Mallory

I am in the final desperate dash for grades as the semester winds down over the next 10 days or so...

Today I am trying to get caught up on my Excel and I need to get this darn printer to work again. Basically I switched from a desktop to laptop and the computer can't see the printer :(

I need my printer darn it - I've been saving a ton of things as pdf's.

The good news is that my hair isn't falling out...

I also got my Bio (surprise) essay done with only the graph to redraw and one paragraph to add - that is WHY I rushed so that the teacher could ding me before I turn it in - I think she isn't capable of returning something to students without red marks on it.

:::counting days on my fingers:::

I think I have 3 tests left...

I just finished my Biology Genetics test and I felt pretty well prepared for it. I know I missed a few things but most of the test I felt strong. I am fatigued, just in general, with this class. Our teacher is in overkill mode and throwing the kettle and pot after us (she manages to add in two extra class periods each week) - I'm pretty done!

I have lab next - which is okay - but it is 3 more hours with the same teacher :sigh:

My son is in a bit of a jam so if you have any spare good thoughts - please send them in his direction for tomorrow. He has Saturn squatting over him which basically means he has to toe the line really hard or he gets smacked really hard. I went through one of those periods several years ago and it was so hard. We humans do not learn easily but Saturn is a relentless teacher.

I just discovered that I'm in something of an unpleasant mood...

I'm not sure why although I feel pummeled by my biology class - turns out I aced that quiz though (not sure how I did that) and today I did good on my geology test last week - the thing is though that it is hard to comprehend how I'm doing in the class because the theoretical score she posts for our composite grade apparently includes an expected 0 on one test which artificially lowers the actual grade - it's all so confusing - I think I am in A territory but uneasy about it - I do have in the top 5 overall scores but pfffft...

Tomorrow is our genetics test in Biology but the class I am fretting over is Excel - I can do the Excel but I'm slow because I use a MAC and some things are work-around issues - so the teacher and I are trying to work out a final test that gives me more time to compensate for the computer issues. My hope is to practice every day for the next 10 days since that is how I get smooth on my computer skill problems. But I'm so frelling done for the semester already :sigh:

I did assist my son with his presentation today - my first ever power point presentation. I couldn't figure out how to save you-tube files and how to insert them (bummer) but the rest worked fine in the template and it was rather fun too.

I also assisted my son with fixing a paragraph in his dance essay. This is the weirdness of having a son ahead of you in university :) he is already a Junior while I am just becoming one :)

One of my housemates models my son's new cloak - she is quite tall - he is NOT quite tall :))) I did ask him if he never tried it on - he confessed to realizing he may have made it too large.

   

 

As you can see - she is barefoot :))) And they somehow thought driveway photos would be jazzier than ones with nature in the background - ::hee hee:: She is convinced he made this JUST FOR HER since it fits her perfectly...

I just received a letter from the first scholarship I had an interview with - they said YES!!!

I have 4 more still to hear back on, so wish me luck, although I already feel supremely lucky.

I think I can do this...

Today has been a day of a little of this and a little of that. I went to the store to buy veggies for my roast and left spending a $100 on groceries including a 20lb bag of rice and several bags of beans. I feel leery of the rise in prices and after dropping another $50 on gas for my car - OUCH!!

Put the roast on...

Painted the bottom of the pending shelf...

I'm going to go chalk some trim in a few minutes and then do more Excel homework.

It is so lovely here and I need to buy some annuals for my hanging pots. A lot of my terracotta pots had volunteers from last year so I am about 50% full already. Plus I want to put new screen on the screen door and clean off the deck and under it for the summer. It is SO lovely out there, my bedroom door is open (it goes onto the deck) and my dogs are wandering and flopping. I also need to plan a dump run for construction debris - it is pretty much ready to go all I need is for my son to be here long enough to load it all up. He is busy with finals too and he is very busy with theatre since he has to be there for the change overs.

