There’s a Subaru commercial in which a husband/boyfriend forgot his glasses. And so they go back through all the places they’ve been to in order to look for it.

Now, if it were me, I wouldn’t go back to all those places. I’d just pay for new glasses. And if it was Chris, I’d just pay for new glasses. And if it was you, I’d tell you to suck it up. They’re just glasses. You can replace them. You can’t replace my vacation time.

Now if you’d left them at the restaurant we just left, I’d totally go back. That’s not a big deal. But that’s as far back as I’ll go. I won’t backtrack to the beginning to find out it was on you the whole time!

It’s a stupid commercial.

Crossposted to Samantha Ling, Dreamwidth and Livejournal

Sephora was giving away the Too Faced Lash Layering Kit for free. They were the little travel sized ones, but hey, they’re free and I’m currently obsessed with eyelashes right now, so I went to pick them up.

So the lash layering kit has two mascaras. The pinpoint one is supposed to give you long stiletto-like lashes. The other one is to give you volume. Using just these two together didn’t really do much. My lashes were darker and that’s pretty much it. They also clump easily.

I tried with with Shiseido’s lash primer and it looked a lot better after that. But then any mascara looks better after I put on the primer. I look like I actually have eyelashes. But then with the primer, you could definitely see clumping and a spider leg effect. I don’t understand why they call it spider legs because it doesn’t look like spider legs to me. It reminded more of an old pipe cleaner that’s been used and abused. You know those pipe cleaner things that we used to use in elementary school to make artsy fartsy stuff? Stuff that’s used for cleaning a smoking pipe? That’s what it looked like, except stepped on, stuck down the drain, wrung out and dried out again.

I definitely wouldn’t spend any money on this. I’m still searching for a better mascara. Shiseido used to have a voluminous mascara, but they’ve discontinued it and their new product isn’t as good. My mom has a ton of sample mascaras from buying all sorts of stuff from Clinique and Estee Lauder when they were giving away free gifts. She doesn’t use mascara, so she gave me all of them. But none of them are good either.

Do you have a favorite mascara? How about your favorite, can’t live without cosmetic item?

Crossposted to Samantha Ling, Dreamwidth and Livejournal

I’m in San Fransisco with Rob!

Why? Well, I’m reading at Writers with Drinks tomorrow night.

And our anniversary is on Tuesday, so we’re doing a little vacation here. Whee!

Come to Writers with Drinks and say hello!

Also reading:
Javier Grillo-Marxuach (The Middleman TV series)
Kat Richardson (Greywalker)
Naomi Quiñonez (Invocation L.A.: Urban Multicultural Poetry)
S. Bear Bergman (Butch Is A Noun)

All proceeds benefit EL/LA Program Para Trans Latinas.
At The Make-Out Room 3225 22nd. St., San Francisco CA, from 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM, doors open at 7 PM.

Comments? -- Link.

I am doing my entries all out of order. But as long as I post something right? At some point, I went to see Vanessa Carlton as Epcot’s Eat to the Beat. She came with only one other person, a guitarist. From what I could tell he really didn’t need to be there. But I think touring on your own gets really boring. Having someone to travel with and talk to during the down times is much better. Even if you have to pay him.

I read that she liked touring this way because she liked the intimacy of just her and the audience. But when you’re doing this more intimate way of performing, I think that maybe you should talk to your audience a little bit too. Like tell them a story about traveling here or loving this song because it’s about your first love. Or you were inspired by this painting. Or just chatting with you. But she really didn’t do that. She just sat at her piano and sang mostly.

When you hear the songs back to back like that, they all sound a little bit the same. Which isn’t bad. I like her songs. But she did swear when she messed up, which is a total no-no at squeaky clean Disney. She apparently swore at an earlier performance as well. I won’t be surprised if we never see her at Disney again. It’s what I call self-sabotage. Too bad. She could really use this Disney gig. What else was she going to do?

Crossposted to Samantha Ling, Dreamwidth and Livejournal

That's a pretty unwieldy title for the post!

I was thumbing through the January/February Analog this morning and read Richard A. Lovett's article, "Making Unreality Ring True: Writer's Tricks for Bringing Stories to Life." I was a little surprised at it because the article is a straightforward how-to-write piece, something I don't recall seeing in Analog much in the past.

That said, it was a darned good article for fiction writers of all sorts, not just science fiction ones. With entertaining examples, Lovett explains the basis for five writing rules that will make work stronger and more believable:
 

1. Write what you know.
2. Know what it is that you know.
3. Make good use of details.
4. Look for details in experience (yours or other people's)
5. Collect information. You never know what will someday be useful.
 

Near the end of the article, he says, "The best writers observe things. Sometimes these are details about the universe. Sometimes they are grand visions that instill the sense of wonder about which science fiction fans wax lyrical. Other times, the observations take the form of details about people or the lives we live: overlooked realities that ring true as they float across the page before us."

Lovett quotes Jane Kurtz, an award winning children's book author, who said, "Writers have good powers of observation. That's more important than imagination."

I tell writers in my classes and workshops that the skills necessary to tell believable stories are exactly congruent with the skills required of a good liar. Good liars, among other things, are masters of the specific detail, the one bit of their story that rings so specific and true that you believe there's no way they could have made it up. Their story must not be lying.

The article is a good one.  If you can get a copy of the magazine, I recommend it.

One of our friends is having a Christmasnparty in which we are asked to bring school supplies for the Salvation Army. Last year, we picked a name from the gift tree and we were nought gifts that they had asked for. Last year, I bought some clothes and a little doll for a girl.

So I went in search of school supplies and found that they weren’t all that economical. Like the notebooks were like $2.00. And though there is nothing wrong with a $2.00 notebook, I feel like I should be able to find them for $1.00. Am I looking for something that doesn’t exist?

So I’m asking you guys. Do you know where I can buy school supplies for relatively cheap? I want the biggest bang for my dollar. An what else is considered school supplies besides paper and pencils? Scissors? Glue? I don’t have a clue!

Thanks in advance!

Crossposted to Samantha Ling, Dreamwidth and Livejournal

I really appreciate the community out here – there were many post and retweets and the like to celebrate the Wings of Creation release yesterday.  It makes a writer (at least this writer) feel surrounded by family even when she’s off at work and wearing her other, more mundane hats.

Congrats to Sara A. Mueller for winning the full set of the series-so-far in hardback .  Drop by her lovely blog, Clockwork Curiosity. By the way – Sara may be a writer to watch.  I haven’t seen her work or read it, but we’ve been at some of the same conventions, and I’ve heard her talk about her work in a  way that makes me want to read it!  Thanks to every one else who entered the contests, too, and I wish everyone could have won.

So now this writer is going to go go play in the sunshine, garden, and think about robots.

Mirrored from Brenda Cooper.

I do not know how time got away from me today. So I am just going to do a quick post. Here are a few people at Disney wearing unusual hats.

I don’t know where they got these hats. I didn’t see them at Disney, so they must have brought them from elsewhere. They are unique to say the least!

Crossposted to Samantha Ling, Dreamwidth and Livejournal

Received payment today for an essay and a story. Picking up Brenda Cooper’s “Wings of Creation” and then heading over to Tae Kwon Do.

Originally published at J.A. Pitts. You can comment here or there.