I keep referencing this list, but hadn't posted it anywhere, though I have posted pieces of it as I add them. Because of abenn's encouragement, I am posting it now and will keep it at the top of my LJ for future reference.

Suggestions always welcome, by the way.

( Life To Do List )

Saw a link to this posted by bewize and was really intrigued. Now I'm looking for theme suggestions to post about (examples from that site: 100 Recipes I've Never Tried Before & Other Kitchen Disasters; 100 Cult TV Things; 100 Books I Have Loved). I'm thinking maybe 100 (Attempts at) Adventures, but definitely let me know if you have suggestions.

(Edited to Add: Excellent post with suggestions.)

Also, I hope some of you consider doing it. I think it will be fun, no matter how many posts actually get written.




{Take the 100 Things challenge!}

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You guys, I think all those hours I spent looking at dresses for the two weddings coming up (impatienke is having her social wedding, and I'm a bridesmaid, and then her best friend is also getting married, and I'm a guest) have finally devoured my brain, because I went looking for one dress and ended up finding -- well, I will provide you with a list.

Keep in mind, I don't wear dresses generally (though I do have a cotton wrap dress that I wear as a coverup when going to the pool and I live in a couple jean skirts on the weekends when the weather is nice), and I can't wear them to work without wearing heavy, heavy tights, which I don't own. (Tattoo on my calf.)

But oh, god, I want to wear these dresses to work.

Crimson frill trim poplin
Rosette trim dress (in blue, black, and green, I like all three)
tabbed surplice neckline crepe dress
Be a sweetheart (in both the green and the blue)
Ruffle front surplice (What even is surplice?)
Bow tied neck cotton poplin
Pleat waist chambray dress
Mural blooms dress (the dress I was actually looking for -- you can see how long it took me to find it)
Wildflowers in bloom
Embellished florals surplice

What even is this? WHAT EVEN IS SURPLICE? (Wikipedia would have me know it is the liturgical vestment of the Western Christian Church. o.O That is not what I expected.)

Later I will tell you about the musical wanderings of my mind tonight, but right now I must go decide if I should buy dresses.

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Sunday Sporadic: A collection of links from the tabs I've opened over the last week. (Inspired by Karen Healey who sometimes does link collections on the weekends.)

Rose Lemberg: Feminist SF/F: On Feminist Characters

Excerpt: The way to get there, I think, is through multiple, intersectional, and diverse (yet not stereotyped or cartoonish) portrayals of women. I want women to be able to be Neurotic Geniuses. I want the Amazing Inventor with bad hair and mismatched socks who yells sometimes and makes her friends upset, and sometimes forgets to eat, and sometimes forgets to do laundry. I want to read about the Magician who forgets to check her email and gets embroiled in a political struggle at her University, which she loses ungraciously. I want to read about Neurotic Creative Professionals – architects, writers, film directors, music composers – who, in throws of creativity, can be quite upsetting to be around. I want to read about a brilliant woman scientist who is also a miserable drunk. I want to read about the person in a wheelchair who loves her work, but who takes her disability really hard. I want to read about women who are child-free by choice, and women who are mothers. I want to read about mothers who decided to stay at home, and mothers who work. I want to read about women who are fat and not, women who struggle with weight and women who do not. I want to read about asexual women, bisexual women, I want to read about people who are genderqueer and trans* and questioning. I want to read about menopausal women. I want to read about a heroine who is eighty two. I want to read about women who are mentally ill. I want to read a book with a feminist anti-hero. I want to read about kinky women, I want to read about dominant women and submissive women. And note, I haven’t even touched upon the questions of racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity!

Alex Dally Macfarlane: Feminist SFF: Female Friendships

Excerpt: I want, so much, to see more SFF where the friendships between women are given as much time and attention as any other relationship. It does happen, but it’s still far too rare. I want women forging alliances. I want women as enemies, too. I want women grappling to understand each other across privilege and cultural gulfs. I want women having lots of friendships with other women. I want lonely women who long for friendships with other women. I want women with vastly different interests finding common touch-points. I want women bonding over fibre crafts and sport and science and children and war and travel and stand-up comedy and books and internet memes and everything else that women bond over in real life. I want women helping each other to survive in the direst of situations. I want women saving one another. I want women being horrible to each other – because of course women are also horrible to each other in real life, but it’s not some kind of special female superpower. I firmly believe that the only reason it becomes gendered is societal. SFF gives us the opportunity to go beyond that! SFF also gives us the opportunity to examine that in careful, nuanced detail. What I don’t want is women being horrible to each other because that’s “our nature”.

James Tiptree Jr. Award Winner, Short List, and Long List Announcedheart</em>.

Down the Rabbit Hole: YA Cliches You Love

Excerpt: I read a lot of posts that talk about bad cliches in YA and why we don't like them. I always find these posts enlightening and absolutely love mining their info for my own work. What am I guilty of? And what sort of things do I dislike? But I always see a little note at the end stating that if those things are done well enough, the person doesn't usually mind them. So what I want to talk about today is which cliches I like in YA fiction.

