MONDAY - Ramble
Kittens
Yesterday, I phoned the RSPCA at Mornington Peninsula and discovered they had kittens up for adoption. So I drove down to Frankston with brandtotter and we picked up my mother and drove her to the lost cats home there. My mum has been talking about needing a kitten for a while now, and although she originally wanted a purebred, when I explained the prices, she was horrified. She still remembers the cost of kittens twenty or so years ago, when purebred Birmans were about $100 - $200 each, and she was expecting to be able to haggle starting from there. Not the $600 or so of the cat breeds she wanted!
Anyway, she decided to get an RSPCA kitten instead (I kind of gave her the sell on the benefits of them already having shots, being desexed, socialised etc). She told Brandt and I about how she wanted a female, aristocratic looking one of a certain size and so on, but we weren't worried. People who go to a place with a mind to get a pet don't usually succeed in escaping without one regardless of original intent about colour or shape.
The place had tonnes of beautiful cats and kittens, some of the adults were magnificent. The handler desperately tried to get my mother to take an adult cat and was disappointed when she said she only wanted a kitten, which I can understand, but the whole repeating of the benefits of an adult over and over made her sound as if she thought mum was a complete moron. Which I could tell was begining to annoy my mother severely.
Eventually, after going up and down the cages, mum ended up picking out a kitten that looked nothing like her original desires, naturally! He was a tiny ta
bby boy with a very sweet, affectionate nature, and since he was demanding to be taken home very vocally, well, he got what he wanted. He's not going to be a big cat, I think - he's young (11 weeks), and his paws and ears are quite small and neat, not the platter-sized monsters Byakko's were. He's extremely bright eyed, brave, and trusting of people, and quite perky. Mum has called him Samson, as she felt Sam was an appropriate name for a cat. Brandt and I played with him for an hour or so before we had to go, but he's going to be a bit of a handful in some ways, just through being a kitten. Mum was very charmed by the fact that he held her finger in his paws all the way home and watched her, so he clearly knew what he wanted.
If anyone's vaguely interested in getting a cat or kitten right now, they have an astonishingly beautiful semi-longhair grey kitten there. He's a big boy (he was only a kitten, but not that far off the size of a cat, he'll be huge), but gorgeous - purrs, cuddles, doesn't scratch, beautiful coat. It would be a bit of a shame to seperate him from his equally lovely white sister though.
The only 'gah' moment in this was that as I was playing with one of the groups of kittens in a cage, a cat next door reached through the bars and snagged my arm with his claws, pulling the skin up dramatically, and got caught. I turned around, and tried to unhook his paw, as I was afraid that if I jumped or reacted I might break bones due to the bars - there's nothing like suddenly being in pain to make the monkey inside your head yell 'You're bigger! Yank away and up and the bastard will let go!'.
He immediately grabbed me with his other paw, and every time I unhooked him, he spiked me again. By the time I got away, I was bleeding everywhere, and quite badly scratched along one arm. He was not trying to attack, really - he was crying, and desperate. Rather more like Byakko would be if locked away - think an incrediably high-demand cat getting little attention. So he kept trying to grab and hold onto humans - and purr at the same time. When I walked past later to scritch his head, he relaxed immediately, so he certainly wasn't aggressive. Just freaking the hell out. His sign said something like 'Needs to live where he will get a lot of affection without other cats'.
I seem to have developed a mild cat allergy, as my arm went completely swollen and hurt like hell for hours. Oh well. The deepest wound in my thumb feels nasty today - I'm a bit worried it could be infected. The other scratches, even the ones that bled quite a lot, aren't even visible now save as tiny scabs. What the hell is this, mutant healing factor?
Anyway, heh, must visit mum more often so I can play with Samson.
Comatose
I was too tired to work on Engines this morning, and actually fell completely asleep on the train. By which I mean, while listening to Depeche Mode, I dropped through dream state, into a deeper sleep. Cooler days do this to me because sleeping is more comfortable in that environment. I could quite happily have slept at least another couple of hours in bed. If I don't put some new music on brandtotter's iPod, I may not survive the week though. Any recommendations for New Stuff people are enjoying? My tastes are distinctly goth and industrial, new romantic and all the rest - put it this way, right now I am cheerily enjoying My Chemical Romance and Evanescence. Yes. I suck that much.
