at the barrier between us and the pit. But this right here was one of my favorite things to see.



*Except for that they're both incongruously Bear icons. YUM.

Take a good long look at this motherfuckin BUS! (I've made this joke twice today, and I still think it's hilarious.)

You GUYS! I'm CURRENTLY on a Bolt Bus. WHAT? As advertised, the Bolt Bus has free Wi-Fi (unlike AirTran, which makes you THINK it does, and then says you have to pay.) Bolt Bus, however, is made of lies and deceit, as it does NOT feature a funny, naive anthropomorphic dog voiced by John Travolta. FAIL, Bolt Bus, FAIL.

However! In the interest in having friends wherever I go, I randomly ran into my buddy Evan on the train over here. This is how our conversation went as we ran into each other:

Evan: "Yeah, so I'm on the 12:30 bus and I'm visiting friends in New York, and..."

Kev: "Okay, but I have to WORK when I'm on the bus! Just so you know! I can't talk and just hang out the whole time. I have to WRITE!"

Evan: "Um."

Kev: "You're really nice, though! You want to help me support corporate coffee?"

I stayed up late last night and ran out of social skills.

But! In a few hours, I will be hanging with my friends Marty and Barry on a whirlwind tour of NYC, and then tonight: BROOOOOOOOOOOOCE. Life is zesty!


I only have hot friends.

11-06-09
Tangerine NaNo: 10, 186 words
Tangerine Total: 60, 233 words
What I’m Reading Now: Last Night In Twisted River, by John Irving

Tracey and I don’t hang out as much as we used to, due mainly to the fact that both of us now have lives. Mine generally involves hanging out at Starbucks and supporting corporate coffee. Hers is all about the screamo band My Chemical Romance. It takes all kinds, kids.

Anyhow, when she asked me if I was interested in hanging out this week, I jumped at the chance, especially when she used the M-word. (The M-word here … is mall.)

“To the Cambridgeside?” I asked. Quick history: Tracey and I worked together at the B. Dalton at the Cambridgeside Galleria for three years. During this time, Tracey blew off a movie engagement to see The Full Monty with me to have sex with a boy. I want to point out that Tracey is a lesbian now, and Mark Addy is still hot.

“No!” she countered. “How about The South Shore Plaza?” Folks, the South Shore Plaza was, at one point, the Most Important Place in my and Tracey’s lives. Back in 1993 (seriously? Christ.), I joined the staff at the B. Dalton there, two months after graduating high school. I was also working at the Record Town at the other end of the mall, and the Magic Eye booth somewhere in the middle. Tracey told our manager she couldn’t work on Thursday nights because she had class, but in reality, that’s when Friends was on. Ah, youth.

We hadn’t been back to the Plaza for some time, and it’s a good thing. At some point, Tracey and I both moved out of Quincy and started living our largely bohemian lifestyles here in the Big City. We have long-term relationships with people of the same gender, and one of us writes hardcore dub-con gay porn involving singers who are mad at their dads. PS: it’s not me. PPS: “Dub-con” is nasty porn-speak for “dubious consent.” I struggle to understand, you guys, I really do.

Anyhow, we decided to traipse on down to our old stomping grounds because we are occasionally nostalgic and invariably insane. Also: there was the promise of Hot Topic and sundaes at Brigham’s. My first mistake was trusting Tracey’s sense of direction.

“I printed out the directions from Google Maps!”

“Don’t you have a GPS?” She does have a GPS. She calls it The Lady because it speaks in a stern British accent. Here’s a sentence that turns creepy if you read it out of context:

“Yes, but The Lady is in pieces in the glove compartment.” Ah. ( The full lunatic adventure, under the cut. )

For this final run of concerts in the Working on a Dream tour, Bruce Springsteen has been playing mini-sets of a full album inside his larger sets. He's been sticking with his three biggest ones - Born to Run, Born in the USA and Darkness on the Edge of Town.

But in Madison Square Garden. The nights I AM GOING TO SEE HIM. He is playing The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle on Night One ... and the entirety of The River on Night Two. THE WHOLE FUCKING THING.

I MAY DIE OF SQUEE! MARTY, YOU MIGHT SEE ME DIE OF SQUEEE! HOLY MOTHERFUCKING ROCKTASTICOGASM!!!!!

More later.

11-03-09

Tangerine NaNo: 6, 202 words
Tangerine Full: 56, 249 words
What I’m Reading Now: Last Night In Twisted River, by John Irving

There is a contingent in the world convinced that I am utterly blind to corporate buggery and double-speak. To those, I relate this story: last night, when I opened up my email to find a Starbucks missive stating that my Gold Card Membership would soon have even more rewards, I got excited. Then I skimmed the body of the email until I came to a dead stop on this sentence fragment:

While it will not provide the 10% discount…

My eyes went wide. My anger roiled inside me. Oh, really, Starbucks, I thought (and would have said, had I not been in the break room at work). Well fuck you, and fuck your Mom, and fuck your whole reductive up-drive corporatespeak that says more while you deliver less. Eat a bag of dicks.

