Maria Alexander News and Updates from TheHandlessPoet.com

That means, "It makes me laugh!"

I'm now about 2/3 through the THRILLED outline, and I keep cracking myself up. Good sign. When it comes to structure, I always go back to my screenwriting. If there's one thing screenwriting is about, it's structure. It was the one thing that taught me how to build a frame for any tale and use that frame to flesh out the conflict and resolution. This thing it turns out is not just a parody of thrillers but of the "Hero's Journey" in general. I re-read SCREAM to make sure I'm on the right track -- but only because I think it's become a yard stick for people. For a parody, I didn't think SCREAM was particularly funny when I saw it.

I'm averaging 1600 words a day on the outline. I have to leave early today to meet The Frenchman in town. I'm hoping I can get enough done. Otherwise, crankiness will ensue.

The Frenchman is going to be gone on business in the States on the 2nd. The French have for a long time celebrated that day as a solar festival for Candlemas where everyone eats special sweet crepes. (The golden crepe in the pan is considered a solar symbol.) A sacred holiday for me just got a lot sweeter, but it won't be quite right without my dear frog. Still, tomorrow is Brighid's Day (Lá Fhéile Bhríd), and tonight is considered St. Brigid's Eve, when she's reported to walk the earth. I will put a piece of ribbon out for her to bless as a charm against sickness. Lord knows I need all the help I can get...

Oh lordie.

Athens has run out of landfill.

HAHAHAHAHAHA...er, I mean -- Oh no! An ecological tragedy!

(Okay, that's the politically correct response. But actually I'm reading this thinking, "Gee, that sounds like something my damned Greek relatives would do alright. How do you just run out of landfill?!? ::makes hairpulling motions from childhood:: Can't they go back to winning the World Cup or something?")

I've got to cut them some slack, though. They let the pagans honor Zeus in the temple on January 21 without stickin' their hoary old Greek Orthodox beards in the ritual. Equal time, that's all their askin'. And that they got it is pretty rockin'.

Great progress today. Time for more words.

Writing today. "Working" on the chapter outline for Thrilled. Too busy to upload pics from yesterday's jaunt to the Marquis de Sade's castle, which is now owned and inhabited by Pierre Cardin. We also visited Roussillon, the old ochre mines in the Luberon Valley where John Malkovich lives. Really stunning.

Have decided to not talk about the fantasy novel, which is growing at a blistering pace like curling ivy all inside my head. I'm going to pound out Thrilled and take it on pronto. I might occasionally spout bluish green smoke out of my ears from time to time as a result. Ignore it, please.

A bientôt...

Last night I dreamed. And dreamed. And dreamed and dreamed and dreamed.

Blocks of That Fantasy Book fell into my head complete with the fountains of Aix, a purplish hedge with deadly brambles, and the lady ghost who "lives" here in the mas...

At one point "this morning" I heard Peter Straub talking with The Frenchman outside, both of them still in their bathrobes. I put on some shoes and a coat and ran out, shouting "Peter! You're here!" He gave me an enormous hug and finished his conversation with The Frenchman about "the parking situation." Apparently Peter was living next door and we didn't know it.

I'm still in it. I don't want to leave because the dream logic of the story turns out to work in the daylight, too. And that's immensely exciting.

The Frenchman is taking me to Lacoste today, the ruins of the Marquis de Sade's castle. I found out this morning over breakfast. I have a feeling Lacoste will play a role in the book, as well.

Last night, we saw Little Children. It was okay. It was not American Beauty, which I think it sort of wanted to be. It did have moments that were nice. The Frenchman was unhappy with the fact that some of the characters who were discussing Madame Bovary had clearly not read the book (they were supposed to have).

More importantly, I ate a crepe. A whole crepe. I've eaten more in the last 24 hours than I've eaten all week combined. And it's wonderful.

Today is the first day I didn't wake up nauseated or with the tummy punishing me for being a sickie earlier this week. Yay!

