I will not ask you where you came from…

Hello all my lovelies! I am remiss on the blog once again. It’s a common theme, but I’m trying for 3 posts per month. This month it’s two. Well, I still have a week for a third post, right? It could happen. And I have many things I’d like to say, but these are the quick updates.

I have some news regarding A Ragged Magic, and what’s going on, publishing-wise. Since I’m changing publishers, or rather, my original publisher (Per Aspera) became part of another publisher (Ragnarok) and Ragnarok is going to reissue ARM, that means that the book will be unavailable for purchase from retailers starting July 1st. If you want to buy the book and you haven’t yet, you’ll have to contact me here (Lindsey@lindseysjohnson.com) to set that up, or wait for the reissue, which will most likely be sometime in November. When I know the exact date I will be sure to let you know. SO … if you want a permanent and beautiful piece of THIS AWESOME ARTWORK:

A_Ragged_Magic_ARC-front-cover

Be sure to order ASAP and get yourself a copy now at your favorite retailer. Because once that is off the market, and I am out of books, that truly lovely cover by Angie Abler will be a collector’s item. I do love that cover, but I am fairly certain that new artwork will be ordered for the new issue, to go with new marketing, to go with the new publisher. Which is all in service to new, shiny books, that will be ready for your reading pleasure in just a few months. And THEN! Onto the sequel! Which I am furiously writing right now. (Note re: furiously – there’s some swearing going on, coming from me, as I shove some plot around that I came up with that is TOTALLY AWESOME but changes stuff I already wrote, but I swear I am working Very Hard.)

In other life news, the eXit SPACE 10th anniversary dance performance went wonderfully well. We had a blast, we kicked ass, we performed the hell out of all of our pieces, and we had a blast. Did I mention we had a blast? We were very, very sparkly, and very, very silly, and I love all my dancer peeps and I’m still going through withdrawals, even though I’ve been to classes since. Some days when I get to the studio I just want to awkwardly hug everyone a lot. I don’t, because I try really hard not to be too creepy with everyone. It’s a trial.

But here are some photos to prove how much fun we were having.

80s

80s makeup for A Chorus Line. Because Duran Duran eyes. That’s why. Bonus sweat from just getting off stage. I aim to make these experiences realistic. PS sweatbands are only sort of helpful. Must be why they went out of style.

jazz it

JAZZ IT! Most of the Jazz cast. We’re so proud.

modern selfie

Modern backstage selfie. Aww, dancer love.

Now I’m back to my regularly over-scheduled summer. I keep thinking I don’t have that much going on, and then suddenly I realize that I have something scheduled for every weekend for the next forever and how did that happen, anyway? I’m naturally a homebody and an introvert. I really like people (most people) but I also really need time to sit and process and not do. And by not do, I mean NOT DO. NOTHING DOING. SITTING ON MY BUTT THINKING SOME BUT SORT OF JUST STARING AT ZIPPO WHILE I LET MY MIND WANDER. That’s how I manage my buzzing brain, anyway. Lately I’ve spent too much time on twitter and stuff instead, but I really benefit from staring into space. I come up with plot and character that way, I come up with words that way, I let go of things that are bothering me that way, I keep my keel relatively even that way. So pardon me if sometimes, if I’m over-scheduled, I don’t talk to people too much. My keel is getting uneven and I have to shift sails and look for calmer waters in the ship of my head. Or something. (Sailors, stop laughing.) (Or keep laughing, I live to entertain.)

This is my life. It’s weird, but it’s good. Working on evening out my keel, keeping on dancing, keeping on writing, keeping on keeping on. Happy Summer!

Title is from “Like Real People Do” by Hozier, which I am completely obsessed with at the moment.

But I really really wanna thank you for dancing till the end…

Well hello, June is busting out all over. In that it is now June, and May went away, and I’m behind and exhausted and sore but GETTING SO STRONG, so that’s gotta be worth something, right?

I spent the whole of May either working out, taking dance class, rehearsing for the upcoming show, working, writing, or recovering from those things. And more the physical stuff than anything else, and oh, how sore I am. But my guns are looking really gunny these days, which has been awhile since I’ve seen those, so I’m stoked about that. Also my legs are stronger, my stamina is better, and I’m feeling pretty good about most of the choreography. All from lifting other dancers, lifting myself, doing pushups, doing situps, doing leg lifts, plies, the elliptical, walking, and just boogie, boogie, boogie all the live-long day.

I’m very tired.

