What with one thing and another, I'm pretty sure that my creative writing pen name is going to remain Tytania Strange. I think that merging the writing and singing under one name is just too darned confusing and I'd rather that the too activities existed independently of one another. That means that, at some point, I may create a singing blog under my real name. However, nothing of the kind will happen until after I'm on holiday break.

I'm sort of doing Nanowrimo, which is to say that I have about 7,000 words or so written which is about 6,000 more than I usually get through. I started writing from the beginning then got bored and shifted over to writing from the end. It seemed to me that I might have a better story if I actually knew where it was going. So, I churn out derivative garbage, jumping back in time chapter by chapter. Then I go to the stuff I've already done to adjust it for the latest changes in actual plot and to make it somewhat less sucky.

On the plus side, playing around with Twilight gives me an automatic outline for a story. On the minus side, the heroine ends up learning exactly nothing and being both an idiot and a jerk. So, a lot of stuff has to get adjusted. For example, it's one thing to think that you want to sacrifice yourself for the sake of the love of your life but actually doing it would likely change a person's perspective. I'm not sure you'd wake up in the hospital thinking "ZOMG I'm so glad that I made that potentially life-ending choice and despite the pain and the fear and the part where I kind of wet myself, I would totally go back and do it again!!" The closest I can get would be to say that our heroine's butt has been saved and now, being an idiotic teen, she's pretty well convinced that she's always going to get saved. She thinks she's got it all figured out which will lead her to bigger risk-taking that is ultimately self-destructive.

The other challenge, outside of having to change the plot three times a day due to the suckage and MarySueness, is the fact that the narrator has to have a certain amount of knowledge as she's telling the story that she didn't have when she was experiencing it. The question is, will she jerk the reader around and let them draw the wrong conclusions in order to prove that they could do no better than she did in the same situation, or is she going to hint around about all the knowledge that she has now, almost bragging that she did, ultimately, have a major role to play. It's really a matter of mystery versus clarity.

Also factor in that this is really just a version of an extremely convoluted story that I've been working on forever. It's gone through so many changes and mutations that I have a hard time working out sequences of events and which things simply have to be dropped in the interest of a better narrative. I end up getting way too invested in one idea or another and it's hard to let go of them.

Oh well, at least it's fun.

My PBS stations appear to be showing every single Celtic Woman special except the new one that I'm waiting to see. I don't want to wait until January to buy the DVD, we wants it now, preciouss!!! Additionally, if they released the dang thing right now, I could get it for my mom for Christmas and that would solve one gift. Instead, I'll have to get her A New Journey and/or the first special both of which she has seen on PBS.

Sadly, two of my favorite Celtic Women have left the group- Meav and Orla. I own all of Meav's available solo CDs and Orla's first CD as well. The replacement singers are okay, but they seem to be treated as fill-ins by the group. On the new DVD and CD, the two original members get 2-3 solo songs each while the new ones get only one. Apparently, they did record a second solo, at least for the DVD, with the new members, but those are not in the track listings for the DVD or CD. I think that's kind of sad. One of the newbies even has her own album and writes some of her own songs, so it isn't as if she's not got stuff going for her. From what I've seen, the new soprano's voice isn't as strong as Meav's and the new alto has to belt where Orla just sang so I'm not as thrilled with them but I still think it sucks that they don't get featured as much as Chloe and Lisa (the two original singers.)

And yes, I do still love my Celtic Woman junk... except maybe that schmaltzy "Oh America" thing (not my kind of song, y'all.) I also love Sarah Brightman in all her crazy glory and Hayley Westenra is growing on me. I like Hayley because she doesn't try to be an opera singer. She does a classical tune from time to time, but mostly she does pop-ish stuff with a more soprano-ish tone. She's far more pleasant to listen to than Charlotte Church, whose classical CDs make me cringe.

Speaking of pop music, I did sing Wuthering Heights. It went well. We'll see if the video came out okay. There were a lot of wiggling kids at the recital. That means I will likely have to plan another recital so I can sing it again for a calmer crowd. I discovered a different edition of the sheet music and there are some major discrepancies in the tune. So, I'll probably relearn some things, although I did listen to Kate Bush's original about a scrillion times so I shouldn't be too far off. There are a couple things that I'll keep and others that I may change. All in all, my mother is my harshest critic and it was her favorite piece of the afternoon so it was probably pretty good.

My goal for this year is to earn less than I did last year. That means I am making all my professional investment purchases before the end of the year so I can write them off. Basically, this year has sucked because I have been paying taxes based on pre-recession income, while earning recession income. That bites. I think things will pick up in the new year, but I'd like to avoid being hampered by a heavy tax burden based on what I earned the first four month of 2009. So, I will very likely be adding things up well before the end of the year to make a base estimate of how much I need to expend in order to come in below last year's income. Not fun, obviously, but one does what one must. I need a new ipod and ipod speakers and video transfer software at the very least. I may also invest in an upgrade to my notation software.

In an effort to get my clutter under control, I am giving away some stuff (another tax write off) and I'll sell some other stuff on ebay. It's all for the silliest reason- my dog scratches on my door at night to sleep on my floor, but I have so many bins of fabric, bags of stuff and piles of papers that I'm afraid that if I let her in, she'll either trash the place or get hurt by some random pins or something. Hence, the clutter needs to be decluttered and the sewing projects need to be completed.

