Beltane Blessings

Beltane blessings on thee and thine - if you celebrate the Sabbath. Otherwise, I hope you had a very happy May-day.

I just finished putting up my wards in my apartment and celebrating Beltane in a traditional solo way. I am feeling wonderful, if a bit tired and light headed. Maybe it's the mead that I drank in the celebration. Maybe it was the energy flow. Maybe it was both.

Earlier today, I had a minor panic fit, looking for all of my magic stuff - mostly variously stones of some significance to me. They weren't where I thought they would be. So, I tore apart the remaining boxes until I found it all. *whew* The most important being the amethyst stones that I use as a basis for my wards.

They were found and cleaned in salt water, then placed in every room in the apartment - creating an interwoven warding net. Then, I smoked and smudged every interior wall and all of the doorways, windows and mirrors with incense and my eagle feathers. I swear, it felt as if an old familiar blanket was settling in. It was incredibly comforting.

One of the odd things I did notice just as I began all this, was the very first spider I had seen in the apartment since I've been here. It was on the wall, opposite the gorgeous Celtic tapestry I have of the Goddess in the circular form of the Maiden, Mother and Crone. It was an odd looking almost translucent spider. It didn't move the whole time I was warding the place. Strangely, it reminded me of the aspects of Fate. Also, I wasn't afraid of it. So, I just left it there as a guest for the evening. (Though, I can't say that I'll be so generous tomorrow.)

After that, I put on appropriate music, set up an altar in the living room created a circle of power and began my prayers. Then, I drank to the Maiden, Mother, Crone and the Goddess within us all. Beltane being a Rite of prosperity and fertility, I took matters in hand, building the appropriate power and released it to the World as a whole in hopes of prosperity, peace and fertility. I ended things in the appropriate manner, broke the circle and cleaned everything up.

I noticed the spider had disappeared during/after the rite.

The raspberry mead that I opened for this celebration is so good that I decided to continue indulging. Rather potent stuff, I'll admit. Then again, I drink so rarely, I wouldn't be surprised if its just light and I'm a cheap drunk. Must be careful so I don't wake up with a hang over tomorrow.

It was very satisfying, this solo work. But, I think I do want to start finding others to do energy work with. I've got Wendy and she even invited me to dinner and working tonight with others. But, since I had been feeling pretty crampy and crabby most of the day, I had to decline. Now, I'm wishing I hadn't.

MAY'S JOURNAL SPOTLIGHT: Gazing into the Abyss by Michael. Michael was the very first journaler I met that I didn't already know. He's wonderfully smart and well read. I enjoy just about everything he writes. I may not always agree with his POV, but I enjoy the discourse nonetheless. He's big into baseball, board games, comics, old movies, his girlfriend, his cats and his new house. Not necessarily in that order. Definitely worth a peek.

Tarot Card for the Day: Knight of Cups

The Rules of Bingeing

Well, I did it. I knew with both my Period and my muscle mass gain, I should have just skipped this week's weigh in. But, I didn't. Masochistic as I am, I went ahead and weighed myself. 278. A gain of four pounds. *sigh* Well, not as bad as expected. Ah, well.

So, to make myself feel better, I took my measurements. I lost on all three! *cheer*

Neck - March 2002: 15.5 inches.... Now: 15 inches! (-1/2)
Waist - March 2002: 45 inches.... Now: 44 inches! (-1)
Hips - March 2002: 60 inches.... Now: 59 inches! (-1)

Total Inches Lost
Neck: 2.5 inches
Waist: 10 inches
Hips: 11 inches

Little things do count. *smile*

Now, onto an interesting topic I call: The Rules of Bingeing - and Surviving it.

01. Realize that occasionally, you /will/ freak out an want to binge.
02. Binge = eat and eat and eat until you can eat no more then still take another bite.
03. Realize that you can survive a binge.
04. Realize that you can binge on legal food and satisfy the psychological need.
05. In fact, realize that it is probably much better for you to stuff yourself with something like four cheeseburger patties than four cookies - which will not fill you up.
06. Realize that bingeing is based on a purely psychological need and you can combat it.
07. Realize that if you cannot combat the need, you will need to sooth it.
08. Realize that bingeing on legal, satisfying food will combat the binge-guilt-binge cycle.
09. Realize that your want/need/eyes are much bigger than your stomach and use it to your advantage.
10. Realize, sometimes, you just have to say "Screw it." to the diet. It happens. Just don't make it a habit.

If you all couldn't tell, I had a binge attack this weekend. For once, I followed my own rules and realized that my eyes were much bigger than my stomach. So, I went out and got two Wendy's Ultimate bacon cheeseburgers. That is something like a pound of meat and cheese. I promised myself that if I was still "hungry" or wanting after I ate all that meat and cheese, I could go out and get whatever I wanted.

As expected, I was so full after eating all that food that I didn't want to move, much less go out and pick up something naughty to eat. Also, instead of jumping into a bad binge-guilt cycle, I felt rather proud of myself and virtuous for dealing with the binge attack as well as I did.