All of this is to explain why I haven’t blogged – I haven’t had the bandwidth for the blogging. Brain brain what is brain? It’s that thing that I use for work, some writing on the sequel, choreography and NOTHING ELSE because it just gives up and shuts down when I try. It makes it really hard when people bring me stuff at work that I’m not ready for, because I can feel my thought process ka-chunk ka-chunk into a new gear and I have to blink and stutter for a few minutes until I can focus on the new thing. And I’m only in 5 dance pieces – I don’t know how certain others who are in 9 or so pieces are even handling their lives. Possibly they take naps. Or they’re just way more badass than I am.

But the show! The show is coming up in under two weeks and we’re pushing to be so kick ass, y’all! If you didn’t get your tickets, you’re about to be super sad, because Saturday’s show is sold out, and Friday’s is almost so. But if you did get yours, hey presto, we are going to entertain the heck out of you. Be ready. June 12th and 13th are the evening shows, and there are 4 matinees with the kids on the 13th and 14th. I’m in at least one dance in each matinee, so I’m going to show up with my fancy new costume suitcase and live at the theater, starting the night of the 9th, which is the first tech rehearsal. (10th, other tech rehearsal, 11th, dress rehearsal, and then shows starting the 12th. There is a reason I’ve been pushing myself on the stamina front.) If I can, I will post pictures. If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you’ll see some there. SO MUCH BOOGIE AND JAZZ HANDS. Yay! (If you still want to try to see it, go to brownpapertickets.com and look up takePAUSE 2015.)

In writing news, I am chugging away at the sequel to A Ragged Magic, and changing my mind about a few things I thought were set, but maybe they aren’t, and then chugging away again. Uh. In the middle, is what I am. The messy, messy middle where I start to panic and throw plotlines about and hope some kind of coherency shows up to help me out. I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THESE PEOPLE, HOW DO I FIX THIS, I NEED THEM TO GET OVER HERE BUT THEY’RE JUST MILLING AROUND TALKING ABOUT CRAP AND IGNORING ME. That’s where I am. So I’m about to rocks fall, buncha people die on it, because why plot holes why ya gotta do me like this, is why. I do feel that I have some really cool awesome plot in there, but the issue is making it hang together, and not get too bogged down in either explanations or side plots. And to not lose sight of the important character growth. I like where the plot is ultimately going, but I’m not always sure I know what I’m doing to get it there. I feel certain I am not the only writer in the world to struggle with this.

Other writing news is going on but I feel like I can’t really talk about it until I have official stuff to tell you, so it’s all kind of not-a-secret-but-I-have-no-information-so-just-hold-please. Annoying, I know, but I don’t have any control over that. Other people have all the control over that and I shall try not to be too anxious about that but probably fail. Anxious-R-Us, but that is hardly news to anyone, now, is it?

So, to sum up – ALL THE DANCING is happening, and I’m super tired and sore. WRITING IS HARD and I’m working on it. WORK IS, well, it’s just work. I go there a lot. They pay me, so that’s good.

LIFE: The Cliffsnotes version. Hope all your summers are shaping up to be loverly.

Title is from “Dance Apocalytic” by Janelle Monáe

Well there’s nothing to lose, and there’s nothing to prove, I’ll be dancing with myself…

Actually, I’ll be dancing with a lot of other people. Yay! It’s that time of year again – takePAUSE time! Come see the show!
takepauseb2015

Those of you who know me at all, know I love to dance. I adore it. It’s a passion and a life-giving force. I take classes several times a week at my home away from home, eXit SPACE dance studio here in Seattle – a wonderful dance studio for dancers of any ability or age. I’ve been dancing with Marlo Martin (director) since before she opened eXit SPACE, and I can tell you she’s created one of the most welcoming, friendly, uplifting places I have ever danced. It’s a great community full of wonderful people, and I’m so happy to spend time with them. I’ve made friends and found a place that I can be my weird and wild self and embrace the weird wildness of others and revel in it. Dance is something I feel like I can love without judgment. Even when I’m feeling judgey about myself, or my ability, or my body, I know that dance isn’t judging me, and no one else in class is judging me, and I can work out my feelings on the floor and the floor will catch me every time. (Sometimes harder than others, but it’s always there.) If I need my fellow dancers to catch me, they will be there to lift me up and toss me back on my feet, and I am there for them, too. I am by no means a professional, but Marlo and the other instructors have helped me become a much better dancer than I would be without them. I’m an enthusiastic amateur, and they help me to improve and conquer fears and doubts and push myself without hurting myself. They’ve helped me explore what I can do, and learn how to look good doing it. In short, to embody joy, and to share that joy with other dancers.