My folks were cleaning out some papers and found some old polaroid pictures from the later eighties and early nineties. The dog in the pictures is MachSie. She weight about 100lbs and was as tall as me when she stood on her hind legs. She was pretty much the most amazingly awesome dog ever. She shredded Dad's shoes and sleeves when he wrestled with her, but she'd start to cry if her toys squeaked because she thought she was hurting them. She was incredibly gentle with my grandmother, who was in failing health at the time and she was great with my adored cat, Macavity. Macavity is the kitty in the picture. She weighed all of ten lbs and could stop MachSie with a look. I still miss those two.( Cut for a picture... )

I decided I'd like to save some money. So, naturally, everything I own is falling apart.

My mattress has reached that level of lumpiness where I wake each and every morning with some new and exciting pulled muscle somewhere in my body.

My beloved tracksuit is literally shredding apart on my body. I'm wearing it today for likely the very last time ever. On Wednesday, I will take my 20% off coupon to Bloomingdales in the hopes that they will honor it in the Juicy Couture area because I hate paying full price on this stuff. Oh well, at least this solves my dithering over what color to get. I'll be getting whatever marginally decent color they happen to have.

I just ran out of my favorite perfume.

I need a new little black dress.

I need a new "professional" skirt for church gigging.

I need new sweaters because all of mine have pilled into oblivion.

I need new sheet music.

Seriously, I don't need this right now. Why does this stuff always strike at once?

Yesterday, I broke down and went to Lucky Brand for new jeans. I would like to take this moment to express my hatred of stretch denim which fades all weird, bags rather than getting artfully torn and pretty much makes what should be a piece of clothing designed to take abuse into yet another cheap ass trend item. I used to be able to buy Gap jeans for $50. Now, new jeans are a $100-200 investment because I can't find anything that's less expensive and doesn't look like ass a month after I buy them. Grrrr...

Also, I was listening to myself singing some Barber songs and I kind of hate the way my passagio sounds right now. It's too bright. I need to adjust this. This is what happens when my recorder needs to be replaced. As does my iPod. I'm kind of hoping I can make that happen with the same purchase (a souped up iPod that I desperately need) but we'll see.

Stupid 2009.

I have finished the mini-Annie script. It's been through three drafts in one day as I've been trimming bits and more bits in order to have something coherent but as short as possible while still giving all the kids something to do. I think I've trimmed about as much as I can while still keeping things fun and letting everyone feel like they actually got to do all the fun stuff in the show. I started with a hundred page Annie Jr. Script which I adjusted down to 15 pages in MS word and then cut down again to about 11 total. This time, we'll have fewer total songs and the songs will be SHORT.

And now, I get to do wrimo. I swear, Wrimo is designed for people who don't have to do more than one writing project at a time. It's a real pain in the butt when you've written about 4,000 words on another project but it doesn't count at all towards Nano *sigh*

Nano Wrimo is upon us. Eep!

Okay, I am in the shitty mood to end all shitty moods. I hate everyone. I feel all crappy. Everyone has been a surreal psycho fucktard today. I'm depressed by pretty much everything under the sun and after I finish typing this, I will probably cry. Oh well, since it was already written, here are some movies I like to watch around Halloween.


1. An American Werewolf in London

A guy goes on a trip with his buddy. The next thing you know, the buddy is a ghost with increasing icky makeup effects who has to haunt our hero until he dies. Nothing bums out a holiday like finding out you're turning into a werewolf who kills innocent people and every last one of them is going to haunt you until your own death sets everyone free. Talk about a no-win situation. By the way, the effects were considered innovative for their time, the scares are genuinely scary and the humor is genuinely funny.

2. The Crow

Ladies and gentlemen, there are two kinds of goth: goth before The Crow and goth after The Crow. This movie set off an entire Hot Topic trend. More importantly, the art direction is fantastic and the action takes place over Devil's Night and Halloween. I can't say it scared me, but it sure does put me in the right mood for Halloween.

3. Sleepy Hollow

It's a Tim Burton movie and you know that one had to be listed here. This one looks amazing and delivers some impressively artistic looking gore. Where else can you find gorgeous period costumes and a bleeding tree full of severed heads?

4. The Exorcism of Emily Rose

This one actually kept me up at night. It's based on a true story and the real exorcism recording may actually be even scarier than the stuff in the film. This movie is surprisingly intelligent and the rational explanations may well be every bit as frightening as the supernatural ones. As an added plus, the acting is superb.

5. Hellraiser

I love innovative effects and I love the kind of movies that change an entire genre. Where we would be without cenobites and the box? Or how about watching a puddle of blood become organs and veins until it resolves itself into a creepy, skinless pervert? There's nothing in this movie that won't give you the creeps.

6. The Shining

Look, it wouldn't be a Halloween list without Stephen King and I think the Kubrick film is probably the best King film out there. Carrie scares the bejeezus out of me, but for sheer awesome, you can't beat Jack Nicholson and that kid pretending his finger is saying "Redrum."

7. A Nightmare on Elm Street

I had to list a teen slasher film and this is the best of them. For one thing, Wes Craven and Johnny Depp are involved. For another thing, this movie is scary as Hell. It doesn't have all the lame quips from Freddy that they started using in the later films. It's just plain scary and you won't really feel like sleeping if you watch it late at night.

