NOTE: If this is your first visit to one of my pages, you might want to check out my home page first, so you have an idea where I'm coming from. The entries within each month are in reverse chronological order -- the newest is first. Enjoy! -- Mary Anne
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Hey, everyone. Sorry for the missed entry Friday -- crazy day at work with end of the month fiscal stuff. So I did a final count on the March diary - 1992 entries for March, averaging approximately 65/day. Not bad. Hope you all feel like you're getting your money's (well, time's) worth.
Okay, to recap the last 3 days: Friday was John's (another mathematician friend) birthday, and we had a party for him at my place. Cake, balloons, lots of food (too much, actually -- we've been eating leftovers all weekend), the whole bit. Much fun.
Saturday and Sunday were generally lazy days -- cleaning the apartment, laundry, etc -- general weekend things. Reread The Secret Garden, a children's book - made me want to garden! Played hours and hours of Might and Magic. Hey, maybe I'll post the puzzles on here and ask you guys for help. Some of the riddles are driving me crazy. What goes up and down but never moves? (not the sun) Several along those lines. Kevin spilled pickle juice on the keyboard, and then when he tried to clean it out, it stopped working (we're hoping it's just drying out still). Had to borrow Dave's keyboard. Very sad. Think good thoughts at my keyboard.
While you're thinking good thoughts, send some prayers Martha's way. I don't know if you remember her -- she's a coworker of mine? Her daughter died about a month ago? Well, her son died in a fire this weekend. If I weren't so stunned, I think I'd be really angry. Most of us are just bewildered, and if I believed in God, I'd be doing some serious questioning right now. This isn't even close to fair. She's a Catholic, I think. I hope her faith is of some comfort to her.
I really wish that last paragraph had been an April fool.
1:15 - Added a new writing link and a bunch of awards to my home page.
Hiya! Great dance class last night -- Sara (normal teacher) was out, and the sub was this cute black guy who could really move his hips (I wish my hips did that...:-). A little more funky than I know how to be, but lots of fun to attempt (I'm sure we looked appallingly silly :-).
I just realized I have to pay taxes soon (again!). Ick. I hope estimated quarterly aren't hard. On the good side, talked to my editor at Puritan today, and he definitely wants me to do another novella for them. I promised him a South Asian fantasy-type thing, possibly opening with a slave auction. Shouldn't be hard to write once I come up with a plot -- but I'm not sure where to get said plot. We'll see...
Oh, thanks for the input on the riddle -- so far I've had 'temperature', 'staircase' and 'moods' suggested to me. I'll try them out as soon as the darn keyboard starts working again (Kevin swears it's getting better). I have big hopes for staircase.
Reread Pratchett's Eric last night and am currently rereading his Soul Music. It pains my heart that we are deprived of so many of his books here in the U.S. Unfair. Totally unfair. And stupid on the part of whichever publishers are holding 'em up... If you haven't read any Pratchett (poor soul), here's a sample to whet your appetite:
"What is this thing, anyway?" said the Dean, inspecting the
implement in his hands.
"It's called a shovel," said the Senior Wrangler. "I've seen the
gardeners use them. You stick the sharp end in the ground. Then it gets a bit
technical." - (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)
Trust me, it's even funnier in context.
Oh, reorganized my home page yet again (and added some links). Now awards are on a separate page.
2:30 -- There's a cute writers on writing thread in misc.writing. Here's my favorite quote so far:
Flannery O'Connor: "Everywhere I go, I'm asked if the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them."
Afternoon, everyone. Just added a new section of quotes -- writers on writing. Some funny stuff. :-) Feel free to send me any others you might have.