And now you can share in it, too, if you want to come see us dance! The studio puts on a show every year, and I haven’t missed one yet. This is our 10th takePAUSE and I’m so excited to be a part of it again. If you are local, and you want to share in our joy and exultations, the dates are June 12th and 13th at 8pm, (Friday night and Saturday night) at 8 pm. We’d be so happy to have you! Tickets are on sale NOW – go to brownpapertickets.com to get some. But GET YOUR TICKETS RIGHT AWAY, because we WILL SELL OUT. We’ve already sold a startling number, and they’ve only been available for 4 days. If you don’t get them soon, you will miss out, and then you will be sad. You don’t want to be sad, do you? Those of you who’ve said you were sad to miss it in the past – now’s your chance! Grab some ticky-tickets!

I’m in 5 pieces this year – which is a lot. It’s more than I’ve ever been in for one show. I know we’re technically counting the Broadway stuff as one piece for certain class rehearsal reasons, but come on, it’s not one piece; it’s three. Two of them are on the short side, but it’s still  completely different chunks of choreography, different costumes, and it’s split up into different parts of the show. So there. The pieces are the audition dance from “A Chorus Line,” (slightly changed) (that choreo looks cheesy, but it’s pretty difficult, and cheese makes it more fun) (If you make it too pretty, you lose the cheese, is our motto), “All That Jazz,” from “Chicago”, and “Too Darn Hot,” from “Kiss Me Kate.” The modern piece I’m in is not quite finished, but it’s getting very, uh, let’s just say we’re jumping up and down a lot. A Lot. The fact that I’ve been working on my stamina and wind is a very good idea, is what I’m saying. The same could be said for the jazz, which is mostly finished and so much fun. If nothing else convinces you to show up to this show, the jazz piece would – we are gonna knock some socks off, and I’m not afraid to say it.

Rehearsals are going well, the studio is full up with the cries of “6, 7, 8!” and “let’s do that again, right?” and “Wait, wait, what was that again?” and “YES!” There are some dancers who are there 6 days out of 7 and I think they should get a little cot in the back for naps between rehearsals. (I am not one of them, but I do feel like I might need to punch a time card some weeks.) All the jumping up and down is getting my butt into literal shape (not kidding, I need to get some new pants), the muscles in my arms are standing out with all the lifting of dancers (and extra pushups and planks), and I think I have better flexibility this year, because I’ve been working on that. Go go gadget dancer! I’m being very careful of my older-than-the-rest-of-me knees, but all in all I’m feeling really good.

takePAUSE will have many dance types on display to enjoy, as per usual– tap, hip-hop, ballet, Broadway, jazz, and modern pieces from dancers of all ability levels. Marlo’s company badmarmar will have a piece in the show, as well. We aim to misbehave and entertain, and we aim to do so with a lot of style. So there you have it. Come to the show! We are awesome and fun and you’ll have a good time. Time for all the boogie!

takepause2015

Title is from “Dancing With Myself” by Billy Idol, but I expect you knew that.

I had a thought dear, however scary …

Writing can reveal your inner fears to yourself. Sometimes it’s your deepest fears and worries and heartaches, that you wring out and put into your story. That’s a good thing, and should be explored. I don’t always know I’m doing it, until it’s there. It can be hard to continue, once I recognize it, hard to really face. But of course, that’s where the meat of the matter is, in dreams and hopes and fears. That’s why we write story, why we read it. That’s how story resonates with other people.

Sometimes, however, the fear that is revealed is the fear of Doing It Wrong – being wrong, or bad at it, or failing – that shows up, and you (I) don’t get any writing done at all. That’s not a good thing. It’s a battle that I know many, many writers fight. If you don’t write, of course you fail (at writing). But if you do write, and fail anyway, then you know it’s because you (I) just didn’t do it very well. The writing wasn’t good enough. And that thought can be paralyzing.

The answer to that, so everyone says, and I believe them, is to write *more*, to become better. But the human psyche is a capricious jerk, and likes to tell us to give up. Persistence is key, persistence is how you succeed, but persistence is freaking nerve wracking and you have to continue on down echoing corridors of doubt that send you spiraling. How does one persist when one’s own brain is throwing monsters up in the air to fight? Monsters of air and shadow and whispers, monsters we make in our deep, scaredy hearts. Monsters that creep down those twisty corridors, waiting to spring, with their suggestions of claws, and claws of suggestions.

This is just the personal struggle, of course. This does not speak to the wider struggle everyone faces, to one degree or another: to be noticed, to be read, to be recommended or reviewed. And those struggles are different for everyone, for different reasons. There is no one way to become a published author. But we all struggle to get there. Sometimes we (I) struggle to write at all.