8. The Phantom of the Opera (Lon Chaney silent film)

Lon Chaney is awesome and this is his classic work. I think it's the best version of the story and it's really amazing to think that they created this movie without modern effects.

9. The Haunting

There had to be at least one intelligent movie and this is it. You never really know what was going bump in the night, but it sure is creepy. I'm also fond of the mod sixties vibe of it all.

10. Evil Dead 2

Okay, I know that sequels aren't as good as the original but this one is more of a remake than a sequel and it's funny as hell. More chainsaw and less tree-rape makes for a more enjoyable evening as far as I'm concerned.

Well, I'm not sure there's anything in the BPAL winter update that I feel I must have. I may however, pick up something from the new District section. I tend to like the fragrances that are feminine with a kick. My favorite Yule of all time is probably never coming back since it was called "Stardust" and now there's an entire section devoted to the Neil Gaiman book of that title. Stardust the perfume was all about the holiday partying and it reminded me of getting dressed up in sparkles and hitting the clubs with friends over the holidays. It captured something about the smell of perfume (well you have to get all dolled up before you go out), champagne (someone would inevitably spill it on you) and cigarette smoke (even if they don't smoke inside, you had to pass through a giant cloud of the stuff to get in.)

My local Lush had almost all the Christmas goodies and not a darn thing left for Halloween. Last year, I binged on Christmas stuff after Christmas when it was on sale. This year, I plan on using the last of the Christmas stuff by New Year's because Christmas goodies in March are less fun than you'd think, even if you did buy them on sale three for one. So, I invested in some Christmas goodies and have started using them so I can share the details with you.

Snow Showers Shower Jelly - Okay, this is not my first time at this rodeo. I have experienced the jelly before. Let me begin by saying that the scent could not be more awesome. I love it like woah. It's orange and cognac so it smells like a sophisticated holiday lunch. The, how shall I put this, format of the product is more challenging. Imagine trying to shower using a lump of jello for soap. It foams a bit, but not a lot. Some people freeze these things but I'm not that brave. It's already interesting enough to shower with a product that lives in the fridge. As you attempt to create lather, the jelly attempts to slip out of your hand and slide down the drain. Also, little bits come off and you have to make sure they go down your drain so you don't leave a tub full of ick. Larger globs of the product work far better than small ones, this much is true, but I'd still give it a try with a smaller bit before investing in the giant glob.

Candy Cane Bubble Bar - I held off on trying this one thinking that it would smell like a candy cane. In fact, it smells nothing like a candy cane. I think it's pretty close to the Snow Fairy scent, which smells like fruit candy. No, I don't mean there's a fruit smell, it's fruit candy which has nothing whatsoever to do with actual fruit or any other consumable thing that nature came up with. It's a little like fake gummy sugar plums which I haven't had since the boutique candy shop that stocked them shut down back when the dot bomb happened. Stupid economy. I blame Wall Street. Sometimes I think that Wall Street really ought to be abolished or maybe they should move it to Las Vegas.

Gnome Name Bubble Bar -I had the hardest time figuring out what they meant by saying that it smells like a well known soda. I am that lame. For the record, it smells like cola and I don't see why they didn't just say "cola" since that isn't trademarked or anything but whatever. This one is new this year for the holidays. My mother thought it was just too cute. It is cute but it's harder to break into a bunch of pieces because of the shape. I think it will be a two bath bubble bar (note on bubble bar usage- a whole bar is usually way too much for one bath and you end up with little globs all over the bottom of the tub. You can make a bar last for up to four baths if you're frugal, but for a nicely luxurious bubble bath you probably need about half a bar.) With half a gnome, there were tons of bubbles and the bathwater turned reddish (it's like being a four-year-old all over again.) The smell was actually really nice and I didn't feel as if I was marinating in warm cola which was a concern. In general, I am the floral person and my sister is into the foodie smells. I liked this one but I think she's going to LOVE it.

That's all for now, although I do have plenty more Lush goodies to talk about. I just can't manage more than one bath per day...

Normally, I have tons of new students added to my schedule in September and October. This year, I have more leaving at the end of this month. Usually, they stick things out until January but this seems to be a weird year. The office says that a couple of former students want to return in November, so we'll see what happens. Basically, I'm just letting it all ride. Last year, I felt like I was overbooked and couldn't give my students the time they needed. So, for now, I can be flexible with my time and we'll see how things go. The ideal situation for me is to have about 20-22 hours worth of students who love singing and want to put extra effort into it. When they're all spazzing over all their other activities, life is a lot less fun for me. It sucks all the fun out of things, it really does.

So, although I was hoping to pay down more debt this year, I think I'll have to be prepared to settle for paying down less and seeing where things head. If my schedule is less crazy, it will mean that I can afford to take less time off for Boheme in February which would be fantastic. I took a peek at the preliminary rehearsal schedule and Boheme's night off coincides with my late teaching night, so that part is ideal from my perspective. I've also already been asked back for my church gig in the new year, so that's all good.

Lush finally got some Halloween goodies, so I picked up one of everything they had so I could try it all out and share details here. Yes, I have suffered through nice, relaxing hot baths because I am altruistic like that.