I also woke up to find that, after sending out an exploratory email last night, I'd gotten a sweet response from an old friend -- a writer whose life was hugely on the upswing when we were pals and who now is Mr. Big Britches on a popular show over in TV land, as well as still writing for Broadway. He's one of the few people I've ever met in the business who hasn't drank away his soul and who has actually made award-winning art out of his recovery from the craziness of his childhood.

We need more of that. More sense, less senselessness.

The Frenchman and I had a silly movie break last night and rented Ultraviolet. After guffawing at it for half an hour, I assured him that my pal Yvonne probably did something much better with the novelization. And, my condolences to the Czech figure skater in the European Championship who tasted some ice after that quadruple spin, letting the cute young French skater with the amazing ass steal the championship. (Hee!)

I was still feeling super nauseated yesterday. I read more of the Geberth homicide manual -- I'm up to crime scene kits and gathering evidence -- and I messed with astrological schtuff. Someone asked me about Edwards, so I went back to his chart. Whatever is going on that day, Edwards has a HUGE day. After a cursory look that revealed none of the hoopla of winning an election, I then ran a second, deeper layer of predictive calculations and found that he'll be going through a major period of expansiveness. His Edwardsness will become Jupiterian in every way possible -- in the eyes of the law, with expansion, optimism, humor, confidence. He might also gain a bit of weight.

So, let's see what happens. Dude has to make the nomination and right now everyone on Fark is calling him a douche bag. Uh, doesn't look too good, Ed. Although the Polling Report pulls him in regularly at a close 3rd to Clinton and Obama, I still don't see him cutting past Obama with these polling numbers. Maybe the excitement of Edwards' life will be from other sources than the election -- but the planets fall in all the right areas...

Okay, I'm gonna shake these bedsheets today. Or try.

I had insomnia last night -- a kick in the crotch, as I'm still recovering. I did eventually fall asleep, but not after something took a strong hold of me.

You see, using astrology, I've predicted every Presidential election since I've learned how to prognosticate. The best example of this is when I predicted the 2000 election. About two or three days before the election, I was at work looking at the charts of Gore and Bush during lunch, and I discovered they had no definitive transits on the day after the election. I also noted that Mercury went retrograde the day of the election. I mentioned this to the interested programmer who I was working with. I asked him, "Is there any reason the election results would be delayed?" He couldn't think of any.

Of course, the day after the election, he came to work, slammed down his backpack on his desk, pointed at me and shouted "SPOOKY!" in front of the whole office.

Heh.

I also predicted this: not only would Bush win (he had the stronger transits), but that Edwards would have a problem on election day, one that was personal and family related. It turns out that his wife had just been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Anyway, it's not failed yet. And it so happens we seem to have all the pertinent birth information for Obama and Hillary both. If -- and I mean really IF -- we have correct birth times for them, then it appears Obama has only one transit the day after the election. It's a positive one, bringing him a great deal more contact with the public, but NOT a "Hey, I just won an election" transit. That makes me suspect that ultimately he's not going to run, or that he's going to play a different role than we currently think.

But Hillary is a whole 'nother thing. Her chart that day is such a fright, all I can say is, it's gonna suck to be her.

There are three major transits. If we went with just one of them -- Pluto entering her 7th house -- we might think she'd just entered the public sphere with power. Then again, it could bring a destruction and rebuilding of partnerships, or a new, extremely powerful partnership. It's a very big, awesome, steamroller kind of transit. However, I'm not convinced that 8:00pm sharp is her birth time. Whenever I hear an exact hour like that, I suspect someone is estimating or rounding off unless there's a birth certificate I can see. Therefore, I would not even say with certainty this transit is happening for her then, as the 7th house cusp placement, like the ascendant, is highly sensitive to the minute. If she's actually born at 8:06 or 7:55, for example, this transit won't be happening at precisely that time.

(As an aside, Neil Gaiman is slipping into this transit as I type. It will be interesting to see what life brings him in the coming weeks. I've worked hard with him over the years to rectify his chart, as he never had an exact birth time. Several things -- especially the release of American Gods -- helped immensely. And remember a little while ago when it seemed every other journal posting was about another friend who'd passed away? Pluto transiting his natal Venus. Heartbreaking to watch, even worse when I saw it coming.)

