What I’ve been doing

Moving downstairs turned out to be a lot more strenuous and involved than even I expected. I still have tons of stuff to sort out. Well, it seems like tons of stuff to me. The major things are done, though, at least on my side. The roommate still has his giant collection of scholarly books and opera dvds and so on to finish sorting, and he can’t finish until certain things are done to the apartment, and the landlord is dragging his feet a bit. I don’t believe the upstairs has been rented yet, but on the up side the landlord said I did a good job cleaning up! I wasn’t too happy with my efforts, but really the place needs a team of professional cleaners, and things like floor-sanding and replacing that isn’t in our control.

On the writing front, I haven’t done much. I’ve been working on and off on a scifi thing for some years now, and decided that key elements have to be rewritten. It won’t disrupt the general structure that much, but the first draft of chapters one and half of two will need significant reworking. Let’s just say some of the setups and tropes I drew on that I thought were just fine now seem stale and clichéd, at the very least. For one thing, having my MC be able to bring a musical instrument, albeit a small, portable one (a viola, basically) across light years from space, and that voyage on prison ships where he was usually in stass, was unrealistic beyond the boundaries of science fiction. (It’s not some sort of virtual creation, it’s a real viola made of wood. My Used Future dystopian government would not by any means let a prisoner they were sending into exile across the galaxy take such a frivolous item with him.)

I’ve also been working out in my head a story or series of story set in a kind of alternate Earth though not really, where there are different countries and empires, and the level of technology sort of corresponds to the Victorian period (with a bit of steampunk for pretty, and also airships! for pretty), and one where wars and political intrigue and inequality is not unknown, but one where so far the scourge of colonial adventuring and conquest hasn’t destroyed large swathes of the population. However, into this other-Earth a disruptive, and as it turns out alien element will be introduced: one that aims to start yet another war of conquest and destruction and looting. Only things don’t go as planned… for one thing, medical science is more advanced than was true for our own history, because the history of this world did not produce situations and modes of thought that caused ancient medical knowledge to be lost here for a long time. (For one thing, none of the religions of this world produced the sort of mindset that called women who knew of healing herbs and so on “witches.”)

Anyway, that’s some of what I’ve been doing.

Note to any males who want to comment on my blog in the future

You WILL NOT leave a comment demanding that women and girls be taught to “respect” men. You get all the respect you deserve, and no more. As it turns out that often means you get exactly zero respect, but your hurt fee-fees on this score do not even compel me to get out my tiny violin. As for “teaching” women of any age anything, I will do my best to spread scorn, contempt, and disrespect for males, especially those who think that demanding “respect” in a threatening “or else” tone will actually get them any.

Blog closing announcement

I’ve decided to go back to blogging on Blogspot. WordPress is great, but it’s just a bit “too much” now.

The new blog is here.

Why should the big boys get all the fun: my political platform

First I’ll add a disclaimer: this is not a platform for me to run under. Oh no, if it were up to me there would be no “running” for office, just a simple coup with the help of my minions and the installation of me as Supreme Dictatrix For Life. Then the beheadings would begin, starting with—

But let me focus. Here’s a few suggestions I have for a candidate to really make some good and lasting change in this country and the world. Let’s face it, we won’t get anything substantial from any member of the Big Two, what are those guys, well one is blue and one is red… anyway, it’s all status-quo-maintenance from your standard US presidential candidate. I’m quite frankly bored with the way my country has been going, trying to be a little liberal for a while, then getting a hangnail or something and going somewhat conservative, and then when we calm down we try a few tiny liberal gestures, but nothing ever really changes and for the rest of the world it must be like having an extremely obese, narcissistic, lazy person sitting on your lap. What we really need to do, of course, is decide if we’re going all-out with the Evil Supervillain part or if we’re going to get our act together and start doing the right thing. Unfortunately we’ve picked the third option: do everything evil supervillains do (oppress foreign nations, wage wars because we’re irritated or want stuff, intimidated opponents with our mega-death weapons, inflict hordes of tourists and college students on innocent nations, smoke all the best weed, etc.) without admitting it. Instead we’ve pretended we’re really Good Guys and all the stuff I listed above we’re doing for Freedom, or some bullshit. We don’t really believe it, everyone else can tell, and it pisses people off. If we’d at least have some fun — just go ahead and go Joker, America! — at least we’d entertain people. Instead we sit around moaning about how awful our life is and then we swipe all the good cheese off the buffet table before anyone can get to it leaving only that bright orange “sharp cheddar” that tastes like feet.