Lush Halloweenie goodness

Jacko Bath Bomb- normally, I am not a big fan of spicy or fruity scents. I'm more of your typical girlie girl who wants to smell like flowers. Girly flowers. Like Barbie on acid. However, I really enjoyed this bath bomb. The scent is spicy and I think there's some orange in there as well. It reminded me of the Bling Crosby bubble bar (basically a sparkly version of the Karma bar) which I loved a couple of holiday seasons back. The water turned orange-ish, but it didn't stain the tub at all. I am happy to report that there was no confetti or other surprises to clog up my drain.

Cobweb Bath Bomb- I expected to like this one more than Jacko, but I actually like it less. On the positive side, the scent wasn't heavy and it was free of glitter and seaweed and other things that have to be scraped out of the tub. On the minus side, sitting in a bathtub full of greyish black water lacks a certain amount of appeal. Nor am I looking forward to scrubbing out the black ring around the tub that it left behind. If I buy more Halloweenie stuff, I think I'll stick with Jacko.

Ghost Shower Gel- I bought this last year and was pretty meh about it. This time around, I like it better. I think I may be in a better mood or something. The scent is a sweet lily that is pretty pleasant in the shower. It's not as ghostly as some of BPAL's scents but the lightness of the fragrance just suggest something far away or remembered. It doesn't lather up as much as my Philosophy shower gel, but it's a nice change for October.

Those were the only items being stocked at Lush and they didn't think they'd be getting any others. The Christmas season stuff will be in soon, so we'll see what happens then. Last year, Witches Ball and Magic were stocked alongside the holiday stuff until December 26th, so maybe it's coming in later? One can hope.

While in the bath, it's nice to have a good book to read and I've read three over the past week and a half:

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room- Honestly, I think I liked the movie better than the book, and that's something I rarely say. The book does a great job of exploring the character of the people involved in the scandal but following the facts gets tricky. The authors will pick up one thread and continue with it until the related events are all played out, then they go back and start talking about another department. I had a hard time figuring out how events fit together, particularly when so many of them were coming together and setting each other off as the company began its collapse. The film also spent a little more time on events like the Valhalla scandal which really set the stage and provide some context for what happened at Enron.

Conspiracy of Fools- This book was much easier to follow, although I do wonder if I'd understood it as well if I hadn't read Smartest Guys first. The events are followed in tight chronological order, with some exploration of Valhalla and other events that happened before Skilling joined the company. The authors make an effort to be a little more fair in their assessment (less bashing of the Bush administration.) I walked away wondering if Enron would have gotten a bailout had they collapsed today as opposed to under the Bush admin. I was no fan of Bush but he was smart enough to distance himself from Lay once he knew what was going down. This book was written a couple of years later, so they also have the benefit of more information and hindsight. My only major complaint is that Fastow and his close cronies are painted as the bad guys and I have a very hard time believing that Fastow was the most responsible. I don't think he could have done what he did without sanction, possibly even encouragement, from Skilling and Lay.

Eric- Wow, that was a short book and not really one of Pratchett's best. Rincewind is in it along with the Librarian but the rest of the wizards at the Unseen University haven't been developed into the characters that I remember from Hogfather and other books. The Bursar isn't popping frog pills and that just isn't right. Eric is a teenager who summons up Rincewind to grant his wishes. The wishes all go wrong, and as you can expect from Pratchett, there's a bit of a theme in it about the way legends are started. On the whole, it wasn't Pratchett at his most satisfying. I'm really not sure whether to call this one a stand alone or not. I think you do need to know Rincewind in order to get into the book and the luggage does make appearances, but it doesn't really mesh well with The Color of Magic etc.

If I've said it once, I've said it a million times, once you start doing black magic, you have to keep it up. Black magic, by the way, doesn't always mean sticking pins into dolls or tossing graveyard dirt onto people's porches. People do black magic all the damn time without realizing that they're doing it. Black magic can be almost any negative thing that you do. Heck, most people don't even realize that they're doing black magic when they're right smack in the middle of it.

If you toss graveyard dirt on someone's porch, chances are that they'll toss some back at you. So you throw even more to counteract what they did and the next thing you know, you're renting a damn dump truck every time you need to visit the cemetery.

Or, if you want a real example, you decide to advertise your awesome roommate's mad piano skills on a singer forum. Unfortunately, you fail to think things through, so you decide to pretend like you're a completely impartial party claiming that there's this great new pianist in town. Oops, that's deceiving people and it's a bad thing to do. You just tossed some dirt there. Someone else knows who you are points out that you goofed. Now, you have two choices. You can stop the cycle right now. That means taking a hit to your pride and making an apology. Or you keep the cycle going. You create a sock to defend you, or better yet, to go after your critic. Congrats, you just threw more dirt. Guess what happens next? Yep, people don't tend to sit there and let you toss curses in their general direction. You have to keep up the black magic, knowing that the further you go, the worse it's gonna be when you're finally too tired to make that last trip out to the graveyard.

