Deb Space

The Oak Park Farmer’s Market started early this year. I missed last weekend because I was attenting Wiscon 32, but wild horses couldn’t keep me away this morning. Here’s one of the reasons:

Earlier this year, I was scouting apartments for friends of mine who were relocating to Chicago. One of their prospective neighborhoods was Oak Park so I got to see a lot of beautiful apartments. When my tour guide would ask where I lived, I’d get an excited response: “Oh, so you’re near the farmer’s market!” I’d nod with a big grin. Scott and I found our apartment on the last day of the farmer’s market last year and I’ve been waiting impatiently for the cycle to begin again. My apartment tour guides all started to rave about the donuts so I had to get donuts. Take a look at these pretties!

Yes, they were quite delicious. I even shared them with Scott.

The rest of the market was quite nice. My neighbors were stocking up on potted flowers and herbs. I was sorely tempted to pick up a beefsteak tomato plant, but wasn’t sure where I’d keep it since we don’t have a yard. I did picked up some really beautiful green onions (most of which are purple). I foresee gyoza in my near future and a really nummy tomato and onion salad tonight. I also got some nice red wine vinegar. I think I’ll look up some strawberry rhubarb pie recipes so I can get some of both next week unless I get mushrooms or herbs or homemade salsa. Decisions, decisions.

The summer is beginning to look yummy!

I’m notoriously bad a con reports and I usually feel very guilty about it. I don’t know why that is. It probably goes back to my childhood when I’d sit at the dinner table and have to tell my parents what I did in school. I never liked the process. After all, I had already lived that day and had to re-live some of it in homework. So the dinner time retelling was a third time for me. Anyway, Dad was always more interested in my sister’s biology class. He always wanted to hear about what she had learned about evolution. Frankly, so did I.

I will say that I had a great time. It was good to catch up with old friends and make new ones. I enjoyed talking shop and celebrating several book launches. Cons are both energizing and exhausting. I get so inspired by the creative people around me, but I never have enough energy to get by on less than five hours of sleep a night. To boot, this year stomach flu swept through the con and there was a rumor of zombie infestation. Thankfully I avoided both although I did miss the panel called “‘Graaaains!’: Vegan zombies and ecological sustainability.” I think that was at the same time slot as “Let’s Build a World,” where I helped build a world filled with violent islands, meat volcanoes and 3-1/2 gendered kangaroids, not to mention the cross-dressing Chihuahuas (by cross-dressing I mean they dress up as cats who were birthed from geodes and part of the society elite). It probably makes more sense if you had been there although you can check out the write up here. I wonder if anyone stepped up to write the novel…

Anyway, I’m back, I’m rested, and I think I’m ready to face the blank screen again.

Via Greg van Eekout…

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I’m pretty wimpy on the caffeine scale, but that’s all I can handle today.

Pre-hair cut…

Post-hair cut…

He looks like a completely different puppy.

A couple of weeks ago I bit the bullet and went to the eye doctor. I’ve been wanting to get contacts for awhile, but I’ve been putting it off. Well, no more. This was prompted in part by the despicable condition of my glasses. (My hair kept getting caught in the ear piece, which was breaking off in small pieces.)

So I got soft contact lenses. I put them in (a second time) when I got home and spent the next few hours staring off at the horizon. EVERYTHING was in focus, so much so I got a headache. Not that I minded because EVERYTHING was in focus.

(more…)

Back in college, when I studied painting, I was frustrated by how much I overworked my pieces until I discovered a great little trick. I could work on several paintings at once. In that way I could spread the neuroses around (so to speak) and be less likely to spoil any one painting.

More recently I’ve been having trouble writing; this is as close as I’ve ever come to having writer’s block. My usual tricks haven’t been working: the timed exercises, the journal writing, even making collages and writing about them. I’ve been reading voraciously, roughly 500 pages a week for the last three months (Hmm, that does feel a little like college…), yet the inspiration just hasn’t been there. Personally I think my muse is allergic to Chicago winters.

In the past I’ve been able to push through it, but this has been a very long dry spell for me. So I’ve been trying to trick myself into writing. I know if I start typing, eventually something interesting will appear; ideas will start to flow. It’s really a matter of persistence. This time the painting trick is working. I’m currently juggling several short stories. It’s a weird feeling not to be immersed in one world, but I have to say it’s intriguing. One hour I’m writing about a barbecue in California, the next a revolution on Mars. Maybe today I’ll go back to the bamboo forest in Japan or will it be the Empire State building on a hazy summer evening? Who knows? Little by little the word counts are increasing. At some point I’ll have a story. Or maybe five.

When you need a fictional band and you don’t know if someone else has made up the same really cool name, this web site is the place to go. This is the book to buy.

My band name wasn’t in there! Woot!

Rock on!