Eventually, I calmed down. There is a contingent in the world that would prefer that I had not. The whole why do you support corporate coffee, Kevin contingent, which features a lot of fricative alliteration and is answered pretty simply: (1) It’s delicious, (2) it’s convenient, and (3) I can hang out there for an entire afternoon for under four bucks. But to go further down that path would invite me to further defend my love of certain Big Companies, and that’s not where I am right now. Where I am right now is my Starbucks Gold Card.

When I put down the garroting wire and actually opened the link Starbucks had provided, I got a little more clarity. The new Starbucks Rewards Card replaces and merges the old Starbucks Card and Starbucks Gold Card programs, bringing in elements of both and shedding some things that, in their opinion, didn’t work. To review, let’s take a look at the existing programs:

Starbucks Card
• The card itself is free
• Free syrup options (like vanilla, pumpkin spice, or peppermint)
• Refillable online, in store, or via the Starbucks Card app on the iPhone

Starbucks Gold Card
• $25 annual fee
• Free drink on your birthday
• 10% off on every purchase
• Free Wi-Fi for two hours every day
• Same refill options as above

The first big plus is that the new Starbucks Rewards card is free – no more $25 annual fee. This is going to be a plus for casual visitors, but for me, the card began paying for itself in the second week.

Beyond that, the new Starbucks Rewards is a points program, which seems to be where a lot of corporate loyalty programs are heading. You collect points – or “stars” – every time you use your card, one star per use. The breakdown of benefits is as follows:

Card Registration (Welcome Level)
• Free drink on your birthday, no points needed

15 Stars (Green Level)
• Welcome Level stuff, plus
• Free Wi-Fi for two hours a day
• Free beverage customization, including syrups and milk (like soy)
• Free refills on hot or iced coffee
• Free beverage with whole bean purchase

30 Stars (Gold Level)
• Welcome and Green Level stuff, plus
• Free drink every 15 stars
• Personalized Gold Card
• Remain at Gold Level for a year
• Personalized coupons and offers

As an added benefit, anyone currently in possession of a Gold Card is automatically renewed at that level for free when his or her membership expires.

What All This Means

There’s no way around it: for those of us used to the 10% off on every purchase – and not just beverage purchases – that’s the change that’s going to sting. If you’re a casual to moderate Starbucks visitor, new perks aren’t going to really help a lot. Let’s say you’re in the program and you go once every weekday for your morning coffee. You have to go for three weeks before the rewards start, and you have to go another three weeks before your Big Reward – that free beverage – kicks in. That’s a month and a half of paying out before you get a payback.

Winnowing it down to simple arithmetic, there is simply no break-even point that gets you on a level with the old discount. If you spent $4 on every visit using the old discount, over the course of 30 visits, you saved $12. Not giant, but not paltry. On this new program, you save a third of that: $4. Using mathy projections I didn’t know I could parse until I did it, if you paid Starbucks 120 visits, on the old program, you would have saved $48. On the new: $28. That’s half.

We are, however, not taking into account the not-inconsiderable syrup element. If you want vanilla or pumpkin spice or gingerbread, that’s an extra 30 cents. With the card, it’s free. If you want soy, that’s generally $.40. That’s also free. After, of course, fifteen visits.

Without a fee, you can’t really say that the card doesn’t pay for itself. If you frequent Starbucks, it is absolutely more beneficial than not having the card. The best thing about the Gold Level is that, once you’re in it, you stay in it for a year – meaning that you don’t start back at 0. If you go another thirty times, you get a whole other year at the Gold Level – which means that sixty visits (+/- two months), gets you those premium benefits for two years. Which is pretty good, if not ideal.

Long story short: Starbucks took the best thing from their Gold Card program and replaced it with some other stuff that, while good, isn’t quite up to the same level. Whether or not you’re into the program is dependent wholly on how much you love the drinks at Starbucks, how often you go, and what intangible benefits (the luxury of hanging out for hours, comfy chairs, multiple locations, free Wi-Fi) you derive. I don’t love it – and I especially don’t love the way Starbucks attempted to couch its curtailing of my benefits in comforting words – but I like it enough.

And that’s a crash-course in Your First-World Problems.

Kev

11-02-09

Kev’s Word Counts:
Tangerine NaNo: 4, 422 words
Tangerine total: 54, 469 words
What I’m Reading Now: Last Night In Twisted River, by John Irving

Is it really only the second?