This brings us to the bonsai. As you know, we haven't gotten along with the neighbors behind us. They threw dirt. We threw dirt. I am the voodoo queen, I'll have you know, but even I have my limits. I don't have time for black magic. That crap gets me nowhere. Nevertheless, there was still some drama floating around when dad decided to have a tree by the back fence taken down. Well, because there's so much bad blood, no one wanted to talk to the neighbors about the tree. They weren't home anyway but someone could have tried. Well, the tree people were told not to dump anything on the opposite side of the fence but they did nonetheless and they smushed one of this man's bonsai trees. Oops.

Mom happened to be outside while he was clearing up the mess our tree people made in his yard and she talked to him. Dad talked to him too. He was, apparently, civil this time. Truth be told, he's been a lot more civil since he and I got into it which is probably good, because I really felt that things were outta hand that day. So, he says that his ten-year-old bonsai was dead. This weekend, there happened to be a bonsai person at the art fair and my mother decided that it was time to sweep up the graveyard dirt. She bought an eleven-year-old bonsai for our neighbor and left it for him with a note apologizing. Today, he left us a note thanking us and apologizing for his behavior.

So, at least for now, the past is buried and there won't be any more flinging of cursed earth or poo or tree branches or whatever else we've been in the habit of throwing. Or at least, we're all going to try to give it a rest. A person sure does get tired when they have to spend every night sneaking into the cemetery, that's for sure. I think we'll all feel much better letting that go.  I, for one, am already very much the happier for it.

Because it is October, I give you the creepiest story on the internetz. Some of you have seen it before, but it's still fun Halloween season time-wasting.

Also, I just saw the Warrens on an episode of A Haunting. That is one scary show, even if most of it does sound fake as fake can be. I especially love the way everyone on there assumes that they are the only person alive who could possibly make use of a library. What makes them think that the "medium" didn't look up the exact same document five minutes before the dropped by your house. Hello?

Yesterday started normal and then turned surreal. This happens to me all the damn time. So, I was waiting for my 4pm student who does not have a great attendance record. Her folks are really nice and the girl is a doll. She's had a lot of health problems and schedule problems so I don't worry about her absences. I'm willing to let it ride. Nevertheless, I had one of those weird ummm moments that I sometimes have where something told me to wait a bit before going to dinner. No, I don't have an explanation. I just know stuff from time to time that I have no actual way of knowing. I hate it when I'm psychic, I really do.

Sure enough, in comes a student looking for me. She says she has a trial lesson scheduled. I have never heard of any such thing but she's there and I'm there and what the heck. It turns out that they hadn't completed the paperwork on it, and that's why the office hadn't contacted me about it. The student was quite good and would fit in well with my advanced classical singers, so my fingers are crossed that they work out the paperwork.

Then I found out that another student was dropping due to "schedule conflicts" which may or may not mean that a schedule conflict exists. They attended their lesson on the last day of September and never said a word about dropping, then on the first of October they're saying they want to drop right now. Well, they're stuck for October because that's how things work. It's just all so weird. They started in September, signed up for lessons and now they're gone. I have no idea if they will be there for lessons in October. I guess it depends on how genuine the schedule excuse was. That was followed by the first day of my singing actors class which was supposed to have three kids in it. Now we have six- four kids, one teen and one adult. I now have a basic idea of what we're going to do, which will be a bunch of stuff from Oliver. However, I would really like a couple more adults, so I can break them off from the kids and teens. That means I'd need to add another class hour, but we'll see. At this point, the class is making a nice profit and I think that when I hit eight students, we can break off into two groups. At least, that's my hope.

Then I came home to talk about it and LJ was down. Stupid LJ. So it all stayed in my head and I got nothing done. NOTHING. I am now officially a chapter behind on my October project. So I have to write two today. And I don't want to. *sigh*

Halloween is my favorite holiday for a reason. On Halloween, we do a big display and get really cool candy to give out to all the kids in the neighborhood. I like it because, as much fun as it is to set it all up, it's really about creating a special experience for others rather than just for yourself. The Christmas decorating is fun and all, but it's hidden away in the house and no one sees it but us. The outdoor lights are okay, but we really don't do much of anything special. At Halloween, we actually make an effort to do something that other people will enjoy as much as we enjoy it. Some of our regular characters are there because the kids and parents really loved them. My sister's husband gets stuck playing the main audience interaction character because he's good at adding some comedy into it and making the little kids feel less scared. We don't buy severed limbs or scary masks, even though some of them are pretty cool, because we do have small kids that visit and it's upsetting for them. We also are armed with treats for dogs and, on occasion, adults as well as the neato things for kids.

And we don't get a thing back other than the pleasure of knowing that we made someone's night. People have so much fun that they call other trick or treat groups on their cell phones to get them out to see our display. That makes us feel really good.

So, with that in mind, I mean to do more writing this month. In fact, I intend to make some effort to post something every day for October. I also have an interesting story in mind, and you'll see that this month as well. I enjoy it and hopefully, others will too.

As you may or may not know, October is my favorite month of the entire year. The party begins today and doesn't end until November 2nd. This is also the countdown to the end of my personal year, so it's a time when I celebrate the good and let go of the bad.

It is the will of the internet that I sing Wuthering Heights, so Wuthering Heights shall be sung. The list I submitted for the teacher's recital in November is:

Pie Jesu (ALW Requiem) performing with Office Manager of Awesomeness
Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush
Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka
She Walks in Beauty from the film Vanity Fair
(if extra time is available add I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls)

If it doesn't all suck then recordings will be made available to all you lucky (or possibly brave or maybe even foolhardy) people.