(However, gaming that night was another story... random munchings are deadly. Must figure out a way to combat gaming munching. A topic for another day and time.)

The rejections to my shotgun submitting have started coming in now. Strange Horizons has rejected all three poems. Ah, well. Next up, Star*Line. *grin* Though, I kind of wish SH told me why they rejected all three poems. I got no feedback on them at all.

Oh, yes. For those who asked/wondered about my "On Tap" section in my writing stats - that's my contracted work. I have several articles, reviews and a story with due dates already. I like to keep track of them, too.

I had a rather strange dream about a married couple I know who were getting remarried under their 'real' names. The dream continued on, mixing in Rich's new Legend of the Five Rings game that I just joined and ended with a little bit of lucid dreaming that I found pretty cool.

Basically, I realized enough that I was in a dream and if I did a certain action, it would end the story for me and I didn't want that. I consciously made my dream self not do the certain action so I see how the story continued. Much fun when I can actually, consciously influence a dream.

This was a very busy weekend for me.

Friday was Alex's Star Wars game. We ended up ending it a little early because Logan is working really funky hours and one of our key people wasn't there. We've finally gotten everything to a point where all we have left is the actual assault on the Governor's palace in order to save the Professor. This little plan* is only complicated by the arrival of the Governor's "special guest" - an Imperial Adjucator. Oh, yay. I tell you, if he just happens to end up in my sites... I'm gonna take the shot.

Saturday was Bob's AD&D game. What fun! Rescuing all of Baragaust (sp - OK, let's say I can't spell any of names from the game.) from an Almian, Calashamian and Thryken army some 3000 in number. I have to toot my own horn in this. I figured out the main tactic that allowed us to succeed - even though it was Alex who actually tested it out. Thryken are 7 foot tall mantis looking beings... basically, giant insects... who communicate via pheromones. I figured out that we could either control or derail them using pheromones. While it didn't work exactly like what I thought... it did work. *cheer* So, everyone is now home, safe and sound.

Also, my scary little ninja chick - a Katharie elf now has a new mentor from her Order - who just happens to be another absolutely gorgeous male Katharie elf. Looks like Anya has her romance for the game now. (I think Bob was getting frustrated since Anya has rejected everyone else so far. *hehehehe*)

Sunday was an amusing little get together of the "cool" people in the CAST game. (Inside joke.) We didn't get too much role-playing done since Ryan and Rory were so hung over from a bachelor party that they were barely coherent while Johanna, Alex and I were really tired from the night before. However, we did get one thing done before running out to see Spiderman. The "elders" of the court have decided to play a little "game" using the "lesser" courtiers. There will be some major bets riding on this little game of ours - major boons, status, influences, etc.... We will be inviting a couple more courtiers into the game on the sly. Then, we'll sit back and watch what happens once everything is in place.

Spiderman was much better than I thought it would be. I was really entertained throughout the whole movie. Seriously. It surprised me. I really liked the origin of Spiderman and watching him figure out how to use his new abilities. I had to laugh all the way through the sequence where Peter was trying to figure out how to swing on his webs from building to building. The spastic failing was really funny.

Also, I really like Willem Dafoe. His face is so expressive and craggy. Wow. What a great face to watch. He was chewing all over the scenery and I loved ever minute of it. He was a great contrast to Tobey MaGuire's cute-as-a-button-oh-my-gosh-she's-smiling-at-me smile. The two actors really worked well off of each other. I will admit, I'm looking forward to the next installment.

You know, the more I think about the movie, the more I like it and actually want to see it again.

MAY'S JOURNAL SPOTLIGHT: Gazing into the Abyss by Michael. Michael was the very first journaler I met that I didn't already know. He's wonderfully smart and well read. I enjoy just about everything he writes. I may not always agree with his POV, but I enjoy the discourse nonetheless. He's big into baseball, board games, comics, old movies, his girlfriend, his cats and his new house. Not necessarily in that order. Definitely worth a peek.

Tarot Card for the Day: Eight of Wands

Writing Train

More rejections are coming in. Sacred Exchange liked "Subspace Air" but it didn't quite fit the theme. The editor assured me that the theme was a tough one and that only something like 20% of the submissions actually fit what they were looking for - never mind the quality of the writing.

I'm still chugging away at the submissions, though. More poetry and short stories are out in circulation. I must admit that I'm putting those submissions that are snail mail only to the side to do at a later date. Their style of submission is much more formal than email submissions. However, I think the snail mail submissions are going to be put off for a while because I'm not through the Erotica submission list and I still have all of the Ralan list to go through, too

My editing of older stories is getting longer, harder and more exacting. Man, I wrote some serious crap a few years ago. I must have been in love with the two word combination "and then" because I am seeing it over and over and over. "and then X happened and then Y happened." Crap, crap, crap. Whole paragraphs are being rewritten to flow more smoothly and lyrically with appropriate transitions. Whole paragraphs are being cut out as unnecessary. I must watch out for superfluous details. They are one of my downfalls.