Momentary Sadness
I never find out the Walhalla goth thing is on until after it's over. For some reason, I feel...weirdly unwelcome or something. Like I'm not cool enough to be talked to about it, or maybe just the friends of mine that go don't think I'd want to, or wouldn't fit in. Which is all crazy, crazy - like goths are cool anyway. We're like the nerds of punk.
Hack
Currently feeling terrified about begining a new art project. Art is hard. I'm not used to doing comic illustrations of other people's stories, only my own. How much will I suck? Will no one see my work? Will no one stroke my ego, ahhh! Reminds me of a discussion I had with plasticmoth about the horrors of being an artist around other artists who are better than you because they're more dedicated and how that reflects on how much you personally suck because you aren't as good as them.
I mostly want to work on Engines of the Fall instead of working at BOM right now, but the more I reread, the more worried I feel about the book itself. Too infantile, the pacing is all wrong, and more worriedly I'm not sure who on earth is going to publish a Boys Own Adventure styled Steampunk book that happens to include cross dressing, a painfully in the closet character who is the hero and not a Whacky Sidekick, and magic styled off Supervillain style rituals to lock into people's beliefs about Bad Guys. Rereading the other two books I've been working on, it seems that unusual gender identities tend to be a theme in what I do, whether it's the Sibyl being calmly asexual in Saint Intercession, or the institutionalised ritual bisexuality going on in the weird tropical culture in Harbringer.
They say write about what you know. I suppose after so many years of being in a community which deliberately attempts to break down gender identity and analyse approaches, it's sort of natural for me to go 'In seven hundred years time in a Neo Victorian society, would anyone even have words for concepts like 'homosexual' any more, or would it just be so unremarkable as to be seen as useful as defining people by the icecream they eat?'
Hmm. I wonder what's going to happen when my parents read it.
Apparently also, 'what I know' is an obsession with Melbourne. Lacunae is set in Melbourne, Engines is set in Melbourne, Saint Intercession is set in Melbourne. At least Harbringer is set in El Fantasy World (although a sort of Persian/Indian version).
I guess I'm also slightly unnerved that the reception will be 'Hahaha - Steampunk in Australia?!' but...well, Australian fantasy fiction, with the exception of some folks like Patricia Wrightson, tends to be set in El Celtic Fantasy World. And I'm tired of that.
I have a ramble about being on benefits (which I haven't been eligible for due to marriage) and so on for another time.
Yesterday, I phoned the RSPCA at Mornington Peninsula and discovered they had kittens up for adoption. So I drove down to Frankston with brandtotter and we picked up my mother and drove her to the lost cats home there. My mum has been talking about needing a kitten for a while now, and although she originally wanted a purebred, when I explained the prices, she was horrified. She still remembers the cost of kittens twenty or so years ago, when purebred Birmans were about $100 - $200 each, and she was expecting to be able to haggle starting from there. Not the $600 or so of the cat breeds she wanted!
Anyway, she decided to get an RSPCA kitten instead (I kind of gave her the sell on the benefits of them already having shots, being desexed, socialised etc). She told Brandt and I about how she wanted a female, aristocratic looking one of a certain size and so on, but we weren't worried. People who go to a place with a mind to get a pet don't usually succeed in escaping without one regardless of original intent about colour or shape.
The place had tonnes of beautiful cats and kittens, some of the adults were magnificent. The handler desperately tried to get my mother to take an adult cat and was disappointed when she said she only wanted a kitten, which I can understand, but the whole repeating of the benefits of an adult over and over made her sound as if she thought mum was a complete moron. Which I could tell was begining to annoy my mother severely.
Eventually, after going up and down the cages, mum ended up picking out a kitten that looked nothing like her original desires, naturally! He was a tiny ta
bby boy with a very sweet, affectionate nature, and since he was demanding to be taken home very vocally, well, he got what he wanted. He's not going to be a big cat, I think - he's young (11 weeks), and his paws and ears are quite small and neat, not the platter-sized monsters Byakko's were. He's extremely bright eyed, brave, and trusting of people, and quite perky. Mum has called him Samson, as she felt Sam was an appropriate name for a cat. Brandt and I played with him for an hour or so before we had to go, but he's going to be a bit of a handful in some ways, just through being a kitten. Mum was very charmed by the fact that he held her finger in his paws all the way home and watched her, so he clearly knew what he wanted.
If anyone's vaguely interested in getting a cat or kitten right now, they have an astonishingly beautiful semi-longhair grey kitten there. He's a big boy (he was only a kitten, but not that far off the size of a cat, he'll be huge), but gorgeous - purrs, cuddles, doesn't scratch, beautiful coat. It would be a bit of a shame to seperate him from his equally lovely white sister though.