I have known people who don’t struggle when they write. They just … write. They have stories and they write those stories down and they deal with the problems therein later. They keep going until it’s done, and then it’s done, and they hand it over. I wish I could be so sanguine, so confident. I’m working to train myself closer to this model, but so far I’m only somewhat successful. I run into roadblocks that I set up myself. I run off onto paths I set up but didn’t think through. I pull back from the story to mull, and research, and mulling and research turn into more mulling and research, and then sullenly staring at pages and thinking I should just scrap it all, it all is terrible, none of it works and I should never have started writing to begin with, why didn’t I want to be something reasonable, like anything else at all: a wizard, or a hippopotamus. Equally attainable goals.

Which is where I find myself now with this sequel. The muddle in the middle, it’s been called. I know the shape of the overall arch of the story, I know much of what happens, but in writing the details and scenes and making it interesting other than in my own head, I find I’m … stuck. Irritated with myself, sitting in this muck of a mess I have made, staring at the squiggly lines of plot and thinking, this sucks. All of it sucks. I did not make a story, I made a mess. How am I going to make this mess into a story? It’s full of inconsistencies and random fragmentations and plot holes, and I’m pretty sure a wizard or a hippopotamus could fix it but I can’t. (The wizard would magic it better or turn it into a lovely figurine. The hippo would just eat it, or trample it, which might be a mercy.)

My plan, such as it is, is to make a list of all the scenes I have, what scenes I need, and where I’m missing plot, or where the plot holes are, to find out how to fix my mess. If I can’t do anything with that, I may just turn (whimpering) to my editor, to find out what he thinks. Because my progress for the last several weeks has consisted of me writing myself notes, asking myself questions, but not, so far, answering those questions. I’ve gone so far as to write the questions down, and then write “No but actually answer these questions” to myself, but as of yet I have not been able to do that. Pretty pathetic, when you think that all of these questions and answers really are just coming out of my own head. I feel like my own child, answering all my questions with “I dunno,” equally irritated with each version of myself, both for asking and not answering. Nope. Nope. Not coping. A hippo is the better choice, really. Hippos are mean. They would just destroy it all and revel in the destruction. I could really get into that. Wizards have to interact with other wizards and people are always asking them for things. Hippos just exist and no one messes with them. Best to be a hippo. I’ll get right on that.

As soon as I finish this damn story.

Title is from “Like Real People Do,” by Hozier

Welcome me to a haven given…

I have a guest blog up over at the Leasspell website today – it went up a couple of days ago, actually, but I was a bit busy over the weekend and didn’t get the message. So go read! Enjoy! Pull up a chair and check out the website! As usual, I used song lyrics for the title, which may confuse Leasspell’s viewers, but to know me is to be baffled by me, so I guess that’s fair. Go have a look at “They Preach that I Should Save the World, They Pray That I Won’t Do a Better Job of it”

Jennifer from Leasspell contacted me a few months ago and asked if I’d like to do a guest blog, and I said yes. It was going to happen earlier, but then the month of being sick plus all the things happened, and Jennifer was away on vacation, so it’s happening now. Happy blog guesting! It’s all about how I like teenagers, and I like to write for them. Enjoy!

(Of course, this title is from Indigo Girls “Welcome Me”)

I left my shadow waiting down the road for me awhile…

March has marched on out, and here is April, letting me know that it’s farther along in the season than I think, and I’d better get my literal butt into literal shape and push myself more in the working out department, and the writing department, and the spring cleaning department – all the departments.

I am a tad behind in blogging, due to, well, everything, and so this will be a State of the Lindsey post to get my mind in order.

At the beginning of March I was down in the Bay area. I went to FogCon, which is a small, fun little con, and I was on the radio on KPFA, with my aunt Kris Welch. She has a radio program on Fridays and Saturdays, and you can check out the interview in the archive if you go to https://kpfa.org/ and look up the date, which was March 6th at 1230 pm or so. Kris interviewed me, and also Lori Ann White, who is a local writer and my friend. (I stayed with her while I was there, because I love my Lori.) We talk about SF/F conventions in general, and A Ragged Magic in specific. Yay! It was so much fun. I was a bit nervous, and worried I was talking too fast, but I was told it went well.

The convention itself was fun, although it felt a bit disjointed to me, which was mostly because we weren’t staying there at the hotel, so we were on the road a lot. Lori was kind enough to drive me all over the Bay area and back so I could visit her, and go to this con, and see fambly. (Lori is kind of fambly, so I was with fambly all that weekend and it was great.) (Except for the plugged-up ear that would not unplug, due to the tail end of the month of teh sick, and teh crud, and teh bleah. That part sucked.) We hung out with friends new and known, and on Saturday night we played a game called Slash, which is kind of like Apples to Apples but with making up OTPs (One True Pairings) (i.e. romantic relationships) with the names on the cards. The names were real people as well as fictional characters, and it is a blast to play. I love it more than all the other versions of that kind of game I have played, and I want to get it. Thanks to our new friends and our already known friends for inviting us to play. And thanks to Gary for letting us more social types drag him along, because he was hilarious.