A good way to combat this is something I have discovered in the erotica world. They are short erotic stories called "Flashers." Literally, full stories with a beginning, middle and end in 100 words or less. Some have the looser restriction of 100 to 200 words. They seem to be phenomenally popular with several erotica publications requesting them and even an anthology of Flashers is being put together - which I've already made two submissions to. I plan to do more as soon as I write more that I'm satisfied with.

Writing flashers is actually very, very hard to do. At least, for me it is. You must craft your prose tight enough to have a logical, evocative short story in the extremely short word court. But, I like the style. I like the way every single word must count. I like the way you need to craft the dialogue (if there is any) to correctly infer previous actions and relationships between characters. Most of all, I like way flashers bring a whole story to mind in such a short flash of words.

I may have to try a couple of non-erotic flasher scenes for my characters... just for practice.

Speaking of pure vanity and fun writing. I've started posting the summary of The Book of Blood, the current title of the 7th Sea adventure that Bill is running me through. I am writing up the daily summaries and posting them by week. It's fun. It's fluff. It's action packed, swashbuckling adventure with a dash of romance and wicked magic thrown in for good measure.

My first Games Unplugged magazine came in. Wow. It looks nice. Really slick and a good quality. I can't wait to start seeing my articles in it. I hear that Campaign magazine is just as nice - but just in black and white for now. *bounce* I wish July would get here!

I just finished writing my review of Chuckling Cthulhu and sent it in. I was down to the wire on that one. Fortunately, the answers I got from Alex and Johanna (after pinning them down) for it were really well written. I did some quoting, some paraphrasing and added in some of my own memories from Evil at Bay. Not only that... I remembered to spell everyone's name correctly! *hehehe*

FLASHER: He Loves Me Not
Her eyes scan the hills, seeing in her mind's eye, the castle that is not there. It is much less distinctive now. But that no longer matters anymore. Her prince is not coming. He never existed in the first place. Only, she did not know until she walked in on him with her best friend.

Tears slip from her stinging eyes, dropping to the forgotten daisy in her hand. She stares at it for a long moment, then stands abruptly.

"He loves me not." She mutters as she discards the flower, walking away to begin rebuilding everything once more.

Word count: 99

MAY'S JOURNAL SPOTLIGHT: Gazing into the Abyss by Michael. Michael was the very first journaler I met that I didn't already know. He's wonderfully smart and well read. I enjoy just about everything he writes. I may not always agree with his POV, but I enjoy the discourse nonetheless. He's big into baseball, board games, comics, old movies, his girlfriend, his cats and his new house. Not necessarily in that order. Definitely worth a peek.

Tarot Card for the Day: Page of Cups

Unexcepted Acceptance

Dear Jennifer,

Susan and I have been going over stories today. We read your 'Death of a Slave Girl' but Susan said too brutal--as you suspected. However, Susan had a look at 'The Ruins' and liked it with some reservations. I know I had previously said "no" but we do try to both have a look at work.

[*snip some editorial comments for the rewrite*]

If you're still interested we will be happy to publish this story in Closet Desire IV. We have already have a full book so please let me know as quickly as you can. This book has already developed a mind of its own. I've attached a copy of the art that will be used for the front cover. Should have a copy of the actual cover later this week.

Hope to hear from you soon!

Stephen Van Scoyoc
Editor, Closet Desire

Whoo-hoo!! A rejection turned into an acceptance! Hot dog! What an unexpected acceptance! I am just happy dancing in my chair. I really am in shock. Happy shock, but shock. I know what I'm going to be spending my evenings doing this week!

Thinking of writing, I did get the books for my next set of Black Gate reviews. However, one of them was a bit unexpected. The first, Threats 2, a Shadowrun supplement was expected and looks good so far.

However, the second book, the Galactic Phrase Book & Travel Guide, a Star Wars novel, was not expected and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to review it or what. The second book was supposed to be a 7th Seas supplement.

So, I've contacted my editor and asked. I'll admit the second book is amusing but until I finish the minor rewrites of The Ruins, nothing else is getting done.

The CAST game was really pretty good. Incredibly frustrating for Anabeth, but that's not a bad thing. It was a lot of fun, playing Anabeth much more reserved and enigmatic. I had her watching people openly, to the point that one person kept mouthing questions at me, asking me if I alright. Heh.

The sexy little look caused some eyebrows to raise and many compliments, too That was fun. I was no skinny Minnie, but it was clear I took pains with my appearance - hair, heels, make up and body hugging clothing. I think it was the body hugging clothing that did it. I've continued to wear my old clothing that is too big for me now which has been hiding how much I've really lost. So, wearing that really showed it off.