Onto the really scary stuff: she has two other gawd-awful, terrible transits that day, including one where I've seen people again and again suffer a horrendous bout of guilt over a failed project or some other tragedy where they blame themselves for what happened. She'll actually get her first taste of this transit in the second half of June. I suspect legal issues, as it's the 3rd and 9th houses, but that would hardly be anything new, would it? The twist is that it's also going to challenge the way she thinks and communicates in general. Maybe she'll even withdraw from the press. Crazy, but it could happen.

The third transit, however, is the one that kept me awake. It's a power struggle transit of the first order. In order to handle this emotionally challenging transit, she's going to have to retreat into her family and home. Maybe Hillary isn't someone I should feel sorry for, but I do. She's in for some huge emotional confrontations. (And Bill, for what it's worth, has a bizarre sort of spiritual revolution transit at that time, with a relationship surprise. Not bad necessarily, just whacky to be having the day after your wife's major failure.)

So, what would I tell her if she were my client? I don't know. That's why I don't do this shit professionally anymore.

I do hope, this time, I'm wrong.

Exhausted. Still sick.

But.

I read Amelia G's article on Emo and loved it muchly. I then read The Sorrows of Young Werther, which I'd previously rebelled against, but I needed to roll my eyes and laugh. Anecdote pending.

Reading Werther, I found a great many ideas started shaping up in my head about Thrilled. (This should frighten. Thank Amelia.)

Also, am loving this little series on YouTube called God, Inc.

Yesterday was moving day. We moved the beds downstairs to what was the living room and moved the desks upstairs. The old bedroom is now my very spacious office (yay!) and the guest bedroom is now The Frenchman's office. Why all the fuss? Because our bitchy blond college co-ed neighbor does something unbelievably immature in retaliation every time she thinks we're having sex. We finally hit a wall with her this last week and decided to just swap rooms to eliminate any "sex" noises, as our bedroom was adjacent her own room in the other apartment in the mas. The real benefit is that our bed is next to la toilette now. We no longer have to brave The Aztec Stairway That Demands Sacrifice every time we need to pee at 3:00am.

So. After the great alteration, we went to visit friends who have two cats and I got me some kitten squeazin'. Not nearly enough kitten squeazin', but it'll have to do. We then went on a beautiful walk along the rocky shore trail and saw the dotted amber lights of old Marseille from across the silvery periwinkle waves of the Mediterranean Sea. That was purty. One of our friends is a well-known theater director. I told him my idea for a play I want to write and he loved it. Of course, he wants it in French. Details!

The good news is that I just got the green light from Aeon Magazine to send electronic submissions. I'm waiting for the same from Baen. Although I should have some news today about The Secret Project (aka G3), I have absolutely no transits either way. So, I'm wondering if I'll actually get any news of import. Lest I paint myself in a metaphysical corner, however, I'll keep an open mind.

I finally applied the "flamboyant red" soy dye this morning all over the black, the roots and the fading lavender streaks with very mixed results. My bangs are brassy, almost a strawberry blond, blushing to a deep coppery red where it used to be lavender. The strands that had faded to nearly white either stayed that way or went blond. My roots took the color to heart, which means my natural color turned a bitter sweet cherry color that I like immensely.

Although I'm unhappy with the unevenness of it, The Frenchman is totally mesmerized by every shade of the red. What is it with men and red hair? I had no idea he was under the spell of red locks. Maybe just red locks on me.

Anyway, last night I received the contracts from Thomas Roche for the ErosZine.com article, which he said was "very fun" and he liked a lot. I had a lot of fun with it, so I'm glad he's pleased. Part I should appear Tuesday. And today I finished reading 1/9th of the homicide manual. It's totally absorbing. I keep picturing all those blue uniforms in Mystic River swarming through the park as they search for whoever left so much blood. I was worried that The Bodyjacker turns into a police procedural halfway through the story, and now I see where it should begin as such, quietly at first then crescendoing with details.

