Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

Like hell there ain't no cake!  Happy birthday, Martha!

(with thanks to peoples!)
 
 
                  ~                  ~
            *                   *                *       *
                         *               *
         ~       *                *         ~    *
                     *       ~        *              *   ~
                         )         (         )              *
           *    ~     ) (_)   (   (_)   )   (_) (  *
                  *  (_) # ) (_) ) # ( (_) ( # (_)       *
                     _#.-#(_)-#-(_)#(_)-#-(_)#-.#_
         *         .' #  # #  #  # # #  #  # #  # `.   ~     *
                  :   #    #  #  #   #  #  #    #   :
           ~      :.       #     #   #     #       .:      *
               *  | `-.__                     __.-' | *
                  |      `````"""""""""""`````      |         *
            *     |         | || |~)|~) /         |
                  |         |~||~|~ |~  |          |       ~
          ~   *   |                                 | *
                  |      |~)||~)~|~| ||~|  /     |         *
          *    _.-|      |~)||~ | |~|| /|~ |      |-._
             .'   '.      ~            ~           .'   `.  *
         jgs :      `-.__                     __.-'      :
              `.         `````"""""""""""`````         .'
                `-.._                             _..-'
                     `````""""-----------""""`````
 
 
 
  

    
*giggles madly*

I go away for a few days and I find all of this. Oh. Dear. Streak, you
are hysterical. 
  

    
Happy Birthday, Martha.
  

    
Are you gonna jump out of the cake for her, Neil?
  

    
Oh dear.  I suppose by Neil's posting that must mean...he's read the
bits about his sex appeal.  I hope we haven't embarrassed you too much,
Neil.  (Or keep you up at night worring about insane wellers.) :)

And thanks to those who supplied the cakes!  I would have done
something similar, but I was stuck at work serving very drunk patrons.

No cake my ass.  :)

Angelina.
  

    
Tsk, tsk. Such language! ;)
  

    
Arf.  Arf.

Happy birthday, Martha!
  

    
Happy Birthday, Martha. 

Tired.. looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow for the first time
in.. I don't know when.

On the "I can't believe she did that" front... I came home today to
find my bathroom scrubbed top to bottom, including a beautiful floral
arraingment, a new hamper, and various sundries... my birthday present
from my lover.

I think my favorite part was the mirror attachment for toothpaste and
toothbrush.. with two toothbrushes already in it.

Considering the fact that I haven't made a big deal about my birthday
this year, I've gotten an amazing amount of attention from people. I'll
have to not throw parties more often.
  

    
Thank you, Neil and everyone.  It's over now, we can all be normal.
  

    
Normal?  Are we ever normal?  I'll do my best.
  

    
Bite your tongue, Martha - if we were 'normal', we wouldn't be *here*.

Besides, I'm not sure I *can* be normal, or ever have been, or for
that matter, ever *wanted* to be...
  

    
Okay, this is odd. I just found out that Gharlane of Eddore died.

For those of you who have never braved USENET, Gharlane was a flamer,
but one of those articulate, knowledgable, educated, and literate
flamers that USENET thrives on. As long as I have been on-line (nine
years or so), Gharlane was a *right of passage*. He was railed against,
argued with, chatted up, and pen-palled by thousands of SF fans
on-line for as long as anyone can remember, and he died in early July
and I never even knew his real name.

It's possible that I'm shock-y right now not because Gharlane is gone,
but that this news comes mere days after learning that a friend of the
family died very suddenly Monday night from a cerebral hemmorage. 

J.R., our friend, was an only child and father of two small sons, age
2 and 8 I think, and it is just horrific for his family right now. His
mother Sherrill is sort of my sister Deirdre's Fairy Godmother, and one
of my mother's best friends. I never knew him well, not like my folks
and Deirds did, but the news came Tuesday just as I was about to give
my Judy the tour of the new digs, and I held her hand while she called
Sherrill (J.R.'s mom) and for many hours afterwards.

So I'm feeling particularly aware of my own mortality right now, as
well as sensitive to the grief of family and loved ones. It's been a
very very odd week.