On Sunday evening Lori and I went back to KPFA and watched the honoring of some of KPFA’s notable women for International Women’s Day, and then had dinner with some more notable women, notably my aunt Kris and cousin Nicolas, and Nicolas’ notable baby Mandela (who is cute enough to melt your face, I am not kidding, this kid is working it). Then on Monday Lori drove me back north (again!) to Kris’ and Nicolas’ house, and my parents came over from Davis, too, and it was just a Welchy time. So much Welch, I’m telling you. My dad is used to it, but I hope Lori was amused and entertained.

Moving ahead in time, Norwescon was here in the Seattle area (Seatac, but it counts) this past weekend. I did not officially attend, but I did go Friday night to have dinner with my editor/publisher, and some of the other authors/artists in our house. We are a fun, silly group, and I like hanging out with us. There are some interesting things going on, publishing-wise, that I will reveal at a later date.

We (Scott and I, along with the Per Aspera crew) then headed over to the convention, and went to parties. Scott and I were there as unofficial “hey these people know us enough to just let us in” people. Not really ghosting, but not really attending, either. Good times were had. Saturday I attended the con as a bar-con attendee; which means I spent most of my time in the bar. But I did go to Julie McGalliard’s book launch party, where we celebrated her book coming out, “Waking Up Naked in Strange Places,” which is fantastic and you should totally check it out. http://gothhouse.com/ Julie and I work together at our day jobs (well, we work for the same place, near one another) and sometimes we have lunch or snack breaks and brainstorm story. I’m so excited to see the story in book form, which I had her sign her very own self. She sold out of books this weekend, and people had to place orders. So exciting! Go Julie!

I spent the rest of Saturday hanging with various and sundry wonderful people, meeting some new wonderful people, reconnecting with wonderful people I haven’t seen in a long time, and laughing myself silly. Well, sillier. Good times. Even though I couldn’t afford to officially attend, and I didn’t get see everyone I would have liked to, and I had to drive the long drive home both nights, I’m so glad I went.

Sunday was a day of not going to the con. I had modern rehearsal in the afternoon, and since I didn’t get back to my apartment until after 2am, I didn’t get out of bed until 11. And then I laid about in a stupor for a good long time, feeling old and logy. I am old, Father William. It is very hard on me to stay up until 2 anymore. Plus the sugar-drunk is probably not great for me, either. But it was worth it. (For those all six of you who read this who might not already know, I do not get actually drunk, because alcohol tastes icky, but I usually have way too much sugar at a party.)

Rehearsals for this year’s dance performance are in full swing and I’m hanging in there, even with the 2+ weeks of dancing I missed in Feb due to being sick, and the month+ of other workouts I didn’t have. But it does mean that I’m not in the shape I wanted to be in at this point, and the rehearsals are harder on my body than I’d like. So – this means more workouts, and pushing myself (carefully) and maybe even (bleah!) lifting weights. (BLEAH!) (Hate weights. Hates them. So boring.) I would rather do thousands of crunches and pushups (to pumping fun music) than lift weights. But if I want to get the muscles stronger faster, I might have to. Stupid sickness, making me behind where I want to be. Also I need to get back on track with my knee PT exercises, because ow, old knees.

On the GOOD side of all of that, the dances are So Much Fun and we are SO DAMN AWESOME so if you are local to Seattle, and like to watch fun dancers kicking All The Ass, you should be ready to buy your tickets for the show. The show – TAKE||PAUSE – will be June 12-13, tickets on sale May 1st, and there will be jazz, modern, Broadway, ballet, hip-hop, and tap dancing in it. I’m in 3 pieces – well, 5. Well, 3. Well, it depends on how you count. I’m in one jazz, one modern, and one Broadway jazz, but that Broadway is really 3 pieces, that were going to be a medley, but due to costume changes and other constraints, are now spread throughout the show. So it’s kind of 3 pieces, although for rehearsal purposes it’s 1. We’re dancing the Chorus Line audition piece, part of All That Jazz, and Too Darn Hot – and we are so very Broadway, with All The Cheese. (Our upcoming t-shirt: “If it gets too pretty, it loses the cheese.”) You will love it. The modern piece has started rehearsing now, and there’s going to be some fun partnering in it (I need stronger quads right now, holy shmolies), and the jazz is going very well, lots of Charleston type moves and spins. My knees hate me, but I’m working on them.