I also got a wonderful surprise yesterday evening. The Frenchman and I were invited for galette du roi, also known as Kings Cake for Epiphany, at the house of our landlords next door. I won't get into the marvelous details of their gorgeous Provencale-style home, with their figurines, red tile floors and tapestry drapes. However, as we chatted, Monsieur M began to recount the story of the person killed here in our part of the farm house. Recall that the fourth night I spent here in the mas, I sensed a woman in her 40s standing by the bed. However, The Frenchman had told me that 1) the person killed was a man on the property and 2) the man was shot by someone from one of the windows.

As it turns out, according to Monsieur M, it was a woman who was killed in our bedroom between the window and our bed. She was shot by someone from the outside.

In 1945.

I told Monsieur and Madame M about my ghostly encounter. Madame M was very excited, especially as I explained that Christophe had told me something totally different. I told her about the younger woman, too, whom I thought for some reason was the daughter. They didn't seem to know anything about the family, just that the older woman was shot through our bedroom window.

So, I eagerly await the Amazing Randi to come to France with his petri dish and see if he can't scrape a bit of ghost jizz off of me for whatever experiments he'd like to conduct. I'm psyched! Let's dooooo it!

Last night, I recorded an ident -- that is, a very short insert where a pre-recorded message tells you the email address or the phone number -- with Ros, the host of the World Have Your Say show on the BBC. In this case, we recorded something advertising that they accept callers using Skype. He called me on my Skype ID and I read a mini-script. He seemed very happy with what we did and told me, "You're a lot quicker than our average guest with this." I replied, "It's because I'm gabby." He laughed. Well, brains could be a huge part of that, too, I thought quietly. But, yeah. Gabby helps. He said the ident will be heard a couple hundred times over the next couple of months. I thought that was cool.

I told The Frenchman, who responded, "You did this for free?" He wasn't exactly, as we say, happy. I explained it's all about making friends and building allies for when I really need it later. And I will. That made him feel a little better, I think. But not much.

I spoke to The Big D about it, seeing as how he has much expertise in this area. He's advised me to get the audio clip and start building my voice-over resume. That, I say, is a very fine idea. And a single clip played 200 times on the Beeb ain't a bad way to start, if starting is what I'm doing.

This morning I'm finalizing Part II of the ErosZine.com article. It was finished, but then The Frenchman sent me another -- much better -- spanking community site. It's so naughty, I have to use it. (And, uh, in some ways I already have! Heh.)

And last night I finished Mystic River. A really, really good book. I learned so much about how to create touchable, flawed, interesting and enjoyable characters that I am in awe. Even if I do feel overly manipulated as a reader by his withholding of information in the killer's head. I could forgive that because by the time I put down the book, I was absolutely saturated with these people, warts and all.

I also received my unbelievably awesome Practical Homicide Investigation manual by Vernon Geberth. You just have no idea how insanely cool this 900+ page book is. It has everything you could ever ask to know about homicide investigations, including autopsies, forensics, ID-ing suspects and the role of the news media. I am ready to kick CSI ass. (Or, uh, will be as soon as I read all 900 pages.)

I dreamed longly and fully last night about going to Dublin with a very pretty young woman whose eyes and makeup were very striking. There was some kind of changling magick in her irises where in glimpses I caught she was disturbingly fey. She'd throw a look at me now and then that said, "Come on. You know what I am." It gave me such a chill and a nostalgic rattling all at once. Like hearing you'll see the bad uncle who was expelled from the family, whose black sheepishness never failed to drill down solidly into your misplaced sense of adventure.

I've been thinking quite a bit about Dublin, but this is downright frightening.

Further, I've had a fantasy book basting on the spit in the back of my head that involves France. Despite it Gallic roots, this is not a Celtic place. In the local mythologies -- if not whatever recovered by Charles Perrault -- there are no fey, no dangerously cute creatures in an Amy Brown sort of way. Only a sort of somber mysticism in the ancient mossy fountains and a lot of ill-disposed gods and dragons hiding in chapels and forests. Oh -- and how could I forget the witch trials here in Aix? A priest was ultimately burned at the stake. By all accounts, he rather deserved it although not for what they charged him with.