I seem to have gotten a bit lost. Anyway, I would vote for a candidate, even a white male one, who said they would do the following things once in office:

1. Withdraw all US military personnel home and close all foreign bases, ending all wars we’re waging as well. That shit is expensive, we’re in a recession, we can’t afford any of this shit, and let’s face it, no one wants our military in their country. World War 2 is OVER. The Cold War is OVER. Time to put our toys away and go home. (Thought I’d get this one out for the screechers right away. Guys, if you hate this, you won’t like anything else I write here, so you might as well quit reading now and go to the DailyMail website or wherever it is you like to hang out. Isn’t Rush Limbaugh on? He’s always on somewhere. Go. Shoo.)
2. Our border problem and illegal immigrant problem with Mexico will never be fixed the way we’re going now. Mr. and Ms. Richie from Richville aren’t going to mow their own lawns, and their neighbors’ high school kids haven’t lifted anything heavier than a laptop bag with an iPad in it since they were five years old. So I have a suggestion: semi-open borders, worker passes, dual citizenship, or even no border and a joint Mexican-American-run territory. Why not? If America is so fragile that the idea of Juan Martinez of Tijuana blowing leaves off a sidewalk in San Diego will destroy it, we deserve to be destroyed. Also, there is something a lot of people don’t know: there are native tribes whose lands extend over the border into both countries, and they have a hell of a time getting together because of white bigots. Let’s not stand in their way. I thought America was all about Family. (Ha ha yeah I know.)
3. Gay marriage: approve it. Some of you who’ve read me for a while know I don’t actually care about gay marriage, but that’s because I don’t care about marriage. I’ve never wanted to be married and I have successfully avoided that horrid thing. I also object to the reification of “marriage” as some sort of Thing, instead of letting grown adults get together with each other however they want. That being said, it’s already a Thing that is considered something fully approved humans should be allowed to do. It’s time we stopped telling gays they aren’t fully approved humans. (Also, if this happens to “destroy the institution of marriage” the way we’re always being warned about, good. Marriage as it exists in the modern consciousness is a monster that needs to be attacked with any weapon at our disposal. Go!)
4. By the way, what should we do with all that money we saved from closing our overseas military bases. Gosh, I don’t know, maybe we could finally have that universal health care plan and we could even afford to keep old people alive instead of driving them off into the wilderness to be eaten by wolves. (Whatever we do, we must make sure the Republicans don’t get their hands on it. They’ll spend it all on ugly golf pants and a gold statue of Ronald Reagan. Sorry, dudes, you got your library already.)
5. This isn’t really part of the platform per se, but any candidate who is either a) single or b) gay will get my vote. I’m tired of the ideal perfect heterosexual family-plus-children setup. I need a break from that shit. I’ll also vote for any candidate who isn’t a Christian, because I really need a break from that shit. What Would Jesus Do? He’d say “stop bringing Me into this.”

That’s just for starters. Chew on it while I go do some things. I may or may not post a followup later. And hey, if you have anything to add to this list, go ahead in comments. I’ll accept or reject them based, of course, on my own perfect and brilliant personal taste.

Coming Attractions

If you thought my previous post was irritating/incendiary/shocking/stupid wait until the next one. Haha. Bwahahaha. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! 😈

Ahem. Anyway. I have stuff I want to post about, but I promised myself honestagod I’d actually do some real writing (as in, work on my novels/stories) instead of goofing off on the internet and blogging about silly random stuff.

Also, I can’t figure out why “the Hunger Games” is my biggest tag. I’m pretty sure I only used that tag a couple of times. Okay, maybe I need to use other tags more than once then.

I will hack no more forever

I got tired of trying to do something with Textpattern so I’ve moved over here. Call it laziness. And yes, I’m off my own server — that’s going to be used mainly for storage and archiving my stuff and some other projects. WordPress.com offers lots of nice things for free and my one main complaint, that I couldn’t seem to set up a Paypal donation button, is no longer a problem. (I don’t have one up now because I’m okay with funds; but the main thing with WordPress.com is they don’t allow click-thru ads or something but they do have a work-around which was so simple I am embarrassed to admit it didn’t occur to me. Anyway.)

So the Twisted Spinster is back. More twisted than ever, I promise. As you can see if you scroll down the main page I’ve already put up a few posts. Feel free to read and comment.

Too Old To Rock And Roll, Too Young To Die

I’m fat. I’m old. And I don’t care.

This is the new blog. I’ve privated the old one. I know “privated” isn’t a word, Firefox correcting thing. Anyway, out with the new! In with the old! Welcome to your nightmare.