Let's see...not much new to report. I'm definitely doing another novella for Puritan (and cannibalizing my poor novel-in-hiatus to do it quickly). About 1/2 done already, though I doubt the rest will go nearly as fast. Which is fine, since it's not due till June. :-)
Turns out that 'stairs' is the correct answer for the riddle. So here's another -- "What's too much for one, enough for two, but not enough for three?" Love and marriage were not the correct answers (though I doubt it's because the game designers were progressive or poly. :-)
Btw, I regularly get requests from people to look at their sites and provide links back to them. I mostly turn those down, but the funny/ interesting ones I do put in links too (spread the wealth :-). So if any of you regular readers want to suggest a home page (or favorite link), please feel free to do so. Don't be too distressed if I don't add it, though -- despite the recent proliferation of new links on my home page, I do *try* to keep it fairly clean and focused. As it gets more crowded, I'll probably start moving things like the miscellaneous stuff to separate pages, at least.
Am now rereading a de Lint novel, Yarrow, partly because I love his writing, and partly in the hopes that it will inspire me. He's one of those writers I'd really like to be able to write like (along with LeGuin, McKillip, Butler...). Hope it helps. This one is a delightful story about a writer, pleasingly self-referential.
Looking back, I realize that I've posted far fewer recipes than I used to. That's because I've been awfully busy lately, and subsisting on muffins, juice, hot dogs and ramen. (Dave made me spaghetti last night, a welcome change. :-) I'll start eating real food again soon, promise. I did buy some yummy mango slices and frozen vanilla/ raspberry yoghurt, which go deliciously together.
Busy busy day at the office. Just a quick note to say hi! Been spending what free time I have today working on finishing up a quest I'm building on Holomuck -- come play! :-) All's well -- will type more tomorrow. Oh, added some more links. Whomever sent me that gnostic church link -- it was interesting. Meant to mention it here, but system went down, and I lost it.
Brian just asked me about Holomuck, so I thought I'd provide a link to it for you (hope I did it right). It's an interactive space, with a fun theme and built in large part by me. :-) If you visit, please stop by the nightclub -- free drinks on me and the strip show is quite tasteful. You might also enjoy the Narnian quest I just finished...or you could just go shopping at the bazaar on Deva; I have a weapons shop there. If you happen to be on at the same time as me, I go by Kateri there.
Other than that, great dance class, as usual, pleasant weather, gotten a little colder and a lot wetter today and the weekend is supposedly going to be horrible. If it's not too bad tonight, I'll go up to the First Friday folk sing...otherwise, it's curl up with a good book, hot chocolate and a fire for the weekend, I think. Am currently muchly enjoying a selection of essays by Barbara Kingsolver, one of the better contemporary mainstream writers around - her Pigs in Heaven is really good. A selection from the first essay in High Tide in Tucson:
"In my own worst seasons I've come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window. And then another: my daughter in a yellow dress. And another: the perfect outline of a full, dark sphere behind the crescent moon. Until I learned to be in love with my life again. Like a stroke victim retraining new parts of the brain to grasp lost skills, I have taught myself joy, over and over again.
"It's not such a wide gulf to cross, then, from survival to poetry. We hold fast to the old passions of endurance that buckle and crack beneath us, dovetailed, tight as a good wooden boat to carry us onward. And onward full tilt we go, pitched and wrecked and absurdly resolute, driven in spite of everything to make good on a new shore. To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another--that is surely the basic instinct. Baser even than hate, the thing with teeth, which can be stilled with a tone of voice or stunned by beauty. If the whole world of the living has to turn on the single point of remaining alive, that pointed endurance is the poetry of hope. The thing with feathers."
It's better in context, of course. Have a great weekend, everyone!
Quick note -- I apparently set up the telnet wrong Friday -- should be fixed now, so go back and try it. Hope I got it right. Would write more, but my 'u' key isn't working, so I have to paste it in every time, which is driving me nuts. 'm' and 'o' are also being erratic. Otherwise the keyboard seems to have recovered, but if I'm not careful, all the sentences look like this:
Had a good day yesterday helping Abby shelve boks at her bookstore p in the sbrbs. Had dinner at Appleby's (somemwhat ooverpriced American, bt not bad), and cae he and made frit tarts for dessert. Pleasant day. No foolk sing Friday becase of the hliday. Hope everyone's having a pleasant Easter...
6:00 - Wrote a new poem. Finished the Kingsolver essays inspired. Now listening to Yanni and rereading an old favorite, Robin McKinley's The Blue Sword.