I tried to convey the obsidian glamor of this country's magick in "Though Thy Lips Are Pale," how things just seem so much darker and crueler here in the groves. And more.

Anyway, this morning I'm incorporating The Frenchman's notes into the second article for ErosZine.com, and then I get to work on the book. Tonight, I'm helping Ros, the host of WHYS on the Beeb, do a little something with Skype to let people know they can call in using it. Hopefully that will improve the mix of people who can participate on the show. And it's fun.

Back to the tar.

I was dancing the Obama-rama dance last night when I read on the Beeb that Barack Obama is entering the Presidential race. He's not going to be nearly experienced enough by 2008, but he's been voting pretty consistently with my voice for the whole time he's been in the Senate. And, dammit, he's a Leo. No wonder he just oozes charm and warmth. (While I don't have his exact birth data, I can still tell he announced his candidacy during a significant transit to his natal Mercury. This is good news because it means he's astro-trackable.)

This morning, I finished up Part II of the BDSM in France article for ErosZine.com, and sent it to The Frenchman for review. Both articles together are a good 2900 words. That's a nice cart load of words about latex, floggers and butt plugs!

The rest of the day has been spent repaying favors. I got dressed and went to La Poste to finally (after much La Poste drama) mail something to a friend who'd helped me get some badly needed herbal supplements from the U.S. And I just finished editing a French friend's resume who is looking for work in the U.S. She's helped me with so much here that it's the least I could do.

Now I'm relaxing and thinking about Thrilled. I laughed so much yesterday that I felt guilty. How can it be "work" when it's so damned funny? How is this "real" writing? If my agent says it's criminal for me not to write funny, why does "going straight" feel so...bent?

To cure my overdose of funny business, I chewed through to the 1/3 mark of Mystic River. Super grim, this. I definitely want to read Shutter Island. Dude is sometimes a bit wordy, but he can write.

Damn.

...I'm loving it here. I might just be addicted to the peace and quiet. The healthy food. The fact that I've dropped over 10 pounds and still eat cheese twice a day. Writing every day, the thing I believe I was put on this earth to do. Enjoying the love of a good man who indulges my whims and wishes. (Of course, that would be true anywhere we lived, but combined with everything else it's an especially lovely life package.)

I just read this interview with Richard S. Prather that my fried Christa Faust posted in her blog. I tended to skim the parts where Prather descends into conspiracy theory, but the rest of him is utterly wonderful. As I noted in Faust's blog, the interview is like a seven-course meal topped off with a 1932 port. Such a wealth of wisdom and experience, all in one place.

Today, I'm "working" on Thrilled. It's work, but I keep cracking myself up every five minutes. Maybe something useful will make it to the outline. Or not. I wrote for my agent The Seven Golden Rules of Psychological Thrillers. I don't know how well it holds up, but she thought it was hilarious. My favorite is #3. (People should die. Like, lots! They should fall on top of each other all around the investigator’s feet, waving the killer’s business card, which your investigator should promptly ignore until he sees the surveillance video of their deaths.)

The Rules are in no small way, of course, influenced by Harris, Connelly and Patterson.

Last night, I filed my measly handful of Stoker recommendations. The award is so deeply flawed, I don't care any more. I mean, I care for my friends who care, but for me it's pointless. Hell, I can't even get paid for a story that was on the Preliminary Ballot last year.

Okay, back to doing something that at least makes me laugh...

So it seems because of this new feature that Amazon has installed on the Plog (which I'm certain was in response to complaints from myself and others about the "like" and "dislike" radio buttons), people can now anonymously snipe author Plogs. Further, authors do not have the option to turn off said anonymous sniping feature. One must tolerate the shitty, rude treatment of others who have the option of not reading. (Although, I've notified people that I'm not reading anything left in "additional feedback" any longer, either.)

After shredding this guy into a thousand bloody, pulpy bits on my Plog, I've had it. By the end of that post, I was all but shouting like Bruce Campbell with my filthy torn shirt sleeves flapping in the wind, "Who wants some? Huh?"