Also, since Anabeth had just lost the Seneschal position, I was going to have her just sit back at not have any position save the clan whip position, which I was arranging for her to get rid of. Then, spend a couple of games just working on her own stuff. But, no.... Christian had to decide to give up Primogenship and give to Anabeth. (Never mind the fact that he would have had to give up the Primogen position for the Keeper position with the new rule, one person, one position thing.). Heh.

So, now, she's still in the middle of the court politics. Good for me the player. Annoying for her the character. *grin*

Called Mom for Mother's day. It was a nice talk. No religion at all. Thank goodness. I was a little nervous about that, hoping that I wouldn't have to end the conversation too soon. Fortunately, we mostly just talked about books, books on tape, my brother's impending wedding, clothing, weight loss... and lots of other stuff.

After the call, I headed out to do a big money transfer from savings to checking. As much as it hurt my inner little black duck to do it, I realized that it was stupid to not pay off a credit card bill that was costing me more in interested than what I was earning in interest in my savings account. So, I ended up cutting my savings account nearly in half. *WINCE*

Now, to put things in perspective, it isn't nearly as bad as it sounds and I do have a lot of available money in my financial stuff. But, still, the level of my savings account is definitely lower than I'd like it. Especially since I -know- I need to start looking to buy a new (to me) car in the next six months. (As much as I want it, I'm still not going to be able to get a used PT Cruiser - even used, then are going for $20-22K. *sigh*)

MAY'S JOURNAL SPOTLIGHT: Gazing into the Abyss by Michael. Michael was the very first journaler I met that I didn't already know. He's wonderfully smart and well read. I enjoy just about everything he writes. I may not always agree with his POV, but I enjoy the discourse nonetheless. He's big into baseball, board games, comics, old movies, his girlfriend, his cats and his new house. Not necessarily in that order. Definitely worth a peek.

Tarot Card for the Day: King of Cups

The Muse of Illness

They say that pain is good for art. I'm thinking that lack of stimulation and boredom is also good for art. I've spent the last couple of days, sick with a very sore throat not doing much more than occasionally reading email and listening to Susan Cooper's "Silver on the Tree" on audio tape.

However, when I've had the strength and focus, the Muse of Illness has spurred me onto to the following:

A new installment for the Book of Blood called "Avalon Ho!" is posted - Cathena and Eric finally make it to Avalon.

A new dream called "The Vampire Hand" - I, and four others, track a horrible monster to its lair and kill it. Though, it isn't as easy as it first seems.

A new Flasher called "Still Life" - It is based on Michael Parkes' painting by the same name. I've spent most of two days staring at it in my living room and a flasher scene came to mind. 89 words later and the story is down on paper.

A new poem called "Bitter Sweet Siren" - A poem based on my rough husky voice and a comment I thought up about it. "Hers is a voice that sounds Kathleen Turner on a hot summer night as she speaks to her lover..." I think I'm just gonna have to submit it somewhere because it would amuse me to no end that if a poem I wrote when I was sick got published.

Finish up the rewrites and polishing of "The Ruins" for Closet Desires IV. It is now just over 5700 words, has a new beginning, a lot of repetitiveness has been striped out and my heroine has been named: Victoria Winningham. (Yes, Julie, I borrowed your name. I figured you wouldn't mind.) Before, I had not named my heroine because I wanted anyone to identify with her. But, the editors wanted a bit more in depth and atmosphere and setting at the beginning. Thus, it was done.

Not bad for a sicko... Though, the reigning theory is that I'm not actually sick. I am "only" suffering from a really bad bout of hay fever. Joy. Whatever it is, it sucks.

So work took the entire Engineering department to see Episode II: Attack of the Clones. The rest of this entry is going to be all about the movie and will contain some major spoilers. So, if you don't want to be spoiled, leave now.

Ok. Now that those who have been warned and/or don't mind being spoiled... Oh my god. I have to say that this movie was NOT what I thought it would be. I did actually like it. A lot. It was amusing. It was engaging. It had a lot of action. However... that said, I just have to make a couple of comments.

- Wow, the beginning romance scenes between Amidala and Anakin were down right adolescently painful. It really showed that Anakin had no idea how to express himself suavely and that was ok for the character. However, I could have done without 2/3rds of the beginning romance scenes. I really don't think they showed the two of them actually falling in love nor were they really necessary.

- On the other hand, I was really engaged and interested in everything that Obi-Wan was doing. His storyline and scenes were really cool. Definitely the more action-packed of the two main storylines (as expected). There was an -excellent- hand-to-hand fight scene between him and Jengo Fett. Also, he's very handsome in all this.

- Chris Hayden really has the smoldering looks down pat. Seriously so. They were a refreshing change from when he was whining. I did like all of the foreshadowing of him becoming Vader, too - the music, his political views and the loss of his hand.

- Amidala, once again, proves that she is the most resourceful and best shot of the bunch. She is really cool. I really, really want a "Battle Ravaged Amidala" action figure now!