Hey everyone. Sorry for the brief hiatus -- yesterday was crazy at the office and dance class and today isn't going to be much better. All's well here, though I'm going a little nuts waiting to hear from all the other grad schools. Interesting development -- Penthouse is going to run a story or two of mine from these pages in one of their columns. No pay, but possibly a foot in a well-paying door.
In partial payment, I offer to you my entry for my workshop's mini-Bulwer- Lytton contest. (For those unfamiliar, the contest is for the worst grammatically-correct prose...great fun. :-) Hope you're amused.
"His muscled thews clasped her heaving chain-mailed bosom to him, while with one mighty hand he wielded the famed sword, Dracoslayerdi, which in the High Elven means He Who Slays Seven Dragons Single-Handed, which was appropriate because the hero Viriligorani, which in the High Elven means He Who Clasps Chain-Mailed Virgins With Mighty Thews, was in fact one-handed due to a terrible choice he'd had to make in the slave mines five aeons previously, which would have otherwise resulted in the loss of his Big Richard, which in the High Elven means That Which Impregnates Thirty Chain-Mailed Virgins At a Single Spurt, to slay the seven-headed dragon above their heaving bodies."
This.........................connection....................................................is........................painfully...............................................slow!
Driving me batty. Short entry. Got into New College of CA Poetics Program. Personal info/recommendations appreciated. Still waiting on others.
Almost 15 minutes to write above. More tomorrow, hopefully.
Hello, my angels. (You know, I'm getting quite fond of you, my imaginary readers. I've exchanged e-mail with some of you (who have all been unfailingly nice/interesting) and I have this mental image of you all now. Quite a conglomerate. :-) So I've figured out a way around this keyboard/ connection problem. I will type to you in the early morning, before the rest of the hospital starts using the net and the connection slows down to a pitiful rate. (This may be slightly harder on days when we have patients first thing in the morning. We'll see). The keyboard at home seems sometimes better, sometimes worse. Think good thoughts at it. (I remember fondly from the Wizard In Spite of Himself series by Stasheff that he had a saint of mechanical devices (can't remember which one or his history right now, but it was funny. Something to do with TV reception for the Pope...).
The weather is beautiful. This thought is worth repeating. The weather is beautiful beautiful beautiful. It is amazing how much this impacts on the human soul -- here in my office the doctors are smiling and not as frantic, the secretaries look longingly at the door leading outside, the patients are more patient...it makes me wonder what it must be like to live in a climate like this all the time (to be specific, it's something like light sweater weather now, and will probably be long-sleeve or short-sleeve weather by lunchtime. I love my jeans, I do, but there's something so joyous in being able to wear a short skirt and t-shirt to work. (I suppose guys get approximately the same feeling from shorts, but it's not quite the same, believe me.)
Daily new crocuses push their way through the moist soil, and
A fall of ivory petals sheathes the swooping vine-like
Feathered branches of the old tree along the walk. Song
Fills my throat and aches to burst free; villanelles and
Odes dance in my brain, whispering, chanting spring.
Do you feel it, my dears? Do you feel the blood racing
Its sudden course? If you do, you will find a sweet body and
Lay yourselves down in the grass amid crushed daffodils,
Singing silently with every inch of sun-touched skin.
Have you thought how dull it would be, to live on a planet of perfect climate? While I could do without the worst of winter's dreariness, the dance of rain and sun and thunder and wind is so essential -- without it a chapter of poetry would disappear, vanish into sameness. IDIC -- all you Star Trek fans will recognize it -- what a perfect symbol (I wrote symblom and stared at it a long time before I realized I was merging symbol and emblem) for Vulcans and the Federation in general (did you all realize I was a Star Trek fan? I swear, I was in love with Spock for several months (still am, in a way -- it's embarrassing to admit to being in love with a fictional character -- on the other hand, I'm a bit in love with all my characters, even people like the unnamed narrator in my "Radhika and Matthew", who exist for little more than a page...)