To reiterate my whole plan for the month: I’ve given up on Tangerine, my good girl, too many times in the past. It’s an idea that’s haunted me for years and I have a terrible fear that if I let her go when I’m on this roll, I’m going to let her go forever. Therefore, last week, I stopped work on the novel when I was at 50, 047 words, with the intention of picking up where I left off when November rolled around. That is why you’re going to see two word counts above my entries all throughout November, like what Marvel Comics was doing when they decided to reboot numbering. I’ll have whatever I’ve done past that 50, 047 as my NaNo number, and I’ll have my actual total. Which I’m sure is fascinating to all of you. Writing about your own writing process is like writing about your workout: it’s fascinating to you, and pretty much no one else cares.

Still, a few more bits of the tid variety: yesterday, I was nearly paralyzed with the idea that I’d written only 600 words and I was going to flail there, never progressing. And last night, I realized that the 1,500 words I’d finally plowed through were all shit, complete shit, and I deleted them and rewrote better. I know rewriting and questioning your progress is anathema to the concept of NaNo, but so is continuing a pre-existing story. I’m breaking all the rules this year, and I’m okay with that.

Competing for my literary attention, however, is John Irving. I’m about a quarter of the way through Last Night In Twisted River and I’ve fallen in love again. Recently, I gave my friend Neil a copy of Until I Find You; upon leafing through it, he determined it “advanced Irving,” while The Cider House Rules, on his shelf, was more “beginner Irving.” I can’t really argue with that logic, as Cider House was my very first of his books. If we’re categorizing as such, though, I’d have to say that Last Night in Twisted River is very much “beginner Irving,” and I couldn’t be happier. Where I felt safely on solid Irving ground in Until I Find You once we got to Amsterdam, here the Irving tropes are closer to home. You want bears? We got bears. You want Exeter? We got Exeter. We also have Bob Dylan and a logging camp and a chef and a fascination with larger women – all of which are either new or very recent. I’m so happy to be reading this.

But I have to finish soon: Stephen King’s Under the Dome comes out in eight days, and regardless of whether I’ve finished with Irving by then, I’m jumping into the King. It’s a moral imperative. I’ve been waiting for this thing in some shape or form since the late 80s.

Oh, and speaking of waiting for things: gingerbread flavor returns to Starbucks tomorrow. To. Morrow. It’s been far, far too long since I indulged in a gingerbread chai, and I am ready. This, along with the college stuff and the job bites and Springsteen coming up next weekend – man, things are working out gangbusters right now.

All right, short break to read, and then back to the novel. Let’s go. Let’s really really go.

Kev

Still a tiny bit tipsy. This isn't all the pictures of Tracey and Liz's party, in part because I don't know how many of the ladies there want me to post their pics. Until more pictures come, enjoy the furriest Halloween ever!



Andy's a bunny!



I'm a panda? But I kind of look like a dead panda?



Shawn has "claws." He was dressed as a "fanboy who loves Manos: Hands of Fate." The sad part is how everyone totally got it. He also has a cape!



Joe was a ... wait for it ... Siamese Cat. Yep.



Dave was The Punisher. He explained that he bought leather pants a few years ago, and because they were so expensive, he needs to justify that by using them for Halloween every year. So: Neo, Ash, The Punisher, and The Crow.



Shawn wore my panda ears. Um. Everyone wore my panda ears. They are dirty, dirty panda ears.

Halloween!

1. Today I send my laptop in for repairs. The "apple" on the front detached. That's not supposed to happen! This means I'll be less-active on the onlines for the next few days. Brace yourself!

2. Interview in a couple of hours. I'm wearing a tie. What.

3. I really, by nature's law, should not be awake right now. I was out until 1:30 making wildly inappropriate jokes with Harrington, K-Dug, and Delfino. Then I went home and read comics until like 2:30 and then got up crazy early and I'm SO sleepy. Tonight: bed before midnight.

4. Tracey tried to judge me for wanting to be a panda at her Halloween party. I reminded her that her fiancee and two others are going to be going as members of My Chemical Romance. "You're actually having a G-Way LARPing party at your house" is how I put it. Tracey wisely realized she has no moral high ground anymore.

5. The Natalie Imbruglia "Torn" interpretation video remains one of the best things on the internet. ( And it's behind this cut! )

Current Word Count: Tangerine, 50, 047 words
What I’m Reading Now: Last Night In Twisted River, by John Irving

Despite the icon, this post isn’t entirely about NaNoWriMo. Hear me out.

This morning, in the shower, I realized I was going to towel off and go to my bedroom and pick out something nice to wear to work today. It’s the second training session at Borders, and today, we’re actually going to be out on the floor, interacting with people. I chose my black jeans – any color jeans but blue are AOK – and my retro red polo shirt and put them on and looked at myself in the mirror. I was going to work. I was going to a job.