He made a fabulous cloak in his costume class - brought it home to show it off and it is like 4 sizes too big for him..:::grins:: the other housemate (she is tall and robust) modeled it beautifully. Apparently the theatre people went gaga over it - but his teacher hasn't seen it yet. Yes, my son can sew - I taught him at about 6 years old and his dad sewed too although I had to teach him and make him understand it had nothing to do with masculinity. I told both of them the machine was a MACHINE and a TOOL and did really COOL stuff. They came to agree with me :)))

I will take pictures of the cloak and post them for you - very very nifty!!!

I had another scholarship interview today and this one was scheduled immediately following my Biology class. I told the teacher on Wednesday that I would need to leave early but I don't think it registered with her. I missed last Fridays class because it was at the same time as class. Anyway, so today I went to class wearing an actual suit and real adult woman shirt (it was shiny) and eye makeup and my hair a bit puffy and sprayed with fix - you know - full girl stuff. You would have thought I dropped a bomb in the class. Half the darn class comments about first my hair (remember I wacked off 12 inches last week) and then they did the whole 'discuss my changed look' thing. They were stunned my hair has been shorter for a week (no one noticed) Even the teacher came over and told me I looked a decade younger and really good.

Pfft!!!

Okay, so I wear t-shirts and stretchy black pants most days. :::hee hee:::

It really was funny though and the interview seemed to go very well indeed. They were all my mother's age and we had a very nice conversation. Some times it is good to be older :)))

I think that is the last of the interviews although I may need to attend 2 luncheons and a speak with the sponsors event.

Did I say we have officially entered finals season?

they wants me :)))

omg and my mom's phone is ... BUSY!!!

pesk

I also haz scholarships...



must     p a r t y !!!

Well, as you might guess we are entering the final couple weeks of classes and assorted teachers are scrambling to provide sufficient torments for their students.

Note to teachers: Keep in mind that your students frequently have SEVERAL classes which require studying for finals.
Note to teachers: A two sided - 30 minute to take quiz is a BLEETING TEST!!!
Note to teachers: Adding a 'study review 2.5 hour session' where you kind of NOTICE who shows and who doesn't (did you really take roll?) is simply WRONG!
Note to teachers: Cumulative finals are HELL when the book, lecture, lab are ginormous. And for cripes sake - quit quibbling over points and half points and exact wording when your current (incomplete) point tally has exceeded 585 points and you only offered extra credit of 20 points.

I baked fudge. Keep in mind I can't eat fudge but my computer chimed when I saved a file in Biology last week and we either bring in baked goods or get dinged points (I'm the first to bring anything in this semester.) So, I made fudge and the class ate fudge and fudgely teacher removed her note to ding my points.

Lab - HELL - a freaking genetics test in the class we were *told* was done with testing for the semester so that in theory we could study for the cumulative lecture test next week - trust me - this was a TEST not a quiz.

Tomorrow I have a Geology test - I haven't studied enough for it :sigh: so after class tonight I will read and do chapter reviews - I do okay with that as prep generally - I'm just wearing down. Spring semesters are the hardest.

I have a story - my evil inner self always informs me of WAY COOL story when it is completely impossible for me to write.

ARRRRRRRR

On the plus side - the closet is 95% done. We had a bad board so one side of the high shelf (the closet has 10' ceilings) has to be repurchased and the mirror package was missing the mounting things and one switch plate to screw in and then chalk and paint the doorway. Looks good and housemate is giddy :)))

studying.....whine....

Sex Positive is often code for "increasing sexual success" and this code is wielded against the forces of sexual prudism. However, by decoding these types of statements and behaviors you will almost always find certain truths at the core of 'sex positive' exercises and behaviors.

Some psychologists will tell you that the person most likely to become a psychologist is a person who needs psychological help yet who is most able to receive the assistance they need by practicing upon others. In a sense, a dualistic relationship happens where the psychologist is assisting one person and that person, through the process of accessing the psychologist's insight, is catalystic to changes within the psychologist.

The same idea translates in almost any field - to become an expert in a field, place yourself in a position of teaching the subject to others. And for those who have difficulty with self examination - the circular insight through the braver student lens provides illumination.