I hope you don't mind this rambling of mine -- it's an apology in part for all those days of silence or scantiness. I'm finishing up my novella for Puritan right now -- having a desperate time trying to cram a ten thousand word story (condensed and butchered from a many many thousand word novel) into 8500 words, as requested by the editor. Arghhhh! (On the other hand, you know as well as I that I love this work, I do, even the butchering and the blank panic of staring at an empty screen and sometimes I count myself so fortunate, so blessed to have figured out what it is I love so early and life and have the luxury to be able to do it (not that I don't think that a lot more people couldn't do what they should be doing if they were a little braver (or foolhardy??), but some just can't and that's a terrible thing. There's a goal for a civilized world, if you like -- a place where everyone has the freedom to do the work they love -- and the guidance to find that work -- and the help with their other responsibilities (family, esp.) that they need. Is that so far out of our reach?)).
Missed dance class last night because my eye appt (getting contacts) ran longer than expected (2 hrs!). Very sad. I also seem to have mislaid my keys somewhere, so I had to impose on my poor upstairs neighbor to use her phone and drag Kevin home from the office to let me in. Watched a little too much television last night (I swear, when I go to grad school, I'm tempted to not have a tv at all), but otherwise everything is very well with me and I hope with all of you.
Off to do some office work and then I have piles of e-mail to answer...
Hello everyone! Did you have a good weekend? Mine was generally good, though rather odd -- I went on a reading binge. 4 books Saturday, 2 Sunday. Then I crashed and watched Star Trek 6 (playing on tv last night (cheesy, but it's ST :-)). The books were Tanya Huff -- she'd been recommended to me so many times I finally decided to read a bunch (borrowed from Abby mostly). Had great fun with her books (like the best of Lackey in a lot of ways). Thought it was nice the way her characters took the queer and poly stuff for granted. No big deal. :-)
Other than that, it's tax day, and while I did my '95 federal taxes (as some of you will remember :-), I still have state taxes from last year and estimated 1st quarter '96. Hope that isn't too hard. Think good thoughts at me. :-) I'd best get back to work, because Monday's are busy days here at the office, so I'm leaving you with a joke my friend Josh sent on to me, author unknown:
There was this male engineer, on a cruise ship in the Caribbean for the first time. It was wonderful, the experience of his life. He was being waited on hand and foot. But it did not last. A hurricane came up unexpectedly. The ship went down almost instantly.
The man found himself swept up on the shore of an island. There was nothing else anywhere to be seen. No people, no supplies, nothing. There were some bananas and coconuts, but that was it. He was desperate and forlorn, but decided to make the best of it.
So for the next four months he ate bananas, drank coconut juice and mostly looked to the sea for a ship to come to his rescue. One day, as he was lying on the beech stroking his beard and looking for a ship, he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye. Could it be true, was it a ship? No, from around the corner of the island came this rowboat. In it was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen, or at least seen in 4 months. She was tall, tanned, and her blond hair flowing in the seabreeze made her seem almost ethereal. She spotted him as he was waving and yelling and screaming to get her attention, and rowed her boat towards him.
In disbelief, he asked, "Where did you come from? How did you get here?"
She said, "I rowed from the other side of the island. I landed on this island when my cruise ship sank"
"Amazing", he said, "I didn't know anyone else had survived. How many of you are there? Where did you get the rowboat? You were lucky to have a rowboat wash up with you!"
"It's only me", she said, "and the rowboat didn't wash up, nothing did.
"Well then," said the man, "How did you get the rowboat?"
"I made it out of raw material that I found on the island," replied the woman. "The oars were whittled from gum tree branches. I wove the bottom from palm branches, and the sides and stern came from a Eucalyptus tree".
"But, but," asked the man, "What about tools and hardware, how did you do that?"
"Oh, no problem,": replied the woman. "On the south side of the island there is a very unusual strata of alluvial rock exposed. I found that if I fired it to a certain temperature in my kiln, it melted into forgeable ductile iron. I used that for tools, and used the tools to make the hardware. But enough of that," she said. "Where do you live?" At this man was forced to confess that he had been sleeping on the beach.
"Well, let's row over to my place," she said. So they both got into the rowboat and left for her side of island.