Not the best use of my time, but I cannot tolerate anonymous snipes. It seems that I have one of two choices: ignore or ignite. And I can't ignore when someone says something ignorant and inflammatory. I will put them in their place, even if I have to hack off their arms and legs so that they fit. (Incidentally, I'm no longer reading the additional feedback. I don't have time to waste anymore.)

I've notified the Amazon Connect team twice now of this problem and they've not rolled back the feature. They are well-acquainted with me, my qualifications for judging their online community design, and what the problems are -- with both the "like" and "dislike" radio buttons, and this latest virtual design disaster. Hell, I've even seen Poppy Z. Brite struggle with it. She says she's secretly mocking all the "dislike" voters, but you know it's a pain in the ass to look at every time you simply want to post a message. Otherwise, people wouldn't do it. They're taking advantage of a rotten feature while they can.

In better news, just turned in Part 1 of the BDSM in France article to ErosZine. Working on Part II now.

I'm almost done reading what I need in the Crime Classification Manual. I'm going to read the arson section today, then maybe re-read some sections on the various homicide classifications. The situation in The Bodyjacker is a hostage homicide, and that section is truncated in the manual for some reason. They don't go into it like they do the other categories. Damn! I just ordered another book -- a major forensics manual on homicide investigations that was highly recommended by crime professionals. You really have to read these things with several coats of shellac on your sensitive parts. I realize there are all kinds of terrific philosophical arguments against capital punishment, but every time I read about one of these fuckers making a victim drink Draino and then raping the victim before shooting him or her in the head, I just want to walk down to death row and finish the job myself.

Last night's rest was fine until they pushed me on the pirate ship.

I was frantically looking around at everyone, disparaging their clothing as mere "costumes." I loudly demanded a sword. Someone thrust a corset into my arms, a damned light blue and white corset that was too long in the waist and full of metal stays. I could never fight in it. I threw it aside and grabbed a guy by the shoulder, tearing him around. "A SWORD!" I yelled. I saw they were training a woman on the far deck. I punched the guy when he didn't give me one. They promptly kicked me off the ship...

...which had just arrived at a dock by a great mansion. I was ushered inside and I saw my sword teacher sitting at the end of the grand hallway before a tall window full of sunlight and gauzy shades. She was reading to her students from what looked like a crumbling copy of Domenico Angelo's, The School of Fencing.

Just before I could shout to her, I heard a cranky little meow from the corridor behind me. It was Ophelia! My little bluish gray kitty with shining fur. I reached down for her, but she ran away. Typical! I called to her: Ophelia! Opheeeeee-leee-ahhhh! She turned the corner to another corridor. I raced after her and then stopped suddenly.

She had split into two identical cats! They both meowed at me with irritation, then continued running down the corridor to another. Each time I encountered a turn, I found she had split. Four...eight...sixteen... Eventually, we were so far down into the bowels of the great house that we'd found a sewer. Nasty black prickly creatures crawled from the disgusting waters and came after me as they gnashed their spiny teeth. But all of my Ophelias jumped into the fray and killed them before I could be harmed...

As The Amazing Randi posts changes to the $1M challenge to psychics to prove the existence of their gifts under controlled circumstances, I'm just further struck by how badly he has thought out this plan -- that is, if in fact he really does want to prove or disprove conclusively that there is psychic phenomenon.

Clearly, he doesn't want to do either.

The big so-called psychics are obvious frauds on so many levels. They might have some modicum of talent, but mostly they just know what people want to hear. I have had my own experiences around this, specifically with Sylvia Browne. And I deeply suspect that she's smart enough to know that she can only do so much -- hence her public denunciation of Randi's challenge on her website.

The people with really strong gifts, on the other hand, do not want media exposure. They know what a circus their life would become if the spotlight ever found them. They quietly go about their lives, doing whatever they do, because otherwise they would be hounded to death's door by every fucking person who wanted to talk to their dead father or find their missing child. Further, they would be exploited, ridiculed, chased, analyzed...in a word, harassed. A lot.