Jezebel: Missouri Stupidly Decides to Create Rush Limbaugh Shrine in the State Capitol

What the actual fucking fuck Missouri? You're making me question again why I came back. (Answer: Family and a job I love.)

Palate cleanser time.

Boomtron: Vin Diesel in RIDDICK 3 Action

Riddick 3 is filming. I'm giddy! Riddick 3, Fast and the Furious 6, the joy that was Fast 5 -- it is a good time to be a Vin Diesel fan.

Bloody-Disgusting.com: Check Out 'Riddick' and His Bone Gun

Another link with the same pictures but slightly different information. Also, I wouldn't call that a bone gun so much as likely a bone sword (or a really long bone shiv), but we will see.

Techdirt: How the Runaway Success of a Tiny $25 Computer Could Become a Big Problem for Oppressive Regimes

Excerpt: An interesting consequence of Moore's Law and the ready availability of free software is that powerful computers can now be produced for just tens of dollars, and in an extremely small package. The low cost means that organizations supporting activists can send in many such systems to countries with human rights problems, and replace them if they are discovered and confiscated or destroyed. The size makes it much easier to import them discreetly, as well as to conceal them in countries that try to keep computing under tight control.

I've been hearing about Raspberry Pi for awhile now from the tech geeks in my family (so that'd be all of them, really), and I'm intrigued by it and by the potential uses of it.

Fangoria review The Cabin in the Woods (mostly without spoilers)

Excerpt: Like SCREAM, THE CABIN IN THE WOODS is going to be mistaken by some people for a spoof of the genre. It’s not; like the Wes Craven film, it’s a straightforward horror feature that happens to have a good, satirical sense of humor about itself. This one goes beyond honoring just one subspecies of fright to become a wildly entertaining catch-all homage to the cinema of fear as a whole—it’s like all your favorite horror movies wrapped up in one.

I am super leery about The Cabin in the Woods. On the one hand, this is exactly what I love, horror stories about terrified teens surrounded by trees. On the other hand, despite how much I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer (fifteen years ago yesterday the pilot of the tv series premiered, but I also love the ridiculously cheesy movie), I do not trust Joss Whedon's work lately (at least ever since Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog, and certainly with Dollhouse). However, I really want to give The Cabin in the Woods a chance, and so I will, and if it goes badly, I will then vent a lot.

(Also, how in the world does Christ Hemsworth change sizes so much? Good grief, man, tiny GIANT tiny GIANT. I know, I know, filmed at different times and in different orders, but it is sort of jarring. And also, sort of awesome.)

(Speaking of GIANT and watching Joss Whedon projects despite my side-eyeing him, is it May yet? No? How about now? WHY ISN'T IT TIME FOR THE TONY STARK SNARK EXTRAVAGANZA?)

Finally, this is the first I'm hearing of Likeme Lighthouse, a new lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community center here in Kansas City, but I am intrigued. Also, they're having a NOH8 photo shoot tomorrow, for you locals who are interested.

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(LJ Only: Icon is so appropriate. I should upload more icons to dreamwidth.)

Who's in?

Check out this line-up: Black Oxygen, Adelita's Way (!!!), New Medicine, Rev Theory (!), Art of Dying, Theory of a Deadman (!), Cavo, Chevelle, Trivium (!), SLASH GODDAMN SLASH OKAY (!!!!!!!), Black Stone Cherry (!), Five Finger Death Punch (!), Volbeat, Hell Yeah, Shinedown (!), and a fireworks show to end it all. I will need so much alcohol to deal with the crowds, but damn, how much do I not want to miss the 20th anniversary.

$35 for 15 bands and 12 hours of music (or $25 for presale if you're a registered rockaholic with 98.9 The Rock) is an amazing deal. Who wants to come visit me and rock out?



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Thanks to das_hydra for the gorgeous blue dragon and to aea and anonymous for the sparkly hearts. They made me clap and grin!

This evening I am trying to write horror that creeps me out as I write it. I don't always succeed (I am difficult to scare), but sometimes I manage it. Two different YA horror in progress, surely I can be creepy in one of them for a few hours before I do more legal work.

And finally, let the mantra begin: Why isn't it riding season yet?

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ETA Lovecraftian Shenanigans cowriter just messaged me with this blurb for it (complete with DRAMATIC MOVIE ANNOUNCER VOICE!): In a WORLD where HOT DUDES have TENTACLES, WATCH OUT for NUZZLING RAT-MONSTERS!

Bwahaha. And now I can vent to her about this ableist thing I just read instead of blowing up online or being up half the night sitting on my hands so I won't blow up online.

So it's been almost two years since I regularly updated the monthly project updates, but it is time to start them again, because I get a lot more done when I keep track of my writing in a variety of ways.