The woman easily rowed them around to a wharf that led to the approach to her place. She tied up the rowboat with a beautifully woven hemp rope. They walked up a stone walk and around a palm tree, and there stood an exquisite bungalow painted in blue and white. "It's not much," she said, "But I call it home. Sit down please. Would you like to have a drink?"
"No," said the man, "One more coconut juice and I'll puke."
"It won't be coconut juice. I have a still, how about a Pina Colada?"
Trying to hide his continued amazement, the man accepted, and they sat down on her couch to talk.
After a while, and they had exchanged their stories, the woman asked, "Tell me, have you always had a beard?" "No," the man replied, "I was clean-shaven all of my life, and even on the cruise ship."
"Well, if you would like to shave, there is a man's razor upstairs in the cabinet in the bathroom."
So, the man, no longer surprised at anything, went upstairs to the bathroom. There in the cabinet was a razor with a bone handle. Two shells honed to a hollow ground edge were fastened on to its end with a swivel mechanism. The man shaved, showered and went back down stairs.
"You look great," said the woman, "I think I'll slip into something more comfortable." So she did. The man continued to sip his Pina Colada. After a short time, the woman returned wearing strategically-positioned fig leafs and smelling faintly of gardenia.
"Tell me," she asked, "We have both been out here for a very long time with no companionship. You know what I mean. Have you been lonely. Is there anything that you really miss? Something that all men and woman need. Something that it would be really nice to have right now."
"Yes, there is, the man replied, as he moved closer to the woman while fixing a winsome gaze upon her, "Tell me, do you happen to have an Internet connection?"
(grin) Happy Monday, everyone.
Home sick with bad cold. Awful keyboard. Very sorry. Hope you all are feeling better than I am...
Staggered in to work today, but I'm afraid I'm still feeling pretty woozy. Going home soon. Not doing much except sleeping and drinking juice and playing Might and Magic (requires no real brain power, and no functional keyboard :-). Thanks for all the kind messages, and especially for the ASCII chicken soup! Nice to know people care...
Good morning everyone! Still sniffling, but feeling much better today. I hopefully will even make it to dance class today...
New and exciting -- I'm buying a bicycle today! :-) Just something to get around town in -- figure it'll be convenient and fast and good exercise. I'm a little nervous about riding it on city streets -- I haven't really ridden a bicycle since I was a little kid (though I was fearless back then -- there's this HUGE hill next to my parent's house in Connecticut, and I can't count the number of times we raced down it (it was a neighborhood of boys at that time, and I was a reckless tomboy and loved it), defying death (and collecting quite an assortment of scraped elbows and knees, which I bore manfully (hmmm...I could go off into a feminist rant on that, but I'm not in the mood right now :-)) to achieve that gorgeous adrenaline rush...)
It's a beautiful day today. A little cold, but sunny and I think it'll warm up. A great day for capture-the-flag....oh, I don't want to be inside the office today, even if it's a very nice office, which mine is. Here's a poem I've just added to the 1993 poems...writing this paragraph reminded me of it, and I thought I'd add it to the list. I spent a couple of months once working on a survey of high school students, and at one point was filling out piles of terrible forms at someone else's desk in Brookline, MA (which has an excellent high school, btw, with very socially-aware students).
Trapped.
New England spring comes calling
come sing
come dance
come lie in sunlight with your love on grassy hills; dogwood petals
fluttering down and wind teasing laughing calling
oh come!
Chained.
Chained to this desk with stacks of papers and hours more of meetings with
grumpy, angry people who yearn to drink in sunlight, chained to
their duty
their debts
their desk.
Then a careless wind comes calling
so my papers all go flying
and suddenly I am laughing
leaning back into my chair
smelling lilacs on the wind
as my officemates come peering
through the door, slightly smiling...
*****
M.A. Mohanraj
Brookline, Massachusetts
May 7, 1993
(btw, I finally finished Might and Magic III the other night. The answer to that riddle I asked a couple of weeks ago was 'secret'. I am resisting the temptation to go out and buy the next game in the series).