Can you imagine what would happen to the person who did pass Randi's challenge? That $1M would disappear like candle smoke towards means to deflect media attention. Forget any potential money to be made: that person would be thrust into public scrutiny in a way very few people can handle. No wonder only nutballs have applied in the past. And no wonder only theater professionals are already in the limelight. The sane people who are haunted by this crap don't want to be bothered.

At the bottom of the well of intent, I don't think Randi wants to prove or disprove anything. As much as I admire his devotion to skepticism and logic, even with these changes his challenge is highly flawed -- in part, I think, because he doesn't understand the true nature of what he's seeking. If he did, he would do so quietly. He would find these people -- via the Internet, via word of mouth. He would approach them behind the screen, so to speak, offer them complete anonymity in addition to the money. He'd put on the kid gloves. Be polite. Be discreet. Maybe he feels discretion is undeserved somehow. Or maybe he just digs the embarrassment factor. Regardless, he's skewing his challenge to reach the least qualified. And by being a jerk about it, he's not making the challenge any more appealing to those who are.

Of course, if he was this discreet, his credibility would be on the line if he couldn't produce his alleged specimen. But if you can't trust the word of the great skeptic Randi, who can you?

I'm sure I'm not the first person to say any of this, and most likely not the last. I just felt like I need to say it.

I just wish he and all other skeptics were really listening.

Today I was finally feeling like myself again, so I went into town to buy hair stuff and generally spend all of The Frenchman's money. Come to think of it, a lot of it was my Christmas money from relatives...

It didn't go far.

I bought soy-based red hair color, an adorable set of frilly red bra and panties, and tea. Lots of tea. I found this ridiculously wonderful little English tea store crammed full of colorful ceramic mugs, tea kettles, decorative tins and loose leaf tea for sale. Black tea with violets, mint, blueberries and chamomile. The kind of tea that makes you raise about an inch off the ground when you smell it in the big metal scoop they offer your unwitting nose. Tea -- beautiful, rich, tangy, flowery tea! I bought four little ornate cannisters full. I'm mailing one to a friend for helping me with something. The rest are mine all mine!

Oh, and I can't forget the Grand Marnier crepe sucre. No sirree. There is no longer any other sweet crepe in the world for me.

I'm worried though that those asses at Sculpt dried my hair out too much putting in the purple streak. It's fading like crazy. I figured I could dye over it and get something interesting, but now I'm wondering if it will take. Anyone have experience with this?

My Crime Classification Manual arrived in the mail unexpectedly soon. The subtitle is A Standard System for Investigating and Classifying Violent Crimes. They had it on Amazon for almost $50. I found it at ABE from a UK dealer for under $20 and paid $4 for regular mail. I received it in two days. Incoyable!

Back to work!

You know...

...that guy!

Okay, I'm callin' it a night. This makes the Parisian Death Flu or whatever the fuck it is I have feel a lot less ooky.

Thanks, Brian! Bonne nuit!

As of this morning, I'm now down 13 pounds from when I left Los Angeles last June.

Oy.

I went up a few pounds during the holiday feasting, naturally. I knew that I'd plummet back to normal once the fois gras slices stopped falling to my plate and champagne stopped flowing. I'm back to three squares a day with fruit snacks between.

I can now clearly see where the insanity of anorexia begins. Last night, we were watching Volver, this delightful film by Pedro Almodóvar. It stars Penelope Cruz, who was great, but all of the women in it were dynamite dames. Almodóvar's female characters are astonishingly powerful, every one of them. Anyway, I'm watching Penelope Cruz and thinking, "Gee, I feel so huge!" Yet here I am dropping more weight all the time. I'm in a healthy weight range. Sure, I could be a lot more fit, but technically I'm okay. It just so happens I was watching three of the skinniest women in Spain for two hours. Gah! I should have been feeling strong and healthy in comparison.