This week we saw a protestation of 'ideological exploration' in the form of sex positive languaging. History tells us that great sexual experiments like the Kerista Commune of San Francisco, while artfully protestated against the constraints of mainstream culture, could be pierced to view the primary proponent (in this case the Kerista prophet Jud) to discover an individual whose sexual success prior to founding the *movement* was questionable. To overcome the judging perspective of mainstream women who were not saying yes to his sexual desires, he created an entire movement designed to insure that he had consensual access to ALL the women in his communal family, in a scheduled rotation. The *idea* was to explore relationships that were nonpreferential (in this way he could not be preferentially OUT) - can we say nonpreferential groping?

Polyfidelity is a particularly difficult sexual construct in managing issues of real preferential feelings and what happens when your feelings are not supported by the construct you are trying to live by or to which becomes a reverse (squashing or holding) of emotions and feelings. If you explore the poly communities for any length of time it becomes increasingly clear that there are ongoing struggles to define poly as anything other than increased sexual access under the guise and umbrella of an ideology of acceptance. There are differences - as an example poly tries hard to focus on loving more than one person at a time where experiments like Kerista really wanted less 'love' or a deassociation of sex/love - in the grander scheme Kerista approached some really strong and interesting family dynamics which of course had loving relationships as part of their whole - but the sex (act) itself was like, everyone sharing their money or food or sex.

Groping at a convention is not sex positive - it is sexual access positive. It offers the sexually unsuccessful person more intimate opportunities to (without love or intimacy) fondle others. It also provides a means to violate others which is often an expression of unresolved personal damage on the parts of those participating - or, it allows individuals to VICTIMIZE from a position of questionable responsibility - it offers these people a disclaimer of failure to think something through. Further, many people have difficulty distinguishing between access=consent and many more people also have trouble with self-advocacy and being ABLE to say "no" when confronted with significant pressure to say "yes". When we look at the current huge problem with the FLDS children we are offered some clarity around how some individuals when attaining a platform of personal power, will impose direction such that their (mainstream culture inappropriate) desires can be circumvented by positioning their sexual needs within a religious or ideological context. Let me be direct - at the core of the FLDS is a prophet or ONE MAN who wants access to many women and many female children in a sexual way. This attracted OTHER MEN with the same desires and women with attraction to the ideology who became ensnarled in the culture once they had children in harms way. This becomes institutionalized constructs which is what Texas is dealing with right now.

By raising the flag of prudism as the REASON for removal of the rights of others to say "NO" - the source of this attacks the person of any not in agreement with their "one true way" of achieving "greater sexual access".

Being clear about what ISN'T sex positive is important.

It is also important to recognize that community leaders in an arena such as SF or CONVENTIONS are indicating no personal expertise in sexuality issues and who may, in fact, struggle with past difficulties in this area. Their ability or lack of ability to speak to sexuality issues has nothing to do with their ability to be community leaders in the arena of SF or CONVENTIONS. Being good at one thing doesn't make you good at anything but that one thing.

first there was the after-smell of gas... this happened around 11pm and then my housemate told me the oven didn't exactly heat up correctly either - this wasn't our first whiff of gas but it was the strongest. Me, I opened the kitchen window and the big slider to make sure the gas didn't linger. Then, at 3:28am I hear "chirp" --------"chirp"-------

So, I call my son and wake his butt up and he whines and says he is going back to sleep - after all, he can't hear it...That meant I had to get dressed and go looking myself ::whine:: which I did and met housemate in the hall - he pulled off the smoke detector (It is the usual suspect) and I took it outside and put it inside my son's truck - can we say PETTY here? I returned inside to "chirp"--------"chirp" - bah humbug - so we unplugged the carbon monoxide detector and voila yes, it was that one - it also got stashed in son's truck and then I fretted the rest of the night over whether the detector had really been trying to warn us - can we say disturbed sleep.

It was a low battery...

