Vylar Kaftan

After watching this clip of Salvador Dali on “What’s My Line?”, a thought occurs to me.

A surrealist is one who sees YES in every situation.

The nurses won’t do more allergy shots until I talk to the allergist. Apparently mono-like symptoms after every shot aren’t supposed to happen.  Especially on these weak early shots.  They might try to find an alternate treatment.

This is from wordweaverlynn. I’m a sucker for the “getting to know people” memes. As she says:

1. Leave me a casual comment of no particular significance, like a lyric to your current favorite song, your favorite kind of sandwich, or maybe your favorite game. Any remark, meaningless or not.

2. I will respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.

3. Update your LJ with the answers to the questions.

*****

She has asked me the following:

1. How did you acquire your interest in barbering large Asian ungulates? (I think yaks are ungulates.) Seriously, what is “shaving yaks”?

Yak shaving is quite well-described here, but in my own words, it’s the process of opening a matryoshka doll of tasks, none of which can be completed until the core is found and resolved. Yak shaving is common during the revision process, where in order to fix a story’s ending, you have to fix the beginning, then the middle, then the mid-beginning, then the title, then the beginning again before you understand how to fix the end correctly.

2. What does your dream house look like, and where is it located?

My dream house is sunny and light. It has open space, is sparsely furnished, and has plenty of room to dance in. It has a large and well-arranged kitchen. It maintains a well-regulated temperature and has a dark cold basement for my husband to escape to when he needs Introvert Time (something I rarely require). It is currently located in my fantasies, and I’m hoping it materializes into the Elemental Plane of the San Francisco Bay Area for a reasonable price in about 5 years when we’re ready to buy. I also want a hypo-allergenic cat, good health insurance, and a bejeweled pony.

3. Do you believe in love at first sight? how about hate or antipathy/

I believe that the human mind can detect subtle behavioral signals on a subconscious level. This means that often we can’t explain how we know something, but there’s an underlying cause which we don’t recognize. In other words, we can pick up a surprising amount of information about someone else in a short encounter.

Love and hate are broad umbrella terms, and I think it’s accurate to say that I believe in some kinds of love and hate at first sight, but the most pervasive and lingering kinds take time to build.

4. What qualities do you look for in a good game master?

I’m going to answer this question plus a variation on it. I’ve always been a better game master than player. I’d like to think I’m a good GM, based on responses from dozens (hundreds?) of players I’ve had in my games. Much like relationships, there’s multiple good ways to GM, as long as both GM and players are on the same page and want similar things. Things I look for in a GM: creativity, storytelling skills, and willingness to make sacrifices for the Good of the Story. Things I strive for as a GM: spontaneity, originality, and giving the players what they want FROM the game but making them struggle for what they want IN the game. I’m a good GM for people who like wild creativity and a poor GM for people who want tactics and numbercrunching.

As an interesting side note, I wouldn’t necessarily be a perfect GM for myself. What I want from a GM is not necessarily what I provide.

5. Can you translate Mahna mahna! (do-doo, de-do-doo)?

Yes. It’s the dull roar of the masses crushing the spirited individual. It translates, simply put, to: “Our society cannot comprehend your ideals. Please, cease troubling us with them. If you persist in forcing them upon us, you will have to leave our society and call a frog from a phone booth.” See for yourself.

The Israeli science fiction magazine Mercury will be publishing “Lydia’s Body” in Hebrew sometime later this year. This is my second translation, and I’m excited. I’ve heard good things about Mercury from other writers who have appeared in it.

I had mono once.  I was 18 and a college freshman.  I came home for Christmas feeling sick and exhausted, which I figured was from finals week.  The next morning, I was taking a shower, thinking about how sleepy I was, when suddenly… I was lying on the shower floor, with water splashing down on my face.  Apparently I’d collapsed.  The mono had worn me out so much that I didn’t panic or even stand up.  I just lay there, feeling warm water raining down, thinking about how interesting it was that my body knew how to fall so it wouldn’t get hurt, and also how glad I was that the shower had a hard sliding door rather than a curtain.  And why weren’t there horizontal anti-gravity showers?