Aha! I fooled you! Nothing yesterday and an entry today! (This wasn't actually planned, to be honest...)
So today is a red-letter day in many ways. I am at work on a weekend. (This is a good thing, because I am clearing out a chunk of e-mail, which I can't do at home because of the broken keyboard. Am buying a new one, but it may take a bit before we get around to it). I bought a bicycle (secondhand -- would you believe the lock and basket cost more than the bike??). I rode the bicycle *to* the office (my first time on a bike in 11 years, and may I say, I performed brilliantly :-). But the most important thing about today is that it is Lisette's birthday. Who, you may ask, is Lisette? Well, I'm going to tell you, and if she ever sees this, she will no doubt kill me, but I will die happy, because she'd undoubtedly think of an inventive and interesting way to do it.
Lisette is not only a brilliant (still somewhat undiscovered, but brilliant) actress, and a passionate reader, and a woman with as yet mostly unplumbed comic writing talent, and stunningly beautiful (okay, so in the picture of her on my Univ. of Chicago pages this isn't entirely obvious, but that's due to my lack of skill with a camera, trust me) and killer at Paintball, BUT she is also a true-blue best friend, of the sort which no one should be without and so many of us so rarely find. So be happy with me, and celebrate her birthday, and be glad that she's around. (Well, she's in Chicago, but close enough). This poem always makes me think of her.
The autumn leaves are falling like rain.
Although my neighbors are all barbarians,
And you, you are a thousand miles away,
There are always two cups on my table.
-- Anon., T'ang Dynasty
(Btw, to the guy sending me all 12 of the cards from his greeting card box -- they're delightful. I wondered if you'd break down and ask me if I liked 'em. :-) Keep 'em coming... One of these days I'm going to live somewhere where I can plaster a wall with all the wonderful cards people send me.)
Yes, not only a Saturday entry, but a Sunday one too. And would you believe I'm here at the office, on a Sunday, at 8:40 a.m.? Shows you what an addict I am to the net...
Biked in to work -- the bones in my pelvis hurt like anything, but otherwise it was a delightful ride. Hardly any traffic, the weather is stunningly beautiful right now (cool and sunny, comfortable T-shirt weather), and biking makes a great breeze. I had forgotten how much fun it is being on a bike -- I can see what some people get really into it.
Not much else to say right now -- my regular system won't be up for another fifteen minutes, so I'll probably go back to my book for a while. Finished my Tanya Huff kick yesterday by reading the last of her books the local Border's had. The Lions of al'Rassan is out in paperback! Finally! I confess, I was so desperate to read it when it came out (I have an unwholesome passion for Guy Gavriel Kay's work) that I sat in Border's and read the whole hardcover. In guilt, I bought two copies of the paperback (and the new de Lint anthology The Ivory and the Horn), one for me and one as a belated Christmas present for Lisette (to be sent along with her not-so-belated birthday present :-). If you like fantasy and haven't read de Lint or Kay, do so! Along with Le Guin, they're my biggest influences, and I've been told more than once that my fantasy is perhaps a bit too much like theirs. :-) I'll undoubtedly get over it.
11:00 - Cleared out an amazing amount of e-mail and sent off "Caught Between Two Women" and "Fleeing Gods" to Susie Bright for consideration for her Best American Erotica anthology. Not sure that I think either of those really qualify, but unfortunately the stuff of mine I like better hasn't been published yet. Oh well. :-)
Morning! God, I'm swamped in mail right now, trying to get the erotica writers' mailing list started (once it's established, I'll post info on my home page about how to join). My fingers are sore from typing, and it's only noon.
Only other exciting news is that I've decided on Mills for grad school, so come September, I'll be off to Oakland. Dave sent me this list, and I thought I'd pass it on to you. No clue who wrote it originally.