Writing-wise, this past month was partially a bust. I blame being sick for so long. I did get some done, and I had a breakthrough of some pretty cool proportions. I spoke with Fabulous Editor Jak ™ about all of it over the weekend, and I’m going to go ahead with my breakthrough and follow the story. It’s a little nerve-wracking, but I’m still working, and still plugging away on it. If I think too hard about how much further there is to go, I get overwhelmed and it all stops. So I have to just keep working on groups of scenes and hope it all strings together into some kind of coherent whole in the end. I feel like I sort of almost kind of know what I might be doing. Ish. Which is about par for the course for writing, so I guess it’s going well.

So that’s the rather long State of the Lindsey wrap-up report for the month of March and beginning of April. I’d better get back to it – it being All the Things. Get to writing, people, and take your dance breaks, and Rock On.

Title is from “Cloudy” by Simon and Garfunkel

Disrespect us, no they won’t.

It’s another rantypants post, aren’t you lucky. I’m feeling all the ranty feels about this one, so enjoy.

There’s a particular meme going around social media at the moment that infuriates me, because it is sexist and ageist and so very palpably trying to pretend to be intellectually vigorous, but it’s a giant lie.

The meme goes like this: there’s a picture of Einstein, with a quote attributed to him, that says something about how when technology overtakes human interaction, that we’ll have a generation of idiots. First problem – Einstein never said that. Not once. Not ever. EINSTEIN NEVER SAID THAT. That is a misattribution from the movie “Powder.” Yes, the 90s movie about a paranormal teen said that Einstein said that, but he never did. So there’s your first problem.

Second problem – the picture below that picture shows a group of five young, likely teenage girls, wearing summer clothes, outside, all looking at their smartphones. As if to say – Hah! Look at that! Because these are teenagers, and they’re looking at their phones, and most of all, because they’re GUUURRRRRLLS, they are idiots! Haha! Isn’t that clever? See! Kids these days! Einstein (who never said that) was right!

It’s so disingenuous. You don’t know what those girls are looking at, on those phones. They could be looking up historical facts about a nearby monument. They could be coordinating a protest, or a workshop, or a study group. They could be helping out a friend who is in trouble and needs somewhere safe to go, and they’re trying to figure out where that would be. They might be texting each other about someone’s outfit, or how cute the guys in One Direction are, or looking at facebook (which is where YOU (general you) got this stupid meme anyway, so who are you to judge), or laughing at a joke, or making a comment on the political situation in the local school board. YOU DON’T KNOW. AND WHY DO  YOU CARE? Plus deciding that what these GUUUURRRLLLS are doing with their smart phones is idiotic, when it is the EXACT SAME THING that YOU (again, general you) do with your smartphone every damn day, is … well, I’m just saying those girls aren’t the idiots in this situation. Take off your judgey McJudgeypants and also dismount your very judgey high horse and maybe you should remember that judging kids that way is a pretty crappy thing to do. So stop it.

Our society very much enjoys putting girls down and laughing at them. This attitude continues and follows women into adulthood, but it starts, and is particularly virulent and violent, with teen girls. What girls listen to, what they talk about, what they do, what they read – all of it is regarded as stupid, vapid, slutty, gross, frivolous, ridiculous, worthless. It has to be proven otherwise, before people will believe it. We have to put up example after example of young women and teen girls doing amazing things, and those young women or teen girls are always seen as an anomaly, not as par for the course. We are dismissive of evidence because we’re used to dismissing women, girls, and teenagers overall.

Why, you ask? Sexism, ageism, and the general jerkiness of humanity as it ages. Shake your canes all damn day, people who say “kids these days.” Girls organize protests, create art, are inventers, are scientists, are poets, are dancers, are artists, are political, are smart and funny and awesome. They look at their smartphones, and so do you. They interact with people all over the world all at once, and find it normal. They are marching into the future to be the next generation of people running things, and everyone moans and groans because oh noes, those girls, they are so vapid! But they aren’t vapid, you just have decided they are. Maybe you’re the vapid ones, and it’s driving you crazy. Maybe you should look up from your social media once in awhile. Or actually look at the social media that girls are creating and participating in, and interacting with humanity in, and realize how fully amazing they are.

PS “It might behoove you to look up quotes before forwarding them on. Sometimes, quotes on the internet are misattributed.” – Jane Austen.

PPS Jane Austen didn’t say that. But I did.

Title is from “Run the World (Girls)” by Beyoncé. Oh yes I did.

I heard it on the radio ….

Hi everyone – guess what? I’m still sick. Whee! Going on antibiotics today to kill off the rest of this bug.

