...like staring into a scan of your own eyeball. Only because I love my sight so much, I was able stare into a disgusting red and green map of the inside of my poor, stretched ocular orb.

The good news - nothing much wrong!

The bad news - except that part where the inside of your eyeballs might rip off. But there's not a huge chance, just, you know, a chance!

...great?

Other good news - new frames! Now I have peripheral vision! (My old glasses were apparently teeny!)

[Scene: a tango practica. GENEVIEVE is approached by PUSHY TANGO WOMAN, who rubbed intimate parts all over Genevieve the only time Genevieve made the mistake of dancing with her. PTW is known for approaching leaders and demanding they dance with her. It usually works.]

PTW: Are you going to lead me?
G: Oh! Well, I have my street shoes on, I was on my way out.
PTW: Let me ask you - do you just not want to dance with me any more? Because I've asked you, like, twelve times in the last year and you always say no. Is it that you don't want to dance with me any more?

[GENEVIEVE dies inside that someone is so unable to get a clue.]

G: [trying to allow PTW some dignity] I just usually dance with friends.
PTW: Well, I'm your friend, and I REALLY liked dancing with you. Just tell me you don't want to dance with me! I'm asking!
G: I usually prefer to dance with my friends, I'm sorry.
PTW: Fine!

[PTW suddenly morphs into Glenn Close.]

PTW: ...we're still friends.
G: ...
PTW: Well, goodbye.

[PTW sits down, stares directly at Genevieve.]

[Fin.]

I should feel creeped out, but instead I am just MORTIFIED that someone is so unable to read a room that after 12 "No"s she's still trying for "Yes".

Other people need more shame. It would spare me being ashamed on their behalf.

I'm still debating making this public, but I know how angry I am right now and I just need to get this out so I can stop gnawing on the inside of my own mouth in disgust.

But apparently, because of the Open Source Boob Project, people at cons are now subject to having to state their groping amenity levels, because dammit, the objectification of women was really in need of a boost.

SO. Just to make it clear:

Anyone who, at any time, makes a physical or verbal overture to me? Is subject to having their hand mailed back to them in a box.

Thank you, and goodnight.

ETA: Made this public, because I woke up this morning and behold, verily I was just as pissed! Please let me know if you want your comments screened, etc.

ETA2: I finally found the shortest way to sum up my feelings that don't involve punching someone:

My body does not exist in the binary of SOME GUY'S ACCESS TO IT.

I lasted exactly 98 minutes in Comic Con. I am the worst geek in the world.

( When you start with a Stormtrooper blasting 'Come On, Ride the Train', there's nowhere to go. )

Last night I opened up a novelette I wrote a while ago with the idea to run through it and polish it (since I was too distracted to really work on the novel). I hadn't looked at it in a long time, and I wasn't sure why, since I remember the writing being fine.

Turns out, the writing is good, but that shit is bleak. It's like a Todd Solondz movie. Never has a fucked-up take on fairy tale tropes been quite so fucked-up.

I'll have to wait to publish this until I change my name, but it comforted me to know that my murder-riddled political-intrigue novel is relatively lighthearted.

The Bus Gods were kind, and it was a short bus trip with a nice seatmate who slept the whole time. Now I bgin my offerings to the Plane Gods that my seatmate on the plane to WisCon is as nice.

Spent the weekend thus:

1. Parents ask me to tell them what I'm writing these days.
2. I tell them in vague terms.
2. They ask me to change my name.

So, either I wait for that little furor to die down, or I'll have to change this blog title to Samantha Bustier. Stay tuned!

So, I've noted before that my leading has turned me more or less male in the eyes of most of the guys here.

However, women (who would never in a million years ask a guy to dance) swarm me wherever I go. As equality-based as I try to be, the fact is that women who are desperate for dances have literally followed me around asking at the start of every set if we could have a dance, even though I reply every time either, "No, thank you," or, "I've actually got someone else in mind for this set, thanks." These are two really blanket responses that, if they came from a guy, would be end of story.