TOP 10 SUBTLE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GRAD SCHOOL AND HELL:
10. It doesn't rain in Hell.
9. Everyone has heard of Hell.
8. It's a lot more fun getting into Hell.
7. You can't fail out of Hell.
6. At least you can sleep in Hell.
5. Hell is forever; Grad School just seems like it.
4. People smile in Hell.
3. You only have to sell your soul to go to Hell.
2. There are hot men and women in Hell.
** And the #1 Subtle Difference between Grad School and Hell: ** (drum roll)
1. You would never tell a friend to go to Grad school!
Still swamped under mail for the new list. Oof. Otherwise life is very good -- great dance class last night, all my muscles are sore today. David made hummus yesterday -- yum! :-)
Having received 3 letters from people about this, I just want to reassure you all that yes, Kevin loaned me his bicycle helmet.
New addition to the page - Old Writers Never Die... - a funny compilation. Funny to writers, anyway.
Got mail from my little sister yesterday, saying she'd stumbled across my
web page.
noon - The page proofs for "Fleeing Gods" have arrived! Turns out it's coming much sooner than I expected -- I thought the Sex Magick II anthology was coming out in 1997, but it turns out to be July 1996. I'll give y'all all the details when it comes out, so if you'd like a print copy of my story (and a bunch of other good stories), you can purchase it. Circlet Press does lovely work.
Hey, sorry for yesterday. The list is finally starting to run smoothly, so hopefully I'll start having time again. I think we're ready to tentatively open it to the public, so if any of you write erotica and are interested in a mailing list of submissions, crits, and exchange of market info, send me mail at maryanne@mamohanraj.com with a note requesting info. Keep in mind that this is not a list for people to simply get their jollies -- all list members are expected to submit and crit fairly often. :-)
Other exciting news -- I found an artist to illustrate my book (yup, it looks like I'm really doing it -- I will soon be able to afford the $2000 it'll take (though I had a terrible dream last night where a bill for $2500 arrived for something else entirely)). I offered a link to her journal a while back, but here's the link to her main page -- Tracy Lee. The one of her and her partner is rather nice, and I also like the chick in the stockings. Feel free to drop me a note and let me know what you think of her work.
Otherwise, life is pretty good for me right now. Getting used to my bike, the weather is generally beautiful (though the other night I managed to get myself locked out on my porch in a thunderstorm for an hour, sigh...), my boss got me a lovely flowering plant and some chocolate-covered pretzels for Secretaries' Day yesterday, and I made a yummy dinner last night. Turkey roulades (though we happened to have chicken, which worked fine, with corn bread, jalapeno and Monterey Jack filling -- here's the recipe for your perusal. This page has a lot of great recipes, if you haven't taken a look at it before, though some have slightly expensive ingredients. If I make the roulades again, I'll probably put in a little more jalapeno and cheese -- I may even substitute Cheddar, which I think will work better with chicken. I'd also make a little more of the sauce -- very simple chicken broth and wine vinegar, but it was yummy.
Oh, and I added a new little funny thing to my home page, on stupid criminals.
Huh. I hadn't realized it had been quite so long since I'd written until I got little concerned notes from a few of you. Sorry for the delay, but been very swamped (and got horrendously sick with some bug Sunday night, but am all better now) with work. I am currently:
1. Holding down the day job
2. Trying to figure out housing for grad school
3. Writing little porn letters for a web site on commission
4. Working on the novella for Puritan
5. Trying to assemble the manuscript for the anthology (which I finally have
the money for)
6. And most time-consuming, moderating the erotica workshop (30- 50 mail messages/day
alone!)
Do I sound like I'm whining? A bit, perhaps. It's been an exhausting couple of days. On the good side, I'm healthy (again), fairly happy, and very satisfied with all the work I'm getting done. Had to come up with a working title for the manuscript. Was waffling between Dreams of a Lover, Turning Bodies, and Torn Shapes of Desire (all titles of old poems of mine). Went with the last, but may change my mind. David suggested just Shapes of Desire, but somehow I feel like that lacks oomph! I don't know...:-)
Otherwise, the list is humming along nicely, with some lovely stories, and useful crits. We could use some more market info, but that will hopefully come in time.
Tonight two editor friends of mine, Gary Bowen and Cecelia Tan, will be reading from their erotica at Borders. I encourage any of you around Philly to come -- I'll be there, and would be happy to meet you. :-)
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