At once, I went to the phone and dialed my old temp agency, and got in contact with my former agent, Beth. “Well, I’m sad that you’re out of a job, but I’m happy that you’re back with us!” she said, at which point I remembered how personable I can be, and how employable I am.

We worked things out: I couldn’t commit to a job until after I came back from New York. I was more interested in part-time right now, especially if I’m going to consider upping my hours at Borders and especially if I’m going to keep my commitment to the theater. Beth asked, “Well, what have you been doing in your downtime?”

“Writing,” I explained. “A couple of nonfiction books. Some columns. Mostly fiction.”

“Novels?”

“Eighteen of them.”

At which point, she rattled off a series of networking opportunities and low-impact office jobs that I’d be perfect for. My head swirling a bit, I agreed to meet with her for an interview tomorrow, to determine where I fit best. “And we can work with you so that you can concentrate on your writing and have a way to support yourself.”

“That is perfect.”

I hung up and looked at Shawn. “I’m apparently getting a job.”

He smiled. “I heard you on the phone. You’re … really good at that stuff.”

Which is awesome to hear, and even more boss to believe. This is coming back to me: I am good at this stuff. I can market myself in pretty much anything but fiction (oh, but that elusive frustration). I also like the idea of working several different part-time jobs as a way of keeping busy in different ways. Clerical work is not freelance writing is not box-office is not retail.

It’s just that it feels like all of this stuff is working together, all at once. Puzzle pieces, fitting in. I’ve had a good run being just a freelance writer, working for money that often stubbornly refuses to come. Now it’s time to be other stuff, too.

I want to clarify, though, what this does not mean. (1) and most importantly, this does not mean I’m abandoning my writing. In point of fact, I’m upping it. It’s almost November, after all, and November means NaNoWriMo. Now, I am doing it a little differently this year. Tangerine is currently hovering at 50, 047 words. It is my goal to effectively double – if not triple – my word count in November. It’s bending the rules a little bit (okay, it’s going directly counter to one of the major rules), but I abandoned Tangerine last year for Roller Disco Saturday Night, and it suffered. I don’t want it to suffer again.

I will be reporting two different numbering systems, like Marvel comics were doing for awhile: the actual count, and my NaNo count. Which reminds me, I should really sign up on the NaNo site.

The other thing (2) I don’t want to give up on is college. But that wouldn’t be happening until next fall, and I need to do something to keep me in funds until then. And I think I can actually do it all, if I’m careful. There are 168 hours in a week, and I only need to sleep 90 of those. Everything is happening for me right now. Things are going to change, I can feel it.

All right, I’ve written long enough. Time to go. To work.

Kev

Current Word Count: Tangerine, 49, 764 words
What I’m Reading Now: Last Night In Twisted River, by John Irving

I found myself wandering the city yesterday, a little bleary-eyed and out of sorts. I’d finished Her Fearful Symmetry early and hadn’t had the foresight to bring something short to read. Not wanting to start anything long – the new Irving was coming out the next day, and I wanted to devote myself fully to that – I just sort of listened to music and checked my Twitter and email obsessively on my phone. Eventually, even that gave out.

The moods, when they come, come in whispers. I felt one coming in for me. It’s an obvious and stupidly epic metaphor, but at once I felt like I was between everything. Between books, between jobs, between – I don’t know, cracks in my life. I spent the afternoon weird and vulnerable and alone. I decided to hide out in a bookstore for awhile and try to absorb some happiness there.

I poked through some of the new Vonnegut. Picked up and put down the Chick Klosterman; when I get it, I want to get it all the way, not as something half-read. Desultorily, I headed into the basement and gave a look at the new authorized Winnie-the-Pooh book, and dropped it in revulsion. It’s awful.

On defeated legs, I made my way into the bargain section … and there I saw it. For months, I’ve been talking about a new book about Stephen King called The Illustrated Stephen King Companion. I’d been promoting it, but I hadn’t actually seen it. Now, I snatched it up off the shelf and started to leaf through. And fell in.

Back when I first got into Stephen King, when I was 12, I was inundated with author photos of him. They became intrinsically woven in with the words in my mind. I’m not saying that my attraction to Stephen King was intrinsically physical – what I’m saying is that the physical commingled with the textual, the emotional. At some point, he became my primary father figure – my real father was close but never around; I suppose I preferred a father who was distant but ever-present. Mixed in with my discovery of King was the first inkling of my sexuality, so there were a lot of confusing years where the books I was reading seemed to chart my progress through puberty, through self-acceptance, through the final shaky years of my adolescence. There were full years in there where I read nothing but King. I did so because he made me safe, because he made me happy, because he was everything I wanted to be.