On the up side, my best friend Emma spawned last Friday!  First baby,
2 weeks late, 8 lbs 13.5 oz, and she (Elisabeth) has the most beautiful
hands. Both her parents are ASL inprepreters (not their day jobs, as
interpreting pays next to nothing) but I'm jazzed because Elisabeth is
gonna learn to sign before she talks (manual dexterity comes before
speach, apparently). You can see pics at:

http://ljconstantine.com/sprout/

So, good and bad news travel together I guess.
  

    
Tara - Someone from rec.arts.sf.babylon5 wrote me with news of
Gharlane's passing awhile back, and I can't imagine USENET without his
theatrical presence.  What a character! The way he would bait the worst
USENET trolls, his near encyclopedic knowledge of mathematics,
physics, sci-fi books and old TV shows.  And you had to love his newbie
I.Q. test: If someone new responded to him and didn't look too closely
at the return address on their post or email, the message would go to
"alt.null.dev"... nowhere. He will be missed. 

So sorry to hear of your friend's passing, my condolences to you and
your loved ones. 

And I went to the website and saw little Elizabeth asleep in her
mother's arms.  The smile on Emma's face is absolutely priceless. ;)

Here's hoping this week brings even better news.

 
  

    
E-mail from Jouni:

After tomorrow I'll take five weeks to be at home with my wife and son.

I don't have net-access at home, meaning I'm not going to be able to check
this topic out (or any other website for that matter) regularly :-(

Gonna miss you guys...

Keep up the good conversation while I'm gone.

See you in five weeks.

Jouni

P.S. Happy birthday Martha

P.P.S. Neil - Finished AG. Great story... Was just wondering if it bothers
you that you cannot read your own stories 'for the first time'... you know,
without knowing what's going to happen next?
  

    
Roxanne: My first experience with Gharlane was in 1995 I think, on
rec.arts.sf.tv, as we "debated" the merits of "Earth 2". He was
gentleman, if an inflammatory one, and I bet he's laughing at us all
from beyond :)

My folks visit went well--the first visit with my mother since I moved
back to Chicago that hasn't ended in tears, so I'm over the moon
today. She borrowed my copy of AG and read 2/3rds of it while they were
delayed getting out of O'Hare last night by the thunderstorm (the same
storm which knocked out my power last night as well. I'm all up and
fine today tho). I can't wait to hear what she thinks of the whole
novel. I hooked her on pTerry a few years back, but I think this is the
first Neil-all-by-himself book she's ever read, and so far, she's
eating it up.
  

    
How wonderful that little Elizabeth will be learning sign language! 
My mother is an interpreter, and even the little that I have learned
from her is invaluable.

Angelina.
  

    
Angelina: Em and her husband Jody met some 8 or 9 years ago in an ASL
class. Emma actually taught herself a lot of ASL from books when she
was younger, so she coudl "yell" at the TV at home, and her family
wouldn't mock her. She was the site interpreter for the Bristol Renn
Faire for years, and her day job, she teaches German and English Lit at
a magnet school in downtown Chicago. She's actually designed a
college-level Shakespeare course that she's been teaching for the last 
two years that may make her famous in the Chicago city school system
*grin*.

Speaking of Shakespare and Bristol, of anyone in Illinois ro Wisconsin
is planning on going, eb sure to catch Jeff McLane's "Conversation
with Master Shakespeare" show on Lord Mayor's Forum I think at 2:30pm.
He may well have one in the morning as well. His 20 minute Hamlet ROCKS
and is a great way to convince people who avoid Shakespeare because
they think it's too hard to understand that it's nifty, and peachy
keen. McLane and his partner (whose name I am blanking on, tho I wanna
say Alex) will also be filling in finale week-end (August 25 & 26) for
the Dirk & Guido, the Swordsmen (Bold & Stupid Men) as Bristol is
closing late this year, and Doug and Dave have to high tail it to Ohio
Ren Faire and miss out on closing week-end....
  

    
wah ha ha...I shall be seeing Dirk & Guido while you will be missing
them!

Anyone in the Ohio Ren Fest area that would be interested in meeting
there?  That would be extra super cool.

Tara:  What a cute way to talk back at the tv.  (I do it all the time,
when I'm actually watching it.)