- One major complaint... you could see and feel the video game being created in the chase scenes through the city and the asteroid belt, the fight scenes as well as Amidala and Anakin escaping from the mechanical stompers!

- One good thing... Yoda FINALLY gets off his butt and actually DOES something. More than once even! Surprise, surprise. Though, I still cannot decide if I liked the light saber battle between Yoda and Lord Dooku. It was amusing and surprising and Yoda did actually kick ass... but I can't get the idea of a manic muppet on speed doing a Star Wars parody out of my head.

- My last thought.... Attack of the Clones was a -really- sucky title for this movie. It give such a wrong impression, it isn't funny. It should have been named something like: The Clone Wars Begin or Dark Wisdom or even something like Dark Designs. But Attack of the Clones was wholly inappropriate. After you see it, you'll know what I mean.

MAY'S JOURNAL SPOTLIGHT: Gazing into the Abyss by Michael. Michael was the very first journaler I met that I didn't already know. He's wonderfully smart and well read. I enjoy just about everything he writes. I may not always agree with his POV, but I enjoy the discourse nonetheless. He's big into baseball, board games, comics, old movies, his girlfriend, his cats and his new house. Not necessarily in that order. Definitely worth a peek.

Tarot Card for the Day: Six of Wands, Inverted

TTB Go BOOM

Back in late August 2001, I vaguely mentioned a ticking time bomb of a story that I was sitting on because I wasn't really ready to write it, yet. The story was just too big and I was having issues with a hard science block that I couldn't get around. Not only that, I had other things I wanted to work on like the Hucked Tankard tales.

So, the TTB was shoved aside and forgotten. Or, so I thought.

Now, nine months later, my ticking time bomb of a story has exploded. It seems, instead of hibernating like a bear, it was actually gestating and growing like a child getting ready to be born. And born it was. The birth started slow, like a series of contractions; lunch with Casey where I, for some unknown reason, mentioned the TTB and my hard science block. He all too easily suggested a way around it. Then, later, in the car on the way home, refinement of an idea and him giving me the hard science YANK to explain something that I wanted to happen and couldn't figure out how in science terms.

Next, the expanding birth of the story came faster. I went home and wrote up 2 pages of bulleted "facts" about the story universe, pushing off the outline of the story so I could get some facts down first. All the while, the outline has been writing itself in my head. Sunday, I visited Rich and he encouraged me to talk about the universe of the story. I ended up bouncing a plot point off his head cause I wanted an accidental death but couldn't figure out how to do that death without killing off one of the main protagonists. Rich, after hearing some of my science facts and a bit of the story made a proposal that just fit so neatly into what I was thinking, it was like the invention of the doggie door. So obvious, it made me smile.

Amazingly enough, I barely have any names for this story. No names for the Universe or the characters or the bad guys or the science glue that puts it all together. All I have is a story that is so begging to be told that I cannot not write it now. This is the first time this has ever happened to me. Names are usually what I start with. I don't know why this is different. Maybe because, this time, it is the story that is important, not the characters. I can't decide if this is a good thing or not.

This story Universe is so big, I can barely fit my mind around it. It's hard to distill the big picture down into a coherent storyline. One thing is sure. I'm excited about it.

Mike of Rambles wanted to know from, those of us now in out thirties, how life has been. Sitting back and taking stock, I have to say that my thirties have been pretty awesome.

Pretty much, everything that I have put my mind to, I have succeeded at on some level. Mostly, it has taken me getting to my thirties to really realize what it is that I wanted and to go for it. Before, I was too scattered, too young, too shy, too scared and had too low of a self esteem.

I'm guessing, once I hit my thirties, I subconsciously realized that this IS my life. Nothing magical is going to happen to me that I don't go out and make happen. I think this is when learned that Life is what was happening around me and Living was what one did with Life. Living is not a passive thing and I've decided not to be passive anymore.

So, I finally have a substitute online game for Marrach. It is called Ashirion. It is a mostly free form MUX with some RP rules to follow. The world setting is pretty neat. I'll let you all read about it on their site if you are interested. Some of the good things going for it include the quality of roleplay. People really think out there poses and there are few twinks. Actually, I haven't met any twinks, yet. I like the fact the most of those I've run into have an excellent grasp of grammar and punctuation as well. None of this 'C U L8rs' crap.

The best thing about Ashirion is the fact that they are letting me play my hare-brained idea. All of the races are bipedal - except when the shape shifters shift. Elves, Humans, Feliniods, Were-creatures, etc. Me? They are letting me play a cat! As in a domesticated cat. Well, ok. Sabine only looks like a domesticated cat. Actually, she is a country lass - herbalist, general midwife healer type. But, she caught the eye of an evil mage, whom she rejected and he cursed her. Some of that story is starting to come out in game.

So, Sabine is looking for a way to be able to talk and for someone to help uncurse her. Of course, being a cat, communicating this to people is a little on the difficult side. It sure leads to some fun roleplay, too! I'm hoping, in the end, after she is uncursed, she will have the ability to shape shift into the cat form. But, I don't know if that will be possible in this world. We'll see.