BUT – guess what ELSE? I’m a-gonna be on the radio! My auntie, Kris Welch, has a radio program on KPFA on Fridays at noon, and I’m going down to the bay area to be on her show, and to go to FogCon, and to hang out with the fantabulous Lori Ann White, who is awesome. So if you have a hankerin to hear Lori and me talk about conventions in general, and listen to me talk about A Ragged Magic in specific, I’ll be on Kris’ show at about 1240 pm this Friday, 3/6. It’s going to be fun. You can stream it or whatever works for you – the info is on the website.

And if my voice is back to normal, you can all play the game of “Who said that, Linz or Kris?” Because my voice sounds a lot like my aunt’s. (And my mother’s. And a little like my other aunt. Get us all in a room, and then everyone can play the game! Hours of family fun!) (But seriously Kris has a good program and you should listen.

Other than that, I’m still recovering from the crud, which knocked me out of commission for the past two weeks. Our washing machine is broken and our rental company is unresponsive, so who knows how long that will last. Medea, the older kitty, is acting grumpy and upset, and we’re a little worried about her. I’ve missed 2 rehearsals already from being sick, so I’m not only sick of being sick, it’s starting to really piss me off. But! I will be better soon. Onward, marching into March, and I hope everyone is feeling a bit of hope with spring blowing on in.

Title is from that Donna Summers song, “On the Radio,” or something obvious like that.

You’re giving me such sweet nothing ….

A couple things first – I didn’t post last week, because I am sick. Sick, sick, sick. Sickity sick. I came down with the crud HARD from Radcon, starting Tuesday night and lasting until … undertermined. Sore throat and fever that spiked to 101 and bounced up and down for a few days, now has morphed into a gross phlegmy chest cold and I guess we’ll just see where it goes from here. I’m miserable and have done little other than lie on the couch for days. Today I’m back at work, but my brain is fuzzy. However, even with a fuzzy brain, I have something I’d like to rant about. The rant will not be as impassioned as maybe it should be, because I don’t have the energy to spare. But I think it’s important, so Imma give it a try.

Intersectionality – I’ll get there, but I’ll ramble first. Sick, remember.

Last night, against my better judgement, I watched the Oscars. I watched it because, even though it’s racist AF and sexist and really more of a barometer of how inner circle cool kids felt about movies than how the world that watches felt about movies, I like NPH, and I like Twitter, and I like watching things that are being live-tweeted while watching Twitter, and my brain is fuzzy so I said why not. The show was … uneven. NPH kinda didn’t make it work, and I don’t know how much of that was the Academy pulling his jokes and saying no beforehand, and how much was he just was having an off night. But there were a couple of jokes that acknowledged the racism of the Oscars in a way that felt weirdly congratulatory, and a bit that was totally a bit (even though he said it wasn’t a bit) that went on WAAY TOO LONG, NEIL. Also, please don’t ask Octavia Butler to be part of a boring bit that makes it look like she has to do you a favor. Because … that looked weird, too. And there some of the jokes just weren’t really that funny. It’s a hard gig, I know, but he’s been a good host of other shows, so … I don’t know why it was kind of blah. I mean, I do blame him for those iffy jokes that were “we’re totally racist! Haha!” That doesn’t help as much as he might think. There was a sexist one there at the end that I just … blanked out on, because I was tired. Some of the presenters were kind of off, but that’s always true. And why was John Travolta touching women like a weird creepy relative? Can he not do that? Seriously, Scarlet Johansen and Idina Menzel, he was pawing them. Weird.

And, yeah, a really awful racist moment with Sean Penn. I don’t care if the director who won is a pal – that kind of shitty, racist joke is scattershot, and it hurts everyone it barrels into. I already knew Sean Penn was a horrible person, so I guess it’s not a surprise he has racist blind spots and likes to diminish a victorious moment with a racist joke, but it really sucked.

The speeches were actually pretty good this year, for the most part. I have to admit I was kind of tuning in and out, half zonked with this cold, and I paid a bit more attention to Twitter than the show here and there, but it seemed like there were some nice speeches going on, with something to say beyond a list of names. Several people were super cute in their shock and happiness, and I always like that. We had some fun messages going out: Call your parents, love to families and in one instance, one guy’s dog and in another, some donut shop, disease awareness, mental health awareness, and various calls for rights for all. Common and John Legend in particular had a really great, powerful duo of speeches, and they had a great performance of their song, and I loved it. I think they raised some great points, and they took the chance of that platform to make them.

Patricia Arquette had what sounded like a really great moment, where she called for equal wage rights for all women. At least, it sounded like she said/meant all women, although the “all the women who gave birth” moment gave me pause, and the “we’ve worked so hard for everyone else” thing made me side-eye. But it ended strong and I couldn’t be sure I wasn’t misunderstanding what she’d said, as it went by fast, and I’m sick. But it turns out no, she did say those things. And then in her backstage comments, she made it worse. She basically is saying that “women” have “fought for gays and people of color and everyone else,” so now it’s “our turn.” Uh … that’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works. First of all, there are women in the LGTBQ community, and there are (shocker!) women of color. And there are disabled women, and there are women who are not citizens of this country that our country treats poorly, as well. So in the words of Flavia Dzodan – My feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit.