But no, I have all the inconveniences of maleness and none of the perks. Ain't it the way!

Here's the thing; many of the women who like dancing with me are the ones who sit out a lot, so they're desperate for any decent leader to ask them. I understand that. However, a guy at my level* of dancing is under absolutely no expectation to dance. It's understood that any intermediate-or-above leader has earned the right to select his own partners. He might not get to dance with all the women he asks, but he's under no pressure to ask women he doesn't like.

I have taken to bringing a laptop to the milongas with me so I can get work done and then "take breaks" to dance, which keeps me from being an idle target, but now they cross the room to sit next to me and say, "I'll just wait for your next break to dance with you!", which, flattering, but again, if I were a guy, NEVER. NEVER would that happen.

And seriously, if I don't get the perks of being a follower, I DEMAND the perks of being a leader.

Ugh. At least I have the weekend to look forward to. Did I mention he was raised by rats, and yet can play a pipe organ? The last time I was so excited for a movie it was an MST3K box set, you guys; that's my level of excitement now.

* "my level" - an intermediate leader of one year's experience.

After the class, a guy came up to me for what I assumed was a question about class (I got the move, one of two leaders who did). The little ditty went like this:

Dude: You lead really well!
G: Thank you!
[They shake hands.]
Dude: That was a tough class, wasn't it?
G: Totally.
[Dude suddenly reaches out and clasps G's arm.]
Dude: Can I tape you?
G: [Shaking arm free.] What?
Dude: It's just that you're such a good leader. Just one song - I want to learn from you.
G: Well, I can introduce you to my teacher and you can take lessons.
Dude: [wringing hands] No, I can just tape you -
G: - I'm not letting you tape me.
Dude: But I want to learn from you...learn from the way you move.
G: ...Are you SHITTING me? [walks off]

Sadly, the story did not end with [G returns with a chair and beats Dude about the head with it], but IT COULD HAVE.

Man, the last-minute gift catalogs keep pouring in to my house, despite my recent calls to every catalog I could think of, pleading with them not to cut down any more trees to send me hideous lists of items that I wouldn't buy even if I had the money.

There are some gems, though.

For the woman in your life who you're trying to drive out of it, I suggest this skirt:



It's a denim miniskirt with an attached leopard-print-and-roses floor-length skirt, and some lace to bridge the gap.

For those still undecided, it boasts five-pocket detailing!

And we’re back! By all means start with:

Part 1

And then go get a cup of coffee, and then come back here. Pretend it was a commercial break.


PREVIOUSLY, ON TIN MAN:

DG is poorly named. Azkadellia the Evil Witch is even more poorly named, because she has a big unnecessary "l" right in the middle. Also, her last name is apparently Evil Witch. Azkadellia's men have huge guns and dimension-hopping technology, and they ride horses.

DG gets thrown into the O.Z. (bitch), and goes looking for her parents (beeboopbeep!). Instead, she finds racist Munchkins and Glitch. Glitch has a head-zipper. (Azkadellia sees the head-zipper and raises him some shoulder armor.) Glitch is looking for more lines, so he tags along on her escape along the Old Road. *thud*

( THIS WEEK, ON TIN MAN: Looking for real plot and rich characterization? Well, go someplace else! We have short-sleeve fur blazers, and we don't want your kind here! )

In the next installment, we hit Central City! Are you thrilled? Frightened? Determined? No? Well, nobody in the miniseries is, either, so I guess that’s understandable.

Okay, so, in the interest of educating the populace as to the horrors of the Tin Man miniseries, i've embarked on a review. Below is Part 1 of ? (I'll let you know); the rest are coming as soon as I can type them up.


TIN MAN: A Not-at-all-brief Review to Spare the Populace

NOTE: I erased this thing from my TiVo INSTANTLY, so this is all from memory. There will be gaps. No, you won’t notice. It’s like saying someone poked a hole in your Swiss cheese.