As it turns out, anorexia is a significant problem in France. Christmas was a real awakening for me. When we were in crowds of people, I saw more women with toothpick legs and boney asses than I ever did in Hollywood. This is not because the French are oh-so-light in the pants by means of DNA and good eating. Like in the U.S., the supermarket newsstands are crowded with publications on dieting, and the streets of Aix offer several spas for losing weight -- and Aix is tiny! The women I saw were clearly suffering from undernourishment. It was obvious even in their eyes, skin and hair. Something crazy is happening here.

In the meantime, it turns out there are a number of articles online to support what I'm seeing. According to this Slate article, the prevalence of eating disorders in France is equal to that in the U.S. In addition, obesity affects 13% of the adolescents here, which is a higher rate than in the U.S. I bet there's a lot more literature on the subject. And it makes sense. The image here is of the gazelle-like Parisian model. And there are honestly lots of women here who look like that, but the pressure to look that way is huge.

Meanwhile, the Rational Responders seem to have recorded last night's show. They told me the'd let me know when the file is up on their site. This is great! There are a few things I wish I'd been more articulate about, but overall I'm really pleased.

I got carried away on my rant about blasphemy being illegal in the U.S. until 1952 and got cut off by the producer before I could blaspheme the Holy Spirit on the Beeb!

Oh, well. The Frenchman says it's better to be respectful, and that I sounded great. I'll take his word for it.

Otherwise, the show went really well. I'm super pleased with how it all turned out. And I'm extra happy that they got Paul the British guy whose blasphemy video I like so much to talk on the show. He was terrific. The reverend who spoke had some good points about how evangelical Christians in the U.S. have created an adversarial atmosphere. It's totally true. While I know individual Christians who are in themselves wonderful and decent people, it's still been an enormous battle to remove the influence of religion from politics and scientific inquiry thanks to the influence of organized Christianity. And that's a problem.

Alright, time to snuggle down with The Frenchman for a DVD. This soldier has done her duty for the day.

The Actifed last night had me tweaking until the wee hours, my thoughts spinning spinning spinning. I think I was also suffering from the initial shock of getting off a bike I'd been pedalling full speed for so many months that I couldn't stop pumping my feet. (Or, in this case, my brain.) Thanks so much to everyone for their celebratory comments. I feel quite energized (or is that the Actifed? ::tweak!::).

My parodyThrilled is now in the works. Hey ho! I've discovered that pretty much all thrillers are silly and intensely mockable -- even the good ones. This will be as fun as writing the book proposal for my Top Secret Project, G3. Speaking of which, I just sent an email to my agent to bring her up to speed and to see if Santa left us any coal in our socks over the holidays. (I'm sure she'd tell me if he had, but I like to touch base anyway so that we can shake our fists at the chimney.)

My head was also churning over The Blasphemy Challenge. There are now over 500 videos on YouTube of people denying the holy spirit (the only unforgivable sin, according to Mark 3:29). Of course, theologians are wetting themselves, coming up with all kinds of re-interpretations of that verse in order to nullify what these folk are doing. The point is that, regardless of the theological fiddling one does with that text, these folk are making a stand for rationalism, and theologians are almost completely missing that. All they see is the attack on Christianity. Really, it's a counter-attack.

I sent an email to the producer at the BBC to find out if they can have a segment on this for "Have Your Say." There's even a somewhat slanted news article about it in Newsweek. I wrote the first comment that was posted, and then -- they deleted it. I can't for my life figure out why. I did, however, pretty much skewer the journalist for calling The God Who Wasn't There an "antireligion" movie. This means that Copernicus was "antireligion," as well as anyone else who has a scientific or historical epiphany that challenges some misheld religious belief about the natural world. I told them that using that word is monstrously panderous to the superstitious crowd, assumes that Christianity is the only religion, and is entirely unbecoming of real journalism...

Uh...on second thought, that's probably why they deleted it.

Anyway, must go and do semi-human things like showering. If I'm lucky, sleeping will happen, too.

After 102,355 words, Draft 1 is done!

I think I started this thing in January of 2005. Two years. Um...with breaks for new relationship and moving to foreign countries. So maybe technically a lot less.

But still...


...Yay!


I will now drink absinthe. La Muse Verte, to be precise. It is sure to enhance my French cold medicine in interesting and entertaining ways.