So I had to waken early because I jotted too many notes on my day planner and couldn't tell exactly when my interview was set to start - I called the office and they told me and then I cat napped until son sauntered in and then I grumbled at him about sleeping through my chirps - which he grinned at and proceeded to get a shower. Then, I spoiled his happy by telling him not to use the stove. He wanted to know if I wanted him to investigate the problem and I said no - the thing was builder grade 11 years ago and frankly it doesn't clean up well and frankly the oven part had a layer of ash (shhhhhh) - so I told him we were off to look at a stove after my interview.

 
I'm such a SUCKER!!! I could have just replaced the standard with standard but NO, oh, isn't that all nifty and shiny...
Oh, five burners and one extra hot...shiny - did I say shiny?
My wallet is now severely flattened but - shiny...!!!
That is our ancient southern fry pot deflowering the innocent new stove
kyranas_blog (you, shouldn't have peeked at the stove - it was a SEKRIT from you!!!)

In other news - the Rotary Club was very nice - my 10 minute interview morphed into 20 minutes and I think I said all kinds of the right things - I felt upbeat about my chances when it was done. Keep yer toes crossed for me.

I haven't posted in a couple days due mostly to being very busy. I took my Bio lab test on Tuesday and I felt like I did well on it - I am running the border between A/B in that class (Biology) so I am hopeful it ran higher. Then, I went to screenwriting class that night and it got strange. We critiqued several works and then the teacher handed back screenplays already critiqued in the weeks before and mine was among them. On the last page he scratches B+ and I was unhappy with that. I know he doesn't really like me or like that I'm in his class. Still, I know the level of my work in the class relative to the other students and I know I didn't deserve a B. However, taking that in stride I pre-planned for this event by doing my screenplay early so that I would have the opportunity to revise if I needed to boost my grade - so I thought "Fine! I will rewrite the piece and even though I don't need the extra work at the moment it is what it is."

So, after class ends the teacher is in a conversation with another student that takes about 15 minutes and I and another student are waiting for them to finish. When he finally does finish I said, "Briefly, what did you want to see in the rewrite? Do you want me to rewrite these pages or go on to more of the story?" Now, he knows, because I turned in a film treatment and synopsis (the only student who did) that I have the complete story and can do more. So he says, "uhhh, errr, going on may not be the best choice...oh, and....well, you probably do know what a rewrite is...but it's hard for a prose writer to convert to screenwriting...did you ever see a Woody Allen screenplay - he doesn't let anyone see them but I've seen one and he rewrites everything...but you probably do know a rewrite is...like with Chinatown and how everything works with everything else like echoes..."

At about this time in the rambling I'm getting the very real sense that this man doesn't want to see more of my screenplay. In fact, he is waffling in his chair and finally he says, "ooh, you shouldn't worry about the grade I gave you on this, it wasn't the grade you will get for the class (this is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what he told us all semester) I just wanted YOU to know where your skill set was compared to a screenwriting professional, at this point - of course, I'm giving you an A in the class because you always show up and participate...

I felt like I made him jump through a hoop - like he damn well intended to give me a B but couldn't look me in the face with it.

Pesk! I will be happy to see the backside of this class.

Today, after Geology class, I had twelve inches of my hair wacked off - which makes it about 3 inches shorter than I asked for but the girl got scissor happy. I now have bowling ball head short hair BUT the most excellent part is that they loved that my hair has never been dyed and could be sent to locks of love - they even liked the strawberry color. That felt rather nifty.

Tomorrow is one of the scholarship interviews. Next week I have another one - a bigger one. And about next week or early the following week I should know what campus I will be on next semester. Then I have to race to figure out classes. Pfft.

I'm a little stressed. May caulk the closet tonight - we got the corner trims in and it looks decent now. We still have doorway trim, shelves and finishes left but getting there :)

http://the-red-shoes.livejournal.com/1263869.html
http://coffeeandink.livejournal.com/808967.html
http://despotliz.livejournal.com/355028.html

[For those of you who didn't know what I was ranting about the above links will go some distance to hook you up.]