Yesterday, I sat down on the floor at Borders’ Best Neighbor and pored through this book which seemed to feature new photographs of King on every single page. In addition to reproductions of letters and manuscript pages (in pockets that you can open and remove and unfold), there are all these pictures of the man, from the 50s till now – the majority of them during the years I first became familiar with him. It –

Okay, look, I know this sounds silly and grandiose, but looking at these pictures of Stephen King was like looking in on my past. The man in those pictures was working on changing my life. God, he was so good-looking back then. I needed him so badly, and he just kept delivering.

Anyway, I don’t know. All of it made me shaky and happy and less vulnerable. At some point, I will actually buy the book, when I have a little more money and I can afford to buy things again. It’s funny that just as I get a part-time job at Borders, the book I need is only available at Barnes & Noble.

I don’t know what the point of this is. I’m just in a weird head-space now. I think it’s good. Maybe. Or maybe I should just dive into the new Irving (which I borrowed, didn’t buy) and have myself a time. Yeah. That sounds good.

Kev

Hey kids,

I'm off the grid today so I can concentrate on finishing Her Fearful Symmetry (last night I realized, because I'm slow, that "symmetry" is an almost-rhyme of "cemetery," especially when said with a British accent, and it's where a bunch of the book takes place), so tomorrow morning I can leap right into the new John Irving. Which means no novel work, no LJ, very little twittering, and a break only for the gym mid-day.

In lieu of a real entry, then, I alert you to the wide-awake nightmare that is my husband's latest obsession. Shawn's Five Days of Shakira's "She-Wolf" is as hilarious as it is terrifying, and I urge everyone to take a look-see, especially at the tags (in one, he tags a Shakira video with simply "hips". Because they don't lie?)

First watch the original, lunatic "She-Wolf" video, for reference. Then head on over to Shawn's journal for:

He-Wolf, a gay-ass parody video that's better than the original.

He-Wolves!, just way, way too many parody/interpretation videos. The first one, which is sped up, is the best, because it's a sister-super gay brother team up, like Zan and Jana.

Acoustic Loba, two acoustic covers by young people. If you watch the second video, I urge you to at least watch through the first chorus, so milk can come out of your nose like it did mine.

What Is a She-Wolf, in which a nerdy girl attempts to take Shakira to task for her grammar. Yes, there's a cage.

Drums only sound good if you play them while doing yoga! A link to Shakira's other new song on SNL a week or so ago. In this entry, Shawn calls "She-Wolf" a "laughable travesty," but I will point out that he BOUGHT IT and listens to it around the house. While we both do the dances.

Um. "Enjoy"? This has been Five Days of She-Wolf. You're welcome!

Kev

Current Word Count: Tangerine, 47, 850 words
What I’m Reading Now: Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger

I’ve been a lazy, lazy Kev today. Despite a pretty thorough workout with Ian and a satisfying lunchy time with the sweetie, I have gotten little of consequence done today. I count this as all right, because I’m working at Borders tomorrow for the first time in two years and I call this Conserving My Energy. Plus, I plan on some yoga tonight, too. Namaste, bitches!

Okay, and not for nothing, I did write a couple paragraphs in Tangerine. My rule: I can’t write in LJ without at least writing something in the novel. Working on it every day, no matter how little, keeps the momentum going and keeping me tethered to the characters. Plus, it keeps me on par for the days when I need to jump headlong into a 3,000 word day. Oh, NaNo, how I have missed you.

But tonight, mostly what I did is make new LJ icons and go through my Top 50 Most Played Songs on iTunes. So that is what I will share with you! Hooray Saturday Night!


( My Top 50 Favorite Songses! )

You'll notice, of course, a preponderance of Springsteen. I reset all my playlists around the time Working on a Dream came out, you'll see a lot of that. You'll also notice a really kind of psychotic devotion to Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown, as well as my "new" discovery of They Might Be Giants' Flood, bringing up the rear (thanks, joezer!)

More interesting, I think, are the one-offs that have made impressions on my life. "When I Paint My Masterpiece," by The Band, is in there because of its use in the movie Observe and Report, among my favorite movies of the year. "More Than A Feeling" by Boston is sort of the theme song of Roller Disco Saturday Night, and Tangerine is ... well, you know. I think it's kind of funny how often I listen to "Paper Planes" by M.I.A. I am no demographic!

I may have also mentioned updating/creating LJ icons? OMG RIGHT HERE!


My new main LJ icon. I thought it was time to put Dr Pepper front and center.


Writing. The old one showed me on the old laptop, and I thought this one - a closeup of me signing the pages for the chapbook - was both more classic and more representative of me as an author, rather than just a writer.


I thought Captain Baxter needed his own icon.


Grunt. I was never entirely comfortable with the very revealing icon I used to have for this, with me more than half-naked. This works better. I think.


Me and Shawn. This captures us better than the overly kissy one from last Christmas.