This month, I thought I'd kick it off with a fun thing, too. When I’m in traffic, to entertain myself, once in awhile I'll come up with blurbs for my fiction writing projects. (I create them for my nonfiction writing projects, too, but mostly those are confidential, so I can’t really talk about them even if you were interested in legal writing projects.) I even say them aloud in a DRAMATIC MOVIE ANNOUNCER voice, sometimes.

(Sometimes the music is up too loud for that.)

So for this month's project update, I thought I'd include some of the recent blurbs. I recommend giving them your own DRAMATIC MOVIE ANNOUNCER voice.

( Monthly Project Update )

So what are you working on right now?

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For your gift-giving pleasure, I recommend the following items and/or small businesses, in no particular order.

+ The Shattering by Karen Healey

Blurb: Seventeen-year-old Keri likes to plan for every possibility. She knows what to do if you break an arm, or get caught in an earthquake or fire. But she wasn't prepared for her brother's suicide, and his death has left her shattered with grief. When her childhood friend Janna tells her it was murder, not suicide, Keri wants to believe her. After all, Janna's brother died under similar circumstances years ago, and Janna insists a visiting tourist, Sione, who also lost a brother to apparent suicide that year, has helped her find some answers.

As the three dig deeper, disturbing facts begin to pile up: one boy killed every year; all older brothers; all had spent New Year's Eve in the idyllic town of Summerton. But when their search for the serial killer takes an unexpected turn, suspicion is cast on those they trust the most.

As secrets shatter around them, can they save the next victim? Or will they become victims themselves?

As I've said before, The Shattering is the book of my heart. I think it would make an excellent gift, particularly for those who like supernatural adventures and friendships and amazing flawed characters and chosen families.

+ Raised By Wolves and Trial By Fire by Jennifer Lynn Barnes.

Blurb (for Raised By Wolves, to avoid later spoilers): At the age of four, Bryn watched a rogue werewolf brutally murder her parents. Alone in the world, she was rescued and taken in by the mysterious Callum, the alpha of his werewolf pack. Now fifteen, Bryn’s been raised as a human among werewolves, adhering to pack rule (mostly). Little fazes her.

But the pack’s been keeping a secret, and when Bryn goes exploring against Callum’s direct orders, she finds Chase, a newly turned teen Were locked in a cage. Terrifying memories of the attack on her mom and dad come flooding back. Bryn needs answers, and she needs Chase to get them. Suddenly, all allegiances to the pack no longer matter. It’s Bryn and Chase against the werewolf world, whatever the consequences.

These have been my favorite werewolf media of 2011, combining so many of my favorite things, werewolves and strong female characters and best friends who are badasses and, again, chosen families. Highly, highly recommend.

+ Leila by Elizabeth Reeve

Blurb: When college student Megan hits the library, she's looking for sources for a paper on Carmilla, an early vampire story. But in gorgeous librarian Leila, she finds much, much more. It's no surprise that Leila haunts Megan's dreams, but as her fantasies heat up, she begins to wonder -- is Leila really who she seems to be?

Sexy, charming, and fun, I love this lesbian vampire and human love story.

+ Lilo & Stitch

An alien lands on Kauai and goes from bad to good. Siblings being heartbreaking and sweet and delightful and the most adorable chosen family ever.

+ Fast Five

I actually recommend most of the series (The Fast and the Furious, Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, and Fast & Furious, at least), but this one is a delightful heist movie full of characters of color. I was surprised that this ended up being one of my favorite movies, but it was a grand adventure.

+ Three Cheep Chicks

Three friends of mine (one of whom is also my sister) make beautiful, affordable jewelry. I have a ton of pieces from them, but every time I see something new, I find more to love. Shiny, inexpensive, but quality bits and bobs are wonderful.

So what are some of your favorite things this year?

(NB: Links to Amazon are affiliate links. Karen and Eliza and the Three Cheep Chicks are all friends of mine, but I objectively love these things as well.)

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Apparently these entries did not crosspost earlier, so I am doing it manually now.

If you would like to receive a holiday card from me and haven't sent me your address, leave a comment here (comments screend) or email me at carlamlee@gmail.com. I wrote the first batch of cards today, and have cards going out to the following places:

Tempe, Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
Timboon, Victoria, Australia
Clayton, California
Riverside, California
Santa Rosa, California
Chicago, Illinois
Lawrence, Kansas
Olathe, Kansas
North Bethesda, Maryland
Dorchester, Massachusetts
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Lansing, Michigan
Ypsilanti, Michigan
Plymouth, Minnesota
Cape Girardeau, Missouri
Pacific, Missouri
Rolla, Missouri
St. James, Missouri
Brooklyn, New York
Greensboro, North Carolina
Maineville, Ohio
Toledo, Ohio
Hillsboro, Oregon
Memphis, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Leeds, UK
London, UK
Madison, Wisconsin

Wow, no wonder my hands are tired. Many of those places have multiple cards. I should take a bit of a break, I guess. Maybe I will watch more Pushing Daisies and wrap presents. That's always fun.

Happy anniversary to my parents, married fifty-six years.

Happy anniversary to me, practicing law for one whole year.

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