The only 'gah' moment in this was that as I was playing with one of the groups of kittens in a cage, a cat next door reached through the bars and snagged my arm with his claws, pulling the skin up dramatically, and got caught. I turned around, and tried to unhook his paw, as I was afraid that if I jumped or reacted I might break bones due to the bars - there's nothing like suddenly being in pain to make the monkey inside your head yell 'You're bigger! Yank away and up and the bastard will let go!'.
He immediately grabbed me with his other paw, and every time I unhooked him, he spiked me again. By the time I got away, I was bleeding everywhere, and quite badly scratched along one arm. He was not trying to attack, really - he was crying, and desperate. Rather more like Byakko would be if locked away - think an incrediably high-demand cat getting little attention. So he kept trying to grab and hold onto humans - and purr at the same time. When I walked past later to scritch his head, he relaxed immediately, so he certainly wasn't aggressive. Just freaking the hell out. His sign said something like 'Needs to live where he will get a lot of affection without other cats'.
I seem to have developed a mild cat allergy, as my arm went completely swollen and hurt like hell for hours. Oh well. The deepest wound in my thumb feels nasty today - I'm a bit worried it could be infected. The other scratches, even the ones that bled quite a lot, aren't even visible now save as tiny scabs. What the hell is this, mutant healing factor?
Anyway, heh, must visit mum more often so I can play with Samson.
Comatose
I was too tired to work on Engines this morning, and actually fell completely asleep on the train. By which I mean, while listening to Depeche Mode, I dropped through dream state, into a deeper sleep. Cooler days do this to me because sleeping is more comfortable in that environment. I could quite happily have slept at least another couple of hours in bed. If I don't put some new music on brandtotter's iPod, I may not survive the week though. Any recommendations for New Stuff people are enjoying? My tastes are distinctly goth and industrial, new romantic and all the rest - put it this way, right now I am cheerily enjoying My Chemical Romance and Evanescence. Yes. I suck that much.
Momentary Sadness
I never find out the Walhalla goth thing is on until after it's over. For some reason, I feel...weirdly unwelcome or something. Like I'm not cool enough to be talked to about it, or maybe just the friends of mine that go don't think I'd want to, or wouldn't fit in. Which is all crazy, crazy - like goths are cool anyway. We're like the nerds of punk.
Hack
Currently feeling terrified about begining a new art project. Art is hard. I'm not used to doing comic illustrations of other people's stories, only my own. How much will I suck? Will no one see my work? Will no one stroke my ego, ahhh! Reminds me of a discussion I had with plasticmoth about the horrors of being an artist around other artists who are better than you because they're more dedicated and how that reflects on how much you personally suck because you aren't as good as them.
I mostly want to work on Engines of the Fall instead of working at BOM right now, but the more I reread, the more worried I feel about the book itself. Too infantile, the pacing is all wrong, and more worriedly I'm not sure who on earth is going to publish a Boys Own Adventure styled Steampunk book that happens to include cross dressing, a painfully in the closet character who is the hero and not a Whacky Sidekick, and magic styled off Supervillain style rituals to lock into people's beliefs about Bad Guys. Rereading the other two books I've been working on, it seems that unusual gender identities tend to be a theme in what I do, whether it's the Sibyl being calmly asexual in Saint Intercession, or the institutionalised ritual bisexuality going on in the weird tropical culture in Harbringer.
They say write about what you know. I suppose after so many years of being in a community which deliberately attempts to break down gender identity and analyse approaches, it's sort of natural for me to go 'In seven hundred years time in a Neo Victorian society, would anyone even have words for concepts like 'homosexual' any more, or would it just be so unremarkable as to be seen as useful as defining people by the icecream they eat?'
Hmm. I wonder what's going to happen when my parents read it.
Apparently also, 'what I know' is an obsession with Melbourne. Lacunae is set in Melbourne, Engines is set in Melbourne, Saint Intercession is set in Melbourne. At least Harbringer is set in El Fantasy World (although a sort of Persian/Indian version).
I guess I'm also slightly unnerved that the reception will be 'Hahaha - Steampunk in Australia?!' but...well, Australian fantasy fiction, with the exception of some folks like Patricia Wrightson, tends to be set in El Celtic Fantasy World. And I'm tired of that.
I have a ramble about being on benefits (which I haven't been eligible for due to marriage) and so on for another time.