And now, I will ponder which literary annoyance to rant about next.

A study appears to prove that women adapt to pain much more quickly than men.

Why oh why could this be?

Is it that women are more likely to get fibromyalgia and other painful things?

Or could it be because we experience pain (and depression and discomfort and temporary insanity) every month or so for a good 25-40 years out of lives. If we couldn't get used to it, the human race would have been extinct long ago.

Probably because we would have killed everyone.

If you have read one of Philippa's Gregory's books, you have read them all. Sad, but true. The only thing that changes are the character names and dates.

Having run out of Tudor women to write about, Gregory is tackling the Plantagenets, beginning with Henry VIII's grandma, Elizabeth Woodville. The book begins with Elizabeth waiting for Edward IV to pass by so she can beg for her lands to be restored. There isn't a word about her childhood or her first marriage. We have no idea how she came to be the nitwit that she is, because Gregory can't be bothered to show us. Pretty much, she is a Gregory heroine- dumb as a post and ruining everything she touches but ZOMG it isn't her fault because she was manipulated by bad men! Or in this case, she is misunderstood by bad men like Melusine was. Melusine was a mermaid who married a mortal and then left him because he broke his promise never to watch her bathing. I'm really not sure what it actually has to do with anything, but the story is prominently featured in the book and Elizabeth is said to be Melusine's descendent.

So, Elizabeth is in love with Edward immediately and she totally isn't withholding sex because she is crazy ambitious and intends to marry him. Oh no. She loves him like crazy. It's totally her high moral character and her family who are scheming. She just wants to be married for love. Eventually, they get married and proceed to have sex "off-camera" which is something new. Usually Gregory is all about the historical kink.

Then not much of anything happens. No, I'm serious. There are battles that Elizabeth isn't actually involved in. Mostly, she sits home and worries and has babies. Only despite being super-attached to her kids, we hear so little about them and know so little of their character that Gregory has to remind us of who they are over and over again. I still don't have a clue how old the kids by Elizabeth's first marriage were meant to be, because she never told us. Apparently, once she was queen, Elizabeth didn't give much of a crap about the kids from her first marriage.

Then, just as things start happening, the book ends. So, there's no beginning and no ending, only a middle with no sex in it. Instead, we get gory battle scenes that aren't all that interesting. I skipped most of them. We never see Henry Tudor defeat Richard III and marry Elizabeth's eldest daughter. We never find out what happened to Elizabeth Woodville or any of the other survivors. Nope, the book just ends. It's as if the author were paid for X number of words so she started writing at the easiest point, and then stopped once she reached the required count. No lessons learned. No character development. Just a tiresome journey with a tiresome heroine for no purpose.

Leave it to Philippa Gregory to make me like poor little Catherine Howard who hadn't an iota of sense in her silly head better than a woman who was probably clever as hell, if not at all wise.

The White Queen goes back to the library tomorrow and I will start in on The Smartest Guys in the Room tonight.

At some point, I posted a ten commandments of fanfic thing which I will link here when I get around to it. Everything I said there is still true.

I know writing because I read like a demon. In school, I had up to 30 library books on my nightstand at any given time and they were all read. I spent a summer doing an opera program on a school campus and by the time I left, I had read every book in the place, including all the SAT guides. I have read all the instructions on every beauty product I own. I routinely leave for long trips with up to 20 paperbacks in my suitcase, which I discard in various places as I finish reading them. Yeah, I read a lot and, as a reader, I know what works and what doesn't. When I did literary analysis, I was constantly asked if I was copying my work from someplace because they were shocked that a person without a literature degree who wrote for peanuts would be that good. I think my favorite comment was when I was told "I wrote my thesis on this book and you found more in it than I did." That book was Paradise Lost, by the way, and I hated that freakin' book so much that I actually had to sit down and refute my own arguments for why it was a pile of suck by a total tool.

I write because I enjoy it. Period. At some point, I may attempt to be published but mostly I just like to write what I want to write. I have a bad habit of not sticking with a single genre. I think the "young adult" obsession is crap and I think most of what passes for literature is pretentious, incoherent crap. That's where I'm coming from.

When I read a book, I want to be able to share the experience of the characters. I don't want to be able to see the author drooling over her Mary Sue character or smugly pouring out purple prose. I want to finish the story thinking that it all made sense, even if I didn't like the ending. I want a character that I can relate to as a human being, even if it isn't a human being that I particularly like. Make sense? I don't like being yanked out of the story because the author was too lazy to do some simple research. For example, I can maybe deal with a pharaoh named "Erik" in a Phantom of the Opera based novel because duh but how hard is it to crack a book about King Tut or a Wikipedia article so that the original characters can have actual Egyptian names? I don't think that's too much to ask.

Let's talk about the Bag of Holding. In fact, let's talk about it so much that it gets it's own entry.

I think there is only one person alive who hates the Bag of Holding more than I do, in fact, she hates it so much that she used to ban it from Dungeons and Dragons when she was Dungeon Master. In D&D, the bag of holding is a bag that holds craploads of stuff that you could never otherwise carry. It exists so that your party can wander around on long adventures without having to spend countless turns marching back to town or foraging for food... unless of course, your DM is zansidhe  in which case after you kill the Beholder, you're gonna have to cook it and eat it. Bon appetit.