*cheer* 2 more pounds lost despite being sick most of last week and not exercising as much. Just 2 more pounds before goal #5! (Though, this weekend is KublaCon, so I'll try to keep the indulging to a minimum. But, no promises.)

It keeps coming to my attention that people seem to think the Atkins program only works because it is low calorie. Some people say you have to eat more to lose more. I don't know. On a whim, I wandered through the Atkins site to find out what their recommended daily caloric intake was. I found out that, although you do not have to count calories, the Atkins program recommends keeping between 1500 and 1800 calories a day.

So, out of mild curiosity, I figured out how much I was eating each day last week.

Monday: 1200
Tuesday: 900 (EEP!)
Wednesday: 1800
Thursday: 1600
Friday: 1700
Saturday: 2000 (Gaming. *smile*)
Sunday: 1500

Hmmm. It seemed that, for the most part, I am doing exactly what they recommend. I figured out most week days, because of my routine I'm averaging 700 to 950 calories (2-9 carbs) during the day before dinner with dinner usually being my largest meal of the day in calories, carbs and bulk. The best part about all of this? I rarely ever feel hungry which is one of the most awesome things about being on this diet.

Oh, it is easy to get the munchies even if I'm not hungry. But, that's another issue altogether and one for another time.

MAY'S JOURNAL SPOTLIGHT: Gazing into the Abyss by Michael. Michael was the very first journaler I met that I didn't already know. He's wonderfully smart and well read. I enjoy just about everything he writes. I may not always agree with his POV, but I enjoy the discourse nonetheless. He's big into baseball, board games, comics, old movies, his girlfriend, his cats and his new house. Not necessarily in that order. Definitely worth a peek.

Tarot Card for the Day: The World

Maureen Howard

The TTB slowly keeps pace. I've written the basic outline and discovered some problems with plot points that I've been toying with. The biggest problem being that SPACE is very large with not a lot in it. Which leads to the problem that interstellar and intergalactic space travel takes a very long time and I'm not quite sure how to ensure that they get from here to there in a decent amount of time in a manner that will hold up later in the story. As it is, I think the whole first story needs to take place on the ship.

I'm already doing a technological version of "fucking magic" to explain the rather dangerous intergalactic travel. I still need a way to do a fast, but not too fast, common way for interstellar travel. I think I need to start pinging the nepotism net to get in contact with someone who is an expert in space, the universe and knows about theoretical interstellar space travel.

The First Words of the TTB story have been written, making it official that I'm going to do it. I've written up the prologue. It's about 1100 words. I'm not happy with the second half but now that I have it down on paper, I'm going to let it sit while I go to KublaCon this weekend. Five days should let it stew long enough in the back of my mind to let me edit/rewrite it until I'm happy or, at least, more happy.

Because of the prologue, I had to figure out the time system that I'll be using. This is what I've come up with:

1 standard galactic day = 25 hours (1 to 25)
1 standard galactic cycle = 10 days (1 to 10)
1 standard galactic year = 30 cycles, 300 days (1 to 30)

day.cycle.year
02.15.30018 = second day of the fifteenth cycle of year 30018
OR
day.year
152.30018 = day 152 of year 30018

The only galactic wide holiday is a five day galactic celebration at the end/beginning of each year called: The Reunion Feast. These five days are not part of any cycle. They are commonly known as the Feast cycle. I have written up some traditions and such for it already. I haven't tackled the idea of the standard galactic distance measurement system, yet. But, I have vaguely started defining what kind of governement would be needed to govern a galaxy (or two colliding galaxies).

Finally, things are slowly beginning to name themselves. The Explorer group is called "the Hedarians" with individual members called "Hedari" like a title and sometimes used in place of the name. I like it. It rolls off the tongue well enough. However, the most important name of the book has been found and accepted by all involved. (Don't even try to tell me that a character in not involved in any facet of their make up. Especially the name.)

Meet Maureen Howard, my protagonist. I decided to do a bit of a silent homage to Heinlein in this name. Maureen from "To Sail Beyond the Sunset" - because I've always liked the name. Howard from the long lived Howard families due to the long life spans of the Hedarians. I also needed a name that would be common enough in England, 1790

Now, if I can just figure out the male protagonist's name, we'll be in business.

MAY'S JOURNAL SPOTLIGHT: Gazing into the Abyss by Michael. Michael was the very first journaler I met that I didn't already know. He's wonderfully smart and well read. I enjoy just about everything he writes. I may not always agree with his POV, but I enjoy the discourse nonetheless. He's big into baseball, board games, comics, old movies, his girlfriend, his cats and his new house. Not necessarily in that order. Definitely worth a peek.

Tarot Card for the Day: Page of Cups

"The Cute One"

I'm back from KublaCon and I am beat - mostly in a good way, though. Sunburned, too.