I think it is sad how little appreciation sign language interpreters
get.  There is a reason you rarely see a male interpreter...crummy pay
and little to no respect.  One year my mother and one other woman were
the only interpreters for all six graduation ceremonies at the
University of Cincinnati.  Being forced to stand for hours wearing
required high heels, and giving yourself carpal tunnel by
fingerspelling every students name for less than satisfactory pay isn't
my idea of a dream job.  (If the university had it their way, she
would have been the only interpreter, but she finally got it through
their heads that it was illegal.)  :( 

Angelina (who's head is swimmy from hearing some songs that she
shouldn't have heard yet...)   
  

    
Okay, I really hate doing things this way, but I'm having an
impossible time catching up here, so I'm going to skip everything for
now and try and back track later. Otherwise I'll never get back to
posting! 

Any thing I miss?

Oh, almost forgot (the one post I couldn't miss at all, thanks to
Linda):

Happy belated b-day to Martha! :D <and there was much rejoicing>

squeaks, who is still appallingly behind on her posts, but at least
she's making progress on her email stack!
  

    
Hmm, let's see...
I know you missed at least one birth, and Linda speculating about Neil
being my daddy, and a great fake rant on Neil being a sex god, and the
stuff on why we're all barking mad...

Nope, didn't miss much, it's been pretty slow...
  

    
Michelle!  I've missed you!  yay.
  

    
Welcome back Mistress Mousey!

You will eventually need to go back at least to see Streak's monologue
of Neil accepting his place in the pantheon of sex symbols... if for
no other reason than I want you to help get this video of Neil
impersonaters organized.

Ahh... conspiracies...

On the theatre front, we're choosing what stories we're going to try
to do for C.A.F.E.'s October show. The artistic director wants "creepy"
stories, and I met with the selection committee for the first time
last night. The artistic director hadn't scanned and posted all of the
stories I submitted for the committee to read, so I did a summary pitch
for Neil's "We Can Get Them For You Wholesale" and Martha's "Arbitrary
Placement of Walls". Apparently, he's already contacted Martha's
publishers about rights for Walls, although there are some concerns
about length. The group really liked my summaries, but attributed it in
part to my abilities as a storyteller and are now eager to read the
actual stories in order to make some decisions about stageability.

So, keep fingers crossed. If I have my way, we'll have a Neil AND a
Martha story in the show and that would suit me just fine. (Of course,
then I have to decide which one I'll let someone else direct and
that'll be tough)
  

    
Ahem. 
Hold on there, Dan. Don't *even* think of cutting me out of this
perversity; it *was* my idea to do multiple impersonators, posts #571 &
#574 as my witness...
  

    
Oh, y'all, I'll be disappearing as (janell) and re-appearing as
(goldennokomis) as I need to downgrade my account... but it's still me.
  

    
Robynne:  Hey, I'm in no position to dis' Mickey, since he pays the
bills.  (My husband hiegh-ho's everyday.)  I bow in gratitude to the
flaming Mickey bush and the 20-foot Dopey.

Kelly:  Hope you loved Yosemite!  My first time was... well, First
Time-ish, if ya know what I mean.  Overwhelming.  Incredible.  And now
it's Tag-I'm-It, since we're going up tomorrow!

Will: I hear ya on Neil's vocabulary.  I know "asperged" from
religious ritual, but I have absolutely no idea what "lustrated" is. 
It got me at the signing at Booksoup, when Neil treated us to a
synopsis of the book he was currently reading: _Sharks, Or The Third
Degree_, which became hysterical, not so much because of the book, but
because of Neil's synopsis.  At any rate, in the middle of it, he
explains that the author pulled a Shakespeare, by conducting a major
climactic scene "off-stage" and only telling about it later.  Neil
said, "Which was a very insouciant thing for an author to do."

At which point I thought: "Insouciant?  INSOUCIANT?!?  He can't go
around using words like that in casual conversations with 300 people
listening.  I mean, where does he think he is?  England?  My god, he
could start _riots_ in L.A., using that kind of language!  Why, it's
downright unAmerkin!  Uhh... wait.  Um.  Well...."

It's depressing and exhilerating all at the same time.  I'm humbled by
my own lack of mastery of my own language.  But it's like he's doing
this incredibly daring, political thing--a verbal bra-burning sort of
thing--by running around using vocabulary like that.

Three cheers for the rebels of the lexicon.