I don’t have the energy to go into all what intersectionality means. Read Dzodan’s essay, read this essay by Jarune Uwujaren and Jamie Utt, read and do your homework about intersectionality. I’m still doing mine – it’s important work, and it’s important to understand it. But the TL:DR version of all of this is – feminism should not only have white, middle-class, cishet women in it. And the needs of women of color, of disabled women, of transwomen, of lesbian women, need to be included in the fight, because oppression doesn’t take turns as to which part of you it’s oppressing. If you are more than one thing, then oppression hits you at all points of awful, not just one at a time. And I’m sorry, Patricia, I really like your work, but you are not being inclusive and your words are actively making things worse.

White women don’t get to tell people – many of whom are already doing the work of fighting for everyone’s rights, by the flipping way – that they are doing it wrong and they should stop it and follow their (our) extremely problematic lead. It’s not OK to tell women who are Black that they need to stop fighting for equal rights for Black people, so that they can support you because you’re a woman? What? How does that even follow? Yes, equal rights for all women. By the way, Black women are paid less than White women. Yes, White women are paid less than White Men. If you add in other intersectional oppressions, then the person makes less than that. So a disabled transwoman of color is making even less for the same job – did Ms. Arquette acknowledge that in her speech? No. Did she even think of it at all? We need to recognize that our privileges make us blind to some things, and try to make it better if we screw up. This was a screw-up that angered and injured a lot of women, intentional or not. I hope she works to make it better.

For my part, I will continue to do my homework and learn how to be a better ally to women who don’t fit into the white middle class mold. And I say equal rights for all women – every single last intersectional one of them.

 

Title is from “Sweet Nothing” which it turns out is by some guy named Clavin Harris, but Florence from Florence and the Machine sings it, so … did I mention I’m sick?

… but I ain’t up for my baby tonight …

I had vague plans on writing something clever for this blog this week. I was going to write up a ranty post about certain 80s song lyrics – which I might still do in the future – but I have lost my oomph for that post, and it’s just sitting there. I also thought about a post regarding the fun, ridiculous, fou-pants ride of a movie that is “Jupiter Ascending,” but there are so many posts about it already, and you can find much more fun and clever and gleeful info about it at various locations, that I decided not to. (As @cleolinda says, “Everything Happens So Much.” And others “This movie is absolute garbage and I love it and I want to see it again.” My main thoughts are: it’s beautiful, lost in enormous amounts of unexplained or inexplicable backstory, it mixes a nefarious marriage/property plot of Edwardian Empire manners with SF tropes and consequences not as well as it might have, and I will own it and watch the pretty pretty often and with glee.)

I pondered posting up something about how the sequel writing is going, but I feel like I don’t have a lot to tell you at present, other than I’m writing, and it’s going, and I’m alternately a genius and a hack, and it’s February …. Yeah. I could tell you that rehearsal season for this summer’s show has begun, and I’m working out harder, and I’m sore, and we just learned some kick-ass choreo to “Too Darn Hot” for the Broadway set, but – there, I just did. That takes care of that. (Kick. Ass. So Much Fun. And Ow.)

So I guess for this post I’m just going to tell y’all that I’m going to Radcon this weekend (starting tomorrow) in the Tri-Cities, and I’m going to hang out and be writerly and have fun and not buy too much jewelry or books and eat (sometimes decent) food. I shall endeavor to work out once, and dance some (if there’s a dance anywhere that’s any good – i.e. no smoke and some music I like at least sometimes … but that oil smoke is a big dance killer, and I wish it would go out of style, and that plus angry trance music is all Radcon dances have been these last few years) and spend time with friends and  write (!) some more. FINISHING THE ROUGH DRAFT OMG I REALLY WANT TO BE DONE WITH IT.

So that’s your postum (Postum, the Postal Adhesive! Tastes kinda like coffee!) for this week. I shall type up some sort of contemplative fuzzies on the con when I get back. Writers gonna write, y’all. Peace out.

Title is from “Too Darn Hot,” which is in turn from “Kiss Me Kate,” a Cole Porter musical that is a lot dirtier than I remembered when I watched it again, and also incredibly, horrifically sexist. But it has fun dance numbers! Also I want to be the dancer who slides out screaming for the Fosse bit in that Tom Dick and Harry dance number. That’s totally me, fruging and all.