Friday night, Bill and I arrived at the Con, him a bit later than I, and signed up for our wanted games for the weekend. Unfortunately, we didn't get into Rich's Friday night Feng Shui game. I was pretty bummed about that. But, Bill ended up running me through a little Call of Cthulhu adventure that was lots of fun.

Rich and I did have a little ESP moment between us. We had made plans to meet for dinner, but didn't actually set up any of the details. However, around 5pm, I looked up at Bill and told him it was time to go down to registration, submit our games and look for Rich. I found out later, a little after 5pm, Rich, who had just finished working on characters for his game, suddenly knew it was time to come meet me for dinner and that I was by registration.

Neat, huh!

Saturday was Johanna and Alex's Chuckling Cthulhu game. For being created in less than two weeks and being stuck in a tent, it was a very good game. One of my favorite moments of the convention came in this LARP when my character, Melanie, saw her secret husband, Steven - a carnival owner, who had died of a heart attack in front of her about an hour before up and talking in one of the carnival tents.

Alex rolled some dice, looked up at me and said, "Ok, Jenn... Melanie looks in, sees Steven, who was dead, is up and moving... and utterly loses it. Game on in 3... 2... 1... "

I mimed opening up the back of the tent, looked in, saw them talking and let out a full throated Jamie-Lee-Curtis-horror-movie scream. People were so impressed that I got a small standing ovation for my performance. I have to admit, I surprised myself and sitting here now, I'm actually kind of embarrassed at drawing so much attention to myself in that way... embarrassed but pleased in an odd way.

Even funnier was the fact that, not five minutes later, my friend Dave showed up to watch the LARP a little bit. I dropped character to chat with him and his friend Vince. When I mentioned my scream, Dave nodded and said that he heard it all the way at registration and his thought was, "Jenn? Huh?" So, he thought he'd come take a look.

After the LARP, Johanna, Alex, Lori, David, Bill and I went out to dinner. It wasn't bad at all. We had a good talk about various games and such. Lori and David of Dreams of Deirdre are finally engaged. I got to hear about the extremely sweet proposal that David did to Lori at Disneyland.

That's one thing I really like about conventions - meeting up with old friends and meeting new people - including Johanna's extremely toothsome college friend, Javier and an adorable blond LARPer from San Los La Bispo who got to play my father in the CC LARP. Oh, my!

Sunday, neither Bill nor I got into our top game selection (a CoC game) and ended up play testing a new game called: Dimension Earth: The Shimmergate Project. It was a lot of fun, even if at the end, my neat character was possessed by the main bad guy and I ended up doing my best to kill all of the other party members.

Sunday night was Dreams of Deirdre's Manse on the Hill LARP. Lori heard me wanting to play someone evil for a change and I got one of the cult leaders. I caused a lot of chaos and even managed to accomplish all of my goals!

1. Find the source of the bad guy's power and get it for myself - Done.
2. Trash my rival's rep - Done.
3. Find out about some of the other plots and use them to my advantage - Done.

Unsurprisingly, Bill won one of the player elected DoD awards. He and another guy stuck it out together and were the most cynical, uncaring non-human characters in the game. Bill was a flesh golem and the other guy was a trapped genie. The two of them talked to everyone and screwed with everyone's minds while helping some, then helping others. They totally fed off of each other. Also, Dave - who got a tailor made character for himself - won one of the player awards. (One of his goals was: "Fuck with people.")

We left this morning, ready to leave and get away from the convention.

A cool thing that happened was that I kept being referred to as "the cute one" out of character by a couple of different people in the two different LARPs. I even ended up with my own (mostly harmless) stalker fanboy. At the CC LARP, when I was sitting next to Bill, this guy came over and sat next to me - practically on my lap so that I had to scoot close to Bill - and said, as he sat "Cool, I get to sit next to the cute one." I smiled and said thank you. Bill put his arm around me and did his silent protective thing. It was amusing - and did nothing to deter my fan.

At the DoD LARP, near the beginning of the game, I standing there with my arms crossed, doing my "I'm not a nice person" stance for my character, when he walked by, dropped character and told me, "You know, I have several bodice daggers that would go perfectly right there." He gestured close to my cleavage and almost touched me. I took a step back and thanked him for the compliment but watched to make sure his hands didn't go too close.

I noticed that I would look up and he would be watching me and while it was flattering, it was starting to get a little creepy. I wasn't the only one who noticed the watching. After the game, Bill made sure that he was right next to me. I didn't know at the time that that was part of the reason. Later, when I mentioned it to him, he commented on it as well.

Still, it was really nice to get several complements from strangers. Especially in the presence of other attractive women.

MAY'S JOURNAL SPOTLIGHT: Gazing into the Abyss by Michael. Michael was the very first journaler I met that I didn't already know. He's wonderfully smart and well read. I enjoy just about everything he writes. I may not always agree with his POV, but I enjoy the discourse nonetheless. He's big into baseball, board games, comics, old movies, his girlfriend, his cats and his new house. Not necessarily in that order. Definitely worth a peek.