When I talk about a "Bag of Holding" (BoH) in fiction, I am referring to any magical object that exists so that the author can avoid having her characters face actual real-world problems. A magical closet that cleans your heroine's clothes is a BoH, allowing the author to schmoop about all her fancy outfits without dealing with the bother of how she will find time to launder and care for them. Hermione's purse in Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows is a classic bag of holding, allowing Rowling to send her characters off on their journey without subjecting them to the hardship of having to eat Lembas for months because it is the only food that is light and compact enough to carry.

I hate the BoH because it kills all the best opportunities for character development. You might as well add in bold type "NONE OF THESE CHARACTERS WILL LEARN OR GROW FROM THIS SO YOU MIGHT AS WELL SKIP AHEAD." If your heroine is transported to Henry VIII's court, then she is going to need to deal with a lack of shampoo. How does she handle it? Does it matter to her? Is she angry? Is she freaked out? Does she come up with some kind of alternative? If shampoo is important enough that you've created the Perpetual Pantene, then this shampoo thing is something that would be worth the effort to address. If shampoo isn't a biggie, then don't talk about it. Hey, if adjusting to a lack of baths actually doesn't bother your heroine that much, then the reader probably doesn't want to hear about it.

In general, many small BoH can be deleted without much trouble. If you're written a great time-travel romance, chances are that I'll be too interested in the plot to bitch about the lack of deodorant. Most of the time, these things turn up in throwaway paragraphs anyway and good for the author for actually noticing that there is no toothpaste in Medieval Scotland but no matter how important minty fresh breath is to you and your fantasy life, the reader really doesn't care. Again, if minty breath is that big a deal, then figure out a way for your heroine to invent toothpaste. Maybe she was into homeopathic herbal stuff in her own time.

If you're sending your characters on a long and perilous journey with a luxury tent of magicalness complete with the cable internet access of enchantment and the delivery pizza of ensorcerousness then you have some work ahead of you. Look, if your characters can be on the run and still living in more comfort than I do at home, why exactly should I be concerned for them? They're not in danger. They're chilling out in the woods, watching NCIS reruns until they feel like saving the world... which they never ever will. Sorry. If you can be on the run and live in luxury too then your ass is never coming back. Why would you? Potential horrifying death vs luxury tent with cable hookup? No contest.

The hardships of being on a quest or on the run add to sense of urgency and danger. Hey, if your characters aren't halfway through their journey and the lembas is almost gone, then they have a reason to push forward as fast as they can go. They might not make it all the way to Candy Mountain. What if they find out that they have enough supplies to reach the desert oasis of total evil but not enough to get back? Do they keep pressing onwards? Do they turn back? Do they think up a new plan? Once again, this is the stuff that makes me interested in the characters. If I want to hear about luxury hotel accommodations, I'll watch the dang Travel Channel. Seriously, if Frodo and Sam flew into Mordor on the Concorde, sipping martinis and watching the edited-for-air-travel version of The Lion King, they wouldn't be the same characters and I'd probably have wanted them to fall into Mount Doom right after the ring. Think about it.

I really can't tell you how to fix the quest BoH without a major rewrite. Either think up a way for your characters to make it on their own or kill the quest and come up with something else for them to do. Yeah, it bites but we all end up in that place at one time or another. I remember reading an author's note from LeCarre about how he had written an entire draft of the book I was reading which he'd burned up in his barbecue because it was a great story but that version of it was so lousy that he decide to scrap it and start 100% from scratch.

However, even zansidhe  who would gladly make you spend an entire turn foraging for tasty spiders rather than let you bring so much as one extra potato into a dungeon says that there is indeed a place for bags of holding. To this I say that yes, if you must destroy the Piano of Painfulness by tossing it into the Toxic Waste Dump of Doom then you can have a bag of holding, provided you have to go to some effort to get the dang thing. Also, bear in mind that you're going to have some trouble getting a piano into a small bag but hey, that's what imagination is for. Or, if you happen to be Mary Poppins, then you can have a bag full of lamps and tables because you are Mary-Freaking-Poppins and your bag really has nothing to do with the story other than to establish what kind of person you are- a practically perfect one who carries around sensible things like lamps instead of fairy dust and tiaras.

So, there you have it. An entire diatribe against my least-favorite plot device.

And Jesus agrees with me.

How is it that I either have nothing to talk about or far too much to talk about?

I got this Stila foundation sampler thing for some extremely good reason that now escapes. I will get around to reviewing the products included therein.

I want to talk about pursuing the dream of singing career including why you should and why you shouldn't. I mean, dude, I'm singing Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights and Loreena McKennit's Dante's Prayer so my life is hella cool. On the other hand, I'm completely nuts, so that's not good. There are tradeoffs to be made.

We need to talk about writing. This time around, I won't be all funny and cool and invoking Jesus. Well, maybe we'll evoke Jesus a little because he owes me one after all I suffered at Lent. You try giving up chips and salty foods when your main dietary staple is known as the Cheezit and you're in a show where Cheezits are readily available at all times. Hello? I do shows for the Cheezits, so you can imagine how much that one hurt. And when I'm tired of talking about Jesus, I will talk about writing.