Because I totes needed something that said, "OMG YOU GUYS CHECK THIS OUT!!!"


I decided to update the steampunk icon when I realized the other one had Disney wallpaper in the background. Um.


I love my pink Chucks.


I don't have much in the way of WTF icons. Now I do!


WHEEEE!!!! A ride photo at Six Flags with Mark!


An update to my Starbucks icon. The old one was fuzzy and black and white and self-important. This describes my relationship with Starbucks better.


I've wanted a gym icon for awhile. Huzzah!


Because I need something to use for all of Tracey and Liz's bandom posts. I mean, seriously.

Hello and welcome to my Saturday night. My plans to go visit Hottie McHottie Brian Smith on his birthday got all thwarted, so now I'm at Starbucks at 9:15, waiting to head home and watch Mary Poppins on the couch with my nice blanket. Hooray blanket!

Kev

Current Word Count: Tangerine, 47, 678 words
What I’m Reading Now: Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger

Okay, first things first. These were the awful new Kurt Vonnegut covers I ran across at the bookstore today:



They’re trying hard to be minimalist, and instead come across looking like something a fourth-grader made in art class. Based on my friend John Perich’s suggestion that, “The minimal isn't even minimal enough. Author last name, Title, two colors, block letters. That'd be minimalist.”

So I decided to give myself a tiny little Photoshop lesson, and came up with these, my two favorite Vonnegut books:



Thoughts?

* * *

The reason I was at the bookstore this morning was because I had this whole grand idea for the morning. It’s my turn to do laundry, and I’ve been building up a whole heap of grungy workout clothes in my locker at the gym. My plan was to dash downtown, grab my gross clothes, come back, do laundry, read awhile, and kick this day April Fresh.

I was thwarted by a jaundice-yellow sign on the front door stating in no uncertain terms that the locker rooms were switching today, because the girls’ locker room was being retiled. So, not only could I not grab my gym clothes, but I also could not work out, because my shorts were in my locker, currently being pawed at by ladies who probably have vaginas and designs on my workout gear. Ladies. Disconsolately, I traveled into the women’s locker room to at least take a shower and discover whether or not the men putting in the new tile floor were at least hot enough to justify disrupting my morning (answer: no. Sigh.)

But! Did you know that the girls’ locker room is like twice as large as the boys’? What’s up with that? Also, they have these special showers that go back an extra five feet, so if you want to, you can step out of the shower but still be behind the curtain and towel off there. What? I think I saw an actual steam room in there, too. Maybe also a fondue bar and a pedicure station. What I’m saying is equal rights now, ladies. I did yoga last night! Namaste, bitches!

* * *
So now I’m off to do unfun laundry that does not involve my gym clothes but may include a trip to the greasy sub shop next door. I am trying my best to finish Her Fearful Symmetry before Tuesday, because that is when John Irving’s book comes out and I want to jump right into that and splash about. I need a running start with Irving if I’m ever to finish it, especially with the King novel coming out on the tenth. I’m also going to be doing a version of NaNo this November, in which I try to finish Tangerine during that month instead of putting it aside once again for a brand-new novel that will take me eight months to finish. I did have an idea for a novella I could write in a month and make 50,000 words … but I’ve got a momentum going and I don’t want to lose it. Plus, I start work at Borders on Sunday! That’s right! You heard me! Discounts, advance copies, Christmas money, sunshine, Barfie Burgers, girls! Life tastes like a Whatchamacallit and I’m taking a bite!

Kev

Wow. Disney World in 1971 really hates you. I mean REALLY hates you.

Current Word Count: Tangerine, 46, 027 words
What I’m Reading Now: Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger

Over the past two weeks, I have visited three college campuses. There is within me a great desire to visit one more, but not for any concrete reason beyond the Super Mario Brothers II symmetry. You know my whole theory on the Super Mario Brothers II Construct, right? Otherwise known as the Doki Doki Paradigm, the Construct looks at the pros and cons of four competitors all working toward the same basic goal. In Super Mario Brothers II, at the beginning of each level, you could choose to play as Mario, Luigi, Toad, or Princess Peach. Luigi could jump really high, but was slower than average at pulling up vegetables and picking up enemies. Toad had a stunted midget jump, but he pulled and picked with lightning speed. The Princess picked stuff up crazy slowly … but she could fly for short distances. Mario was pretty much average all around. Your goal was to figure out which one was going to help you get to the end of each level best, weighing the drawbacks against the special talents, and living with your decision no matter how many times you lost a guy.

So now comes this choice, maybe the most important of my adult life. So let’s apply video game logic to it!