Tarot Card for the Day: Eight of Wands

People Change

I was going to title this "I've changed, dammit!" then, I realized that I would be falling into the same trap that is really starting to piss me off. It is not just about me.

People change. I have changed. We are not static stereotypes or pigeon-holed images that seem to stick in people's minds. I have noticed this a lot recently because when my friends and co-workers actually stop to see who I am -now- and not who they thought I was, they are absolutely shocked. The reactions to me having changed are varied and, often, unpleasant. It is like they didn't think it was in me to be anything other than what they thought I was.

So far, I've heard comments like:

... "If Jennifer can get published, so can I." As if it is a competition or they never believed I had any writing talent to begin with.

... "Wow. Jennifer's been published. I can't get published by osmosis. Personally knowing someone who is published is a great inspiration." This is, by far, my favorite response. I don't mind being an inspiration in a non-competitive sense. I don't want my favorite hobby to become someone's competition measuring board. I don't want to be pressured in that way. Not in something I love to do so much. I won't allow it. Even if it means I have to cut ties with someone. I won't let someone's jealousy rob me of something that is so much a part of me.

... "If Jennifer can lose fifty pounds, so can I." Again, as if it was a competition in looks or they never believed that I had the discipline nor drive to lose the weight and get healthy. On the weight loss thing, I have been getting many more non-confrontational and non-competitive encouragements from people I don't know than people I do know. I don't really understand this. Why are some of my friends reacting negatively to me losing weight? I really haven't been forcing my views on people. (I think/hope.) Just telling them what is working for me and why - but only when they ask.

... "Gosh, you sure are getting aggressive." (Referring to my dating again and not sitting around waiting for Prince Charming to show up.) Why shouldn't I be aggressive and look for people to date? I got out of debt, got published and am losing weight because I took an active hand in things and didn't wait for it to just magically happen to me. Is it such a bad thing for me to say to the world "Hey! I'm here. I'm smart, talented, creative and single. I'm ready to date again. Give me a call." If yes, why? Why does it sound 'desperate' and 'whorish' to some people? Why are they so upset at me?

... "Are you sure you want to do that [new unfamiliar, maybe scary, thing]?" Yes, dammit! I am not static. I am tired of being afraid of new things and untried paths. I am tired of people, who never actually look at me anymore, taking who I am for granted. I want to meet new people, see new things and have new experiences! I want to continue to grow.

... "I feel like I don't really know you anymore." No. You probably don't. Especially if you think that. Most likely, you haven't bothered to look. I'm 'just Jenn' to you. I have been trying to reach out and forge new contacts with old friends. For some, it has worked. For others, not so well.

You see, as soon as I started getting upset at people taking who I am for granted, I stopped and started re-evaluating who I thought people were. I started really listening to them and looking at what they said as well as how they said it. I realized that I had pigeon-holed a couple of my friends and my classification of them, whether or not it was once correct, was now very wrong. The biggest examples of this are MikeB, Rich and Dom. They are not the people I thought them to be. They are more. They are worthy of knowing who they are -now- and not who they were.... or, more importantly, who -I- thought they were.

Then, there are those people whom I realize are less than what I thought them to be. Especially in retrospect. People like BrianT and Terry. Though, I am threatening to fall back into the trap. I have not seen these people in a long time. I do not know how they have changed. However, until I meet them again, I have to realize the esteem I once felt for them was built solely on the projected image I had of them in my mind and not based on who they really were at the time. It was this projected image clashing with reality that hurt me so often.

Reluctantly, there are also other people and other relationships that I want to examine to see if I what I think is really what is there. But, I'm afraid to. I'll admit that upfront. I am afraid of lifting up that rock and finding nothing but worms instead of the treasure that I have had there in my mind's eye for many years. People change. Relationships change. Sometimes, I don't want them to. I want them to stay the way they were.

I'm not advocating that everyone change who they are. But I am saying that, sometimes, we are not who you think we are. That, sometimes, it is worth taking out the image of who you think we are, shaking it out and updating it. Change is scary. Change can be painful. But, in my not-so-humble opinion, change is necessary for survival. The moment we stop changing, learning, growing or trying, we die inside.

I'm the first to admit that I spent a good portion of my mid-to-late twenties more dead than alive. No more. I'm not willing to go back to what I was - no matter how much some people seem to want me to. I am changed - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. That's just the way it is... and how I will continue to be... for now.

MAY'S JOURNAL SPOTLIGHT: Gazing into the Abyss by Michael. Michael was the very first journaler I met that I didn't already know. He's wonderfully smart and well read. I enjoy just about everything he writes. I may not always agree with his POV, but I enjoy the discourse nonetheless. He's big into baseball, board games, comics, old movies, his girlfriend, his cats and his new house. Not necessarily in that order. Definitely worth a peek.

Tarot Card for the Day: Strength