I don't want you to ask me to touch my breasts in public while I am attending a science fiction convention.

If you want to touch a woman's breasts then join up with your local cuddle group or persons exploring touch issues group and participate in the activity in private.

I don't want to kick a man in the balls if he isn't wearing the appropriate button either.

Quite frankly - such actions should be reserved for appropriate venue between consenting adults.

If you know anything about consent (I DO) then you know that it is often temporary around sexuality issues AND it MUST include persons who not only participate but WITNESS the activities. Do you have the consent ON PAPER? Even then, are you prepared for when it is retrospectively rescinded?

There are sexuality conventions - GET A ROOM!!!!

If I know I will have to deal with inappropriate sexual contact issues when attending a science fiction convention - my likelihood of attending is reduced.

[edit: Sorry, I should have included the links - got sizzled instead!]

[gakked from: Jozelle gl0ry_gl0ry ]offers:

If you have a ms. that you would like to submit to me (and it would be best if it were romantic suspense or urban fantasy), you can send the following: 

• cover letter
• synopsis (no more than 5 pages, please)
• full manuscript

To: 
Jozelle Dyer
Tor Books
175 5th Avenue 
New York, NY 10010

For the moment, I am also accepting email submissions: jozelle.dyer@tor.com

If you are submitting via email, please do include a letter, synopsis, and full ms. as well.  

However you send in your ms., it would be nice to know how you heard about me, where we met and so on.  This is important, so don't forget to do it.  If you have spoken to me about a ms., please mark it REQUESTED MATERIAL. 

Don't forget your SASE!  

I think that is everything.  Any questions?

Last night, after writer's circle, camillemulan and I headed into San Francisco to the SF in SF event.  Featured speakers were Patricia McKillip and David Lunde It was, of course, hosted/organized by Terry Bisson, Rina Weisman, Jacob Weisman, Tachyon Publications and Borderland Books.  I put Rina first here because she is the connective to the venue/charity :) camillemulan delivered another case of wine donated by Coppola Wineries (which is always happily received) and then we went inside to listen to the readings. We were a little late because we circled Market Street a few times before finding the right combo to dump us in front of the door to the building because we had no intention of huffing a case of wine up several San Francisco streets from the parking garage. Patricia was already reading so we missed the very first bit she read :(

The venue was pretty full and Patricia (I think) was the big draw - a lot of her fans were in the audience and it was really neat to see children there as well with good questions and comments for her too.

David Lunde is a science fiction poet and he read a number of poems from several of his chapbooks and some of them were quite humorous. There was quite a bit of discussion about the nature of poetry in terms of the science fiction community and the mainstream poetry community.

Afterwards there was book signings and Patricia was immediately swamped - several people had to do the rotating line thing because they had armloads of hardcover books. It was GREAT!

I purchased:
  Based solely on the recommendation from the Borderlands Books person. Patricia autographed it for me :)))

  Patricia and David signing books

  Camille trying to hide from my evil camera :)

We met some other cool people in line and got into a fun conversation about novice writer's character name mistakes - like ending a name with an s or unfortunate words that emerge when your character name has an s added (like Mar or Vega) and the hapless accidents of apostrophe interrupted fake fantasy names - it was all pretty funny. Patricia copped to wearing out her 3,500 baby name book. Now THAT is a lot of character names...

Yes, I promised you some photos about my bar conversion to closet. Here are the photos - I didn't have time to photo the bar before my son, in destructo mode, had it entirely ripped out. It WAS a rather cheap bartop and then behind it a small cabinet with bar sink, mirrors above, two glass shelves and really cheap lighting. All of this was demoed in favor of building a walk-in-closet for one of my housemates (he currently has NO closet in his room) and preparation for an extension to his bathroom (converting a 1/2 bath to a 3/4 in-suite bath for him. :)

One picture out here - the rest behind the cut :)

This shows the open floor space after my son built the dummy wall (on the right) and cut the studs back for the new door and did the wiring. He is quite the handy son. I shot this between the studs...