Boston University

Pros
• Has a creative writing building
• Is hugely respected; having BU on my resume would be a boon
• Encourages and funds studying abroad
• Is challenging academically
• Many food and study areas.
• Has at least three Starbucks inside the campus
• Is immense, and the students and faculty have an intimate and borderline reverent relationship with the library.
• Humungous gym building; I could give up my gym membership and go there for four years.
• Right on the Green Line

Cons
• Might be too challenging academically; while in Honors English, I was in remedial math, and I also didn’t take well to science courses.
• Is expensive. It costs more to go there per year than I made annually at my old job.
• Unsure policy on adult learners. No one seemed to have an answer for me on that.
• Requires two SATs, or one ACT With Writing, which would mean I’d have to take them over.
• Is a very sports-oriented school. I hate sports.
• It’s on the Green Line.

Quick judgment: Luigi. It’s a school that will require me to jump very high, but my focus does not necessarily require that.

Umass

Pros
• Inexpensive.
• Academically moderate; I would have no trouble with classes there.
• Specific interest classes, like a course on horror fiction
• Good SAT scores not required.

Cons
• Good SAT scores not required. I’m not sure I want to go to a school that will, and I quote, “toss them out if I bomb.”
• Few food areas.
• Commute. I’d have to take three forms of public transport to get there and back, about an hour each way.
• A run-down, depressed feel. It’s a college that feels like a high school.
• My tour guide gave a cursory nod to the library; it doesn’t seem to be all that important in the grand scheme of UMass.

Quick judgment: Toad. I won’t have any trouble picking up what they’re putting down, but I likely won’t be asked to reach beyond my minimum requirements.

Emerson

Pros
• They have very specific majors in Writing, Literature, and Journalism, including a multitude of courses on creative writing.
• They tailor your other humanities – like science and math – to your focus. If you’re a film major, for instance, they have a “Physics of Movie Making” course.
• Huge support for creative thinking.
• Very excited about adult students, especially those with life experience that includes having chapbooks published.
• Diverse class base; even if my focus is on creative writing, I can take classes on stand-up comedy, advertising, and television.
• The library is one of the school’s biggest focuses, and it’s a “food-friendly” library, so you can eat while you study.
• Located in Downtown Boston.

Cons
• Expensive to the degree that all college is expensive; cheaper than BU but over twice as much as UMass.
• Incoming students are required to live on campus; extenuating circumstances are taken into account, but I’m not sure how extensive a process it is to get out of that.

Quick judgment: Mario. Emerson seems tailor-made for me, offering all the classes I want to take and providing a challenge without expecting miracles. Their focus on creative learning and teaching thrills me. Where creative writing is a part of the larger curriculum for both UMass and BU, it seems to be a major interest for Emerson.

Right now, I think I’m really set on Emerson as my school. My experience there was a far-heightened version of what happened at BU, and was exactly the opposite of my depressing slog through UMass. I texted Shawn during a quiet moment to say, “I LOVE THIS SCHOOL!!!” I’m applying to both Emerson and BU and seeing where it leads me.

Now comes the tough part. Getting in touch with my old teachers and bosses and getting recommendations. Getting my transcripts. Seeing if I need to retake my SATs. Applying. Writing essays. It’s daunting, but a little exciting. Maybe I should have done this when I was 18 … but you know, I’m not sure I was ready for this at 18. I’m ready now.

Kev

I spent much of today reimagining Charnel House, my Stephen King website I've now been keeping for 13 years. It's a radical departure for the look of the site, as I try to bring it, screaming, out of the 1990s.

Let me know what you think. I'm kind of beyond self-analysis at this point, so any thoughts would be helpful!

Charnel House: News and Reviews Since 1996!

10-17-09

Current Word Count: Tangerine, 45, 063 words
What I’m Reading Now: Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger

I’m at a point in my novel where I have to sort of sum up all my complex themes in the book without projecting that that’s what I’m doing. There’s also a fair amount of foreshadowing going on here, and I need to tread lightly with it. We’ll see how it shakes out. I just fixed yesterday’s clunky dialogue and slammed through another thousand-plus words and I feel pretty good about it all.

The other day, I toured the UMass campus while on my whirlwind tour of Boston-area colleges. On paper, UMass looks like the perfect school for me. Pretty inexpensive, interesting courses, a diverse student base. But the tour depressed me in ways I didn’t foresee. Walking through UMass was like visiting a crumbly, 70s-modern older brother of my high school, without the charm. In our orientation meeting, I asked the coordinator if it would behoove me to retake my SATs.

“I mean, you can if you want?” she responded. “But if you bomb, we’ll just throw those out.”

On the B.U. tour, our guide led us into the student library and waxed rhapsodic about the whole thing, discussing its hours, and how many books it had, and what was in the special collections. It was a highlight of the whole tour. At UMass, when we wandered near the library, the tour guide asked, “Okay, does anyone want to go in, or should we skip it?” I was the only one who raised my hand for Yey. The guy led us in and pointed at the coffee shop on the ground floor. “We have a café, and seven floors of books,” he said. “Anyone have questions?” And then we followed him out.