( Let's begin with some castin'! )

( And, have some plot! )

Te Be Continued, because seriously, this thing was six hours long and I’m probably still in Hour One.

This morning at 1am, you could have found me shouting at my TV, because Tin Man was over - horribly, finally, dissastisfyingly, plot-holingly, nonactingly over. And also, unexpectedly over, since they ended it right in the middle of the narrative climax, without any closure or denoument whatsoever. Nice job, you guys!

I want so much to just sit down, sketch out another way this whole thing could have gone, and slap it up here, because what was good was WASTED, and what was bad was so, so plentiful, and it's a shame. I mean, the evil queen had a big death-ray thing she wanted to use in order to...make it always nighttime. No, seriously, that was what it was supposed to do. Make it nighttime.

Sigh.

Finished a short story today; no night-bringing death rays, but I'm building up to it.

Okay, I really hope that in later years someone uses Tin Man as an example of lazy writing; there are myriad other problems with this miniseries, including lackluster acting, slack directing, and some of the worst costuming ever (the Cowardly Lion is wearing a short-sleeve fur blazer with a tail, you guys). However, the scripting is so OUSTANDINGLY bad that I would not be surprised to learn that it was written by Ms. Llewellyn's eighth-grade composition class.

( Here, have an example! A spoilery example, for the three poor souls who think they still want to see this. )

I missed the last twenty minutes of last night, and only realized this morning that I had 1:40 on my TiVo instead of 2:00. I emailed a friend who saw the whole thing, "What happened last night after [point at which I left off]?"

She wrote back, "I don't remember. Maybe I fell asleep."

This miniseries is so bad that it robs you of your ability to remember if you were SLEEPING OR NOT, you guys. That's scary.

I've made a huge mistake. (/Arrested Development)

You guys, this miniseries features flying monkeys that come out of a woman's cleavage. I mean, that's not all it has, but if I had to sum this thing up so far in a nutshell, it would be:

DG: (Has flashback about plot thing.) Oh no? You mean [plot thing]?
Glitch: [says nothing]
Raw: [says nothing]
Tin Man: [Does something to move the plot forward]
Evil Queen: [shoves monkey bats from her breasts]

I might just wait for the plot summary to show up on Wikipedia and call it a day. Two more nights of this is a sad prospect.

Worst. Bookstore experience. Ever.

Tuesday I went book shopping with a friend. I've been plugging away at a novel, and after writing 50,000 words in a vacuum, I felt I needed to come up for air, laugh at the bad romance novel covers, and covertly check the self-help shelves for What You Should Do About Your Stupid Stubborn Characters Who Won't Obey You.

I love bookstores. I love the cheesy romance novel covers (shoved in the very back where they store the folding chairs, clearly an important genre), I love the growing graphic novel section even though I don't read many of them, I love looking for insanely-spacifically-targeted magazines like Denver Studio Apartment Weekly. I love stalking Herodotus to find where, exactly, this particular bookstore is shelving him.

We were on our way out when two young ladies stopped us - early thirties, maybe, offbeat dressers. I guessed her favorite writers were Octavia Butler, Jonathan Safran Foer, and T.S. Eliot.

One of them smiled. "Can you help us?"

"Sure," I said, already settling into my inevitable career as bookstore employee. "What are you looking for?"

"Do you know who wrote The Da Vinci Code?"

I was totally thrown. "Uh, Dan Brown."

She turned to her friend. "That's who it was!" Then, back to me, "Did you like it?"

"I've never read it," I said, trying not to sound horrified and failing.

"Well," she chirped, "it has to be pretty good - I mean, you know who he is and you haven't even read it! Okay, thanks, bye!"

For a long time my friend and I stood in the middle of the science fiction aisle without speaking, waiting for the punchline.

Never came.