The next set of reno I will post will be exterior of the new walls and maybe some interior of the closet in process - I should have the slick-board up in the closet tonight when my son comes home. My housemate is very anxious. We are slow renovators and all that new closet is sitting there empty on his side :)

His new bath will include a 3x5 shower and that will convert his bedroom into a small in-suite. I am also putting in new hardwood floors in his room. The entire reno project will probably take several more months - I am slow. But the living room side is basically done except for my new paint which I might put primer on today if I get my homework completed early enough.

I'm meeting up with geek_chorus and camillemulan for writer's circle shortly. Then camillemulan and I are off to SF in SF to attend a reading and schmooze - we will probably eat at Max' again on the way up (yum) I have two little zombie pieces being read and one of them totally makes no sense ::hee hee:: the other actually works in an annoying teenagery kind of way. I seem to have a fascination for salt which I blame completely and utterly on taking geology and having rocky dreams of late...that and sulphur - BRIMSTONE - something waits there to be written for sure...

Talebones Issue # 36 arrived this week!



My general observation was to notice that of the seven short stories, only one was written by a female. There were an additional two women contributing poems out of the four poems. However, this general picture reflects the orientation of this issue toward a primarily male contributor/audience perspective.

The lead story is The Cankerman Shower by Paul Melko paulmelko. This story struggles for lift off as it attempts to rely on the disreputable cad character Lothario melded to a misogynistic 50s mentality with its ubiquitous sexual humor to drive the scenes. While reading it I had the constant feeling I, as reader, was being played with - this emerged in everything from the protagonists 'canker' name to the slightly distorted Arckifilli family of sexual promiscuity. I wanted to enjoy a story about marbles as weapons but I struggled too hard to get past all the muck which simply wasn't all that funny. Cankers aren't that funny and in the end I was wishing the story had more meat to give and less rot.

Three Things by Lisa M. Bradley cafenowhere This brief and nifty poem does a good job of story crafting using minimal words. Excellent!

Rock House by James Van Pelt. jimvanpelt I thoroughly enjoyed the premise of this story. I liked the Poe echoes coupled to a sort of creepy acceleration of lithification. Nifty. That said, the story relies too heavily on mood and not enough on substance and somewhere in the middle the story just stops making much sense. I was left with the impression that the idea being explored took presidence over plot and yet the idea wasn't really explored too much either. I remain uncertain what, if anything, the main character had to gain or lose. [Edited with more info from Jim Van Pelt :) http://jimvanpelt.livejournal.com
http://www.sff.net/people/james.van.pelt Thank you JIM!]

God as a Swarm of Bees by Carma Lynn Park. I often have difficulty with poetry and this was no exception - I didn't really *get* it.

The Night Creatures by Greg Schwartz. This reminded me of zombies and I found it a bit fun. I'm not certain it is *good* though, because, you know, it has rhymes and stuff. But, still fun!

The Thickness of a Warp by Dean Wesley Smith. Lumpy. This story was lumpy for me. It has a lot of exposition and seems to be playing with 'how can I tell you this nifty thing' and have it be a story ~ story. I'm sure the idea is good and the resolution is doable but I'm not convinced the story works because I never care about the entire question. Why should I care? This is the kind of story I very sexistly call an objective, gadgety, jargony, guy story. It wasn't written for me. I'm not the audience. I don't really like lumpy expository massage my big brain stories.

Rare Flowers by Mikal Trimm mtrimm1 This is a nicely creepy poem that reminded me of Norman Mailer and his recommendation for ways to stay sane. Good show!

In Castle Montresor by Jason D. Wittman. Great - a second Poe homage. Wait, wait... Oh. I really struggled with this story. Ten pounds of cheese are ladled onto the plate when I really only wanted or needed a nibble. The usage of Poe comes off as awkward and unfortunate, the plot is mired in political intrigue that requires all that initial cheese and ultimately I ended up with indigestion. If I hadn't set my mind to reviewing this issue I wouldn't have completed reading the story. This was Poe clumsily attached to some kind of SF/fantasy meld. Nothing, just nothing about this worked for me.