It’s not that the orientation lady or the tour guide guy were bad, they just didn’t seem at all enthusiastic about the school. And, to be fair to them, there didn’t seem much to be enthusiastic about. The classrooms were small and tucked away to the side, industrial and anonymous and sad. I know it’s a public school, but the reason I want to go back to college is to have a challenge, to have a college experience. I went to high school. I don’t need that again.
Monday, I’m going to visit Emerson. Wednesday: Suffolk U. We’ll see. Right now, though, I’m leaning heavily on B.U., even though I might technically not be smart enough or qualified enough to get in. But they have a creative writing building. You guys.

Right now, it’s all about being at Starbucks, before then heading to the gym to muscle and pretty myself up for Rachel’s party. I may shut the laptop and revel in the new Inventory book by the Onion’s A.V. Club, which traipses that weird Right Now line between snark and sincerity about Our Communal Popular Culture. Or I may just listen to music and be happy, because my husband doesn’t have heart disease and I got paid for writing and it’s been a great Saturday.

Kev

Current Word Count: Tangerine, 43, 964 words
What I’m Reading Now: Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger

In 1978, the Hershey’s company released the Whatchamacallit candy bar to the masses. The Whatchamacallit bar was made of peanut butter flavored “crispies” and featured a coating of rich milk chocolate. Eager to play on its silly, memorable name, Hershey’s produced this early commercial, a Little League take on the classic Abbot & Costello bit, “Who’s On First.”



In 1987, nine years after its inception, Hershey’s made the controversial decision to add a layer of caramel to the candy bar. Debates still rage to this day whether the decision was a good one. In an effort to take on problems that are truly important, several online petitions have sprung up to get Hershey’s to remove the caramel layer. None of these efforts have been successful.

While the Whatchamacallit bar never had an amazing movie tie-in opportunity like Reese’s Pieces did with E.T. – or, to a lesser extent, Baby Ruth in The Goonies or Zagnut in Beetlejuice – Whatchamacallit did have an amazing mind-bender of a commercial in 1989. Again, though it’s not as revered as, say, that one for the Tootsie Pop (probably the best candy commercial of all time), it’s weird and merges retro and future-retro styles to create something truly memorable.




Whatchamacallit’s brand graphics changed in 2002, with more dynamic package imagery (the name of the bar jumps out against a chocolate “splash” field). In 2006, the Whatchamacallit – along with several other candy bars, including the inconceivably popular Take 5 – underwent a far more radical change than the addition of caramel. Due to the rising cost of cocoa, Hershey’s began replacing the cocoa butter coating with a new coating consisting mainly of vegetable oils. While it still contains some chocolate, Hershey’s is no longer allowed to legally state that the Whatchamacallit contains milk chocolate. As a result, the packaging of the Whatchamacallit changed once again, and advertising that it is “Made with chocolate, peanut flavored crisps, and caramel.”

In 2009, following the trend of candy bars receiving spinoff treatment, the Whatchamacallit introduced a limited edition candy bar called the Thingamajig. The Thingamajig is slightly smaller than the Whatchamacallit, featuring cocoa crisps with a layer of peanut butter substituted for caramel. Like the Whatchamacallit, it is enrobed in a coating of Hershey’s imitation milk chocolate, but because the whole bar is suffused with chocolate essence, one can detect the lack of cocoa butter less.

The Whatchamacallit has never gotten the recognition or praise it deserves (which makes the existence of the Thingamajig it a little puzzling … if delicious), but even with the caramel layer and the change to mocklate, I think the Whatchamacallit is one of the best candy bars out there. Crisp, wide, and a surprising chocolate/peanut butter combination flavor that is at once unusual and inviting, the Whatchamacallit deserves its due.

Kev

Hey all.

Weird day today, including:

-> waking up early to finish signing the 1,200 pages I promised I would send out today.
-> touring UMass and leaving a little troubled.
-> doing a nearly-complete workout at the gym (arm day).
-> coping with Shawn's medical dilemma (which, as it turns out, is okay. *breathe out*)
-> doing emergency edits on my website to include recently published books on King.
-> sending last-minute edits (and bio) to my publisher for the chapbook.

And because I didn't work on the novel, I feel like I didn't quite live up to my potential. I think this means I am totally the college type.

Also, I think I may work on the novel tonight.

Right now, I'm heading to see the Bastards show with my friend Neil and anyone else I can drum up. After that, a dash home to catch the season premiere of 30 Rock, plus CSI. Oh, God, why does just watching TV sound so heavenly right now?

Then I'll work on the novel and wake up reasonably late tomorrow. And do Friday things, including a pocket history of a consumer product on LJ. And be happy.

Kev