Now, I will have another cup of coffee and ponder which entry to actually write.

Today, I went to the library to pay my fines. As it turns out, I have been so long away from the library that they erased me from their system and I have no fines. So, I had to get a new card but didn't have to give them $10 because of that time I thought I had turned in the DVD of Platee when it was actually sitting on my desk.

And why did I need a new library card? So that I can read the latest crummy novel by Philippa Gregory without having to spend $30 on a book that I will most likely want to burn. Oh yes, I have you figured out now, Philippa with your wussy heroines and your torrid Tudor sex. I shall check you out from the library and thus avoid sending you yet another royalty which will allow you to trash yet another beloved historical figure. I will never forgive you for what you did to Elizabeth I and actually having Anne Boleyn sleep with her brother? WTF woman, I don't think there's a historian out there who thinks that the incest accusation was true.

In other news, I got a note from Musicnotes, my favorite music download site, offering me a $5 coupon if I fill out my preferences on their site. I could not ask for better timing. I filled out preferences and am now the proud owner of a copy of "Wuthering Heights" that didn't cost me a penny. Clearly, fate wants me to sing this song.

For the first time in forever, I cooked dinner. Last year, Monday was my night to go out alone for dinner. I taught late and everyone else was working too or eating early. This year, I have Mondays off so I can cook. It means I'll spend about $20 less per week, since dinners out can get pricey.

I need to stop dithering over my audition rep and mail back the darn form.

I wrote a 2,000+ word short story today, just for the sake of writing something. It's really more of a ficlet. You can find it here. I hate to say it, but in a way, I kinda suck at fanfiction because I find my original characters to be so much more entertaining. I don't spend near enough time on the schmoopy romance to become a popular author.

I fixed thing up so that I could Twitter from my phone and yet I have still failed to Twit. Sadly, I did not bring my phone for the long lunch wait of futility today. Sis and I headed off to our favorite fake diner at the mall and waiting around for about an hour without getting any food. I mean, seriously, how long does it take to cook some fried cheese? They had one waitress who didn't even look at us except to take our order and bring our drinks. When we got there, it was crowded. When we left, it was us and two other tables. They were acknowledged. We were not. By the time we left, I figured that either they hadn't even bothered to cook our food, or they had left it sitting there forever and it was stone cold. Either way, I was in no mood. We asked to pay for our drinks and said we were done. They comped the drinks, so that was good. No tip, no cookie this time around. We headed upstairs to the food court. It's probably good that I had no phone. I would have been updating "Still no food" "Still no freakin' food" every ten minutes. As sis pointed out, had the waitress bothered to acknowledge that we were alive, we probably would not have left.

I was not in the mood for the food court, but at least it was quick. I do enjoy the orange chicken at Panda Express, although it's even nicer when you can eat it at home with a nice drink and some trashy television. The only store we looked at was Lush, and that was before the lunch experience. I was hoping they'd have some October holiday stuff in, but there wasn't anything. I think the only thing they knew about was the Ghost shower gel, which is nice but not super-great. The scent is pretty, but as I recall it was very light and a little on the sweet side. I think it was supposed to be lily, but I've probably been spoiled by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab and I expect my ghostly scents to be creepier. The October goodie I was hoping to find was the Witch's Ball bath bar, which is a pile of herbal awesome. I loved it last year. The staff seemed to think it wouldn't be coming back this year but I checked the Lush site and its there. The October goodies are supposed to be in this store this week, so sis and I will likely go back over the weekend to check it out. In fact, I think there were more October goodies on the Lush site rather than less. They have a soap and two fun bath bombs plus the Magic bomb that I never tried last year because it looked so aggressively Tidy Bowl Blue. Sometimes, I like the colored bath water and sometimes I hate them (okay, I admit it, I would kill to get my hands on the set of different color bubble baths that I had when I was 4, but there are limits.)  If the store doesn't get everything in, then I'll have to order it from the website. The holiday goodies are supposed to be particularly nifty this year as well and we'll see those after October 15th according to the Lush Staff.

So, on the positive side, Sis and I walked out of the mall for less than $10 each. On the negative side, Sis and I walked out of freakin' mall having spent less than $10 each. This is a blow to capitalism, people. Next thing you know, we'll all be quoting Marx.

I selected my church solos for the rest of the year, and at long last I will sing something other than O Holy Night at the service before Christmas. This year, I'm singing Gesu Bambino. Oh yes, I'm a wild thing. I'm actually happy with the rest of my selections because they're all quite nice music including four songs I have not performed before. Bringing in music I have not performed before has been a goal of mine for this year. I was getting a little lazy with cycling around songs that I already know. I'll be adding one or two more sacred books to my library but I think it will be worthwhile because if I keep doing this kind of music, it's nice to have some pieces that I like.

In singing news, "Che il bel sogno di Doretta" is back into my rep after a long hiatus and "Lascia ch'io pianga" is a pleasant new aria for me. When I have some more time, I'll be learning some Meyerbeer for fun and I'm getting music for Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" because crazy soprano rock songs are fun to sing.

I have way too many writing projects waiting to be finished, but I'll try to come up some kind of fun content for October since it's my favorite month out of the entire year.