A Secret Life of Gluttony by Joy Marchand. This story starts out weird and then goes sideways and sideways and a bit more sideways until it loses context. I liked it but it was too long for the premise to hold. I liked it but it makes not one little bit of sense. I particularly like the confetti ending. And yes, if I ever meet the author I will hide my strawberries from her and keep a suspicious eye on her at all times...

The Rings of Jupiter by David Walton. If a story could possibly be without surprises then this is such a story. Nothing ever quite matures in this story. There is the peculiar pregnancy and the mysterious mishap and the neurotic astronaut and yet none of these pieces is sufficiently rendered to make me care at all what is supposed to be happening. I wanted one of the plot lines to mature and for the characters to achieve full formation as people rather than characters whose names I couldn't retain. The thing is, this story was done back in the 1960s and I'm old enough to remember reading it done, then, and done more better too...

Towfish Blues by John A. Pitts. I really enjoyed the substance of this story even during the parts when I didn't understand what was going on. I like that it is about an adventure that goes wrong and that the focus is more on the characters than on the plot problem. This gave me a continuing interest in the welfare of the characters and added to my enjoyment. That said, it is not clear what is happening all the way through. I could be too dense to *get* it but I felt some of the story was muddled and some of the story was missing, including more about the relationship between Marta and Mitch. I felt teased and I went looking between pages to see if somehow I missed a few pages. Nope. Darn.

Artwork:
  Front Cover by Adam Hunter Peck - It is okay - it didn't seem to relate to any of the stories in the magazine.
  Page 5 by Tom Simonton - Had the feeling it was swiped from a 1950s pulp
  Page 21 by Ben Baldwin - This piece has a strong visual relationship with the story.
  Page 39 by Dora Wayland - This is moody and suggestive but didn't have a strong tie with the poem.
  Page 41 by Eric M. Turnmire - This felt fitting to the story except for the way the man is dressed which simply didn't work.
  Page 51 by Dora Wayland - This moody piece matched the poem with perfection and I liked it a lot.
  Page 73 by Laura Givens - I felt that this was a cobbled collage that didn't really fit the story.
  Page 83 by Bob Hobbs - This image does tie in with the story but I felt the ring in the front looked too much like a transparency
  Page 99 by Keith Boulger - I quite liked this stylized piece and wondered if it was done in color.


Overall Review: This compilation of stories wasn't really targeted at me as an audience. It's a bit sterile or cold and the stories in general lack strong characterization and include a lot of jargon, exposition and distancing type of writing styles. Ultimately when I read stories I want to feel an emotion around the events of the stories. To do that I need to be drawn more inside and the relationships need more fleshing out - I need and want to care about the situation and ultimately I want to be part of the transformation. If no transformation takes place or if it centers on a nifty idea or object, then there ends up being no room for me as a reader. If a magazine wishes to orient toward a predominately male readership then it will ultimately select works that are of interest to that market population.

One additional note: There is no cross-pollination between the authors and the magazine. I wanted to see urls to each author's website as part of the bio. And for some of the authors and others in the magazine - where are you? (in terms of website/blog?) I shouldn't have to look that hard!
 

just so everyone knows I'm still as casual as ever - I ALSO bought 4 new t-shirts online about a week ago...

:)

However, I did buy in color - which is different...

My all black phase lasted about 15 years after my husband's death

Now - I am mixed black and some color - this is really a departure for me...

Milestone - I went into a clothing store and bought something.

bah

I actually bought 2 jackets, 3 shirts and a pair of way too baggy pants. However, in my defense they will do fine as interview clothing. They didn't have a single skirt in the store??? Dresses but nothing suitable. I'm simply pleased to have the chore done. Now to make sure I have shoes to work with and voila - ready for interviews...

I still have to wak my hair and there is just nothing to do about the broken tooth on such short notice. :sigh:

My list shrinks!!!