I had one of the worst cases of mono the doctors had seen. I was mostly asleep for seven weeks.  On Christmas Day, I remember being handed presents, which I would open and then set down–only to have another present appear in front of me. I was falling asleep in the 5 minutes between presents.  I only woke when I had to do something, which means that Christmas was subjectively nothing but presents for me: never-ending Things and Stuff, but no memory of what I got or where it went.

Other memories of that Christmas include a no-edges jigsaw puzzle (goldfish… how I started to dread them) which I know I worked on but could never sit up long enough to make progress on.  I think I assembled maybe fifty pieces after hours of work.  And my cat–a wise creature, who would appear briefly, purr for a while, then vanish like an opened Christmas present.

My dad brought me lots of cranberry juice and 7-up so I didn’t have to get out of bed.  I went back to college in the spring semester, which might have been foolish, because I kept relapsing all semester.  At least I took a super-light courseload.

Anyway, I was reminded of all this because I’ve started allergy immunotherapy (shots).  They’re not supposed to have much effect, except maybe itching at the injection site.

But often they make me feel like I have mono again.  Yesterday I played computer solitaire and then lay down in bed, feeling like someone had stapled me to the mattress.  Even today, I’m yawning like crazy and can barely keep my eyes open, despite getting plenty of sleep last night.

This sucks, Beavis.

I did some research online, and “tiredness/flu-like symptoms” are an “uncommon” side effect.  Sigh.  I’ll talk to my allergist again… if I can just get through this first part, where the shots increase in strength, I can handle being exhausted once a month. But being exhausted twice a week is really a lot.

Guess I’d better go lie down for a while.

Just finished reading my contributor’s copy of You Have Time For This, a collection of flash fiction stories. Every story is less than 500 words long, including the reprint of my 365-word story “Buddha’s Happy Family Jewels”.

The anthology is a nice read. Many of the pieces come from Vestal Review, a literary flash magazine. One of the great things about flash is that you can bookmark it at any time and come back when you feel like it. So if you’re a multi-book reader type, you can pick up flash and not worry about remembering where you were. Or you can read flash while waiting in lines and not get interrupted mid-story.

Since they’re so short, it’s hard to review flash pieces without giving too much away. Fortunately, I can link to some of the stories, and you can read them yourself. Some of my favorites in the book:

Bruce Holland Rogers, of course, is one of the flash fiction masters. I’ve admired his work for a long time. “Three Soldiers” is a fine story about the intersection of war and home life.

Katharine Weber’s “Sleeping” is a terrific example of what flash can do. It’s about a girl’s first experience with babysitting.  The last sentence is startling and changes the whole story–yet upon reflection, it’s precisely the right ending.

Patrick Weekes made me laugh out loud with “No Questions Asked”, a story about the unexpected consequences of a stolen wallet.

Lincoln Michel’s “The Mouth” involves a man with a rather strange mouth problem.  Another example where the last sentence makes this story work.

L.E. Leone describes how difficult things can get when your house decides it doesn’t want to be owned, in “The House and the Homeowner”.

Deb Olin Unferth’s “Maybe a Superhero” is a whimsical look at a surreal superhero. It appeared in Fence originally.

You have time for this.

Just signed a contract.  “The Girl Next Door” will be in issue #5 of Sybil’s Garage.  It’s a fine magazine and I’m pleased to be in it.  Should be out very soon–by the end of January, I think.

2007 was possibly one of the best years of my life.

The worst year was probably 2000. I’ve been on a steady uphill climb since that awful time, with each year better than the one preceding it. Each year, I think to myself that the new year can’t possibly be better than the old one, and yet each year it has been.

I’ve been wondering when things would take an inevitable downturn. I’m afraid right now I see storms brewing on the horizon for 2008. They might be nothing, or they might get ugly. Either way, there’s not a thing I could do to stop them. This year is bound to have some challenges for me.

But perhaps some amazing and great things are heading this way, and I just don’t see them yet. Or maybe they’re here now and I won’t recognize them until I gain some perspective. And maybe in the end the good will outweigh the bad, and I’ll have a terrific year anyway–much like what happened back in 2004.

Either way, 2007 will always hold happy memories for me.