(no subject)

1. I was asked once by a co-worker/former boss who'd read my last book, Doing Time (she also managed to find herself in the book, I'd forgotten I wrote her in it), how I came up with these stories? Did I base them on reality? Well sort of. But truth is the story just comes to me. Always has. I'll be sitting around minding my own business, and nudge, nudge, along comes the story, making me edgy, until I can spit it out. And it doesn't come at convenient times. Nor is it something someone else wants me to write. I can't write on demand. I can't write based on story prompts. I'm not a person who handles being told what to do, well. I blame the German/Irish heritage. Brother is the same way. Neither of us handle being ordered about well. We'd make horrible soldiers and worse slaves. I work best with little to no supervision, flexible procedures, and independently.

So, telling me you want me to write a story about XYZ or to change my story to be a murder mystery?
I shut down and writer's block slams into me. It takes me forever to get past it.

This may explain my issues with organized religion. I don't like being told what to do. The closest I found to a religion that doesn't feel the need to order me around is Unitarian Universalism, and even they get preachy, self-righteous and dogmatic at times.

Oh, and I'm happiest when I'm writing stories. But they just come. My massage/nutritional therapist/healer calls it channeling. She's very new agey. I'm skeptical new agey. I believe in roughly a quarter of it, the rest, I'm a wee bit skeptical about.

2. Tried watching the flick 99 Homes about the Florida foreclosure crisis, where banks foreclosed on peoples homes and flipped them, but gave up fifteen minutes into it. It lacked a sense of humor, was depressing. And within the first twenty minutes, I wanted to strangle everyone in the movie and was yelling at the tv set. Irritated, I went online to see if got better. No. It's a story about a young man who loses his family home to a bank and decides to sell his soul to the foreclosure agent, and in return for his home, he helps the agent foreclose other people's homes and gets a luxurious home as a reward, only to lose his family in the end, and be sent to prison for fraud.

I'd rather watch The Big Short.

So I stopped the movie and put it back in it's container to return to my friend, who loved it. Different strokes. And watched the last three episodes of Crazy Ex-Girl Friend instead. It had me roaring with laughter. It makes fun of our society's take on romance, dating and sex, but in a sensitive way. There's this absurdly hilarious song about Urinary Tract Infections that has to be seen to be believed. Always been my difficulty with porny fanfic and romance novels -- the sex is humanly impossible. The human body just can't do that without seriously injuring itself. Only someone who is highly flexible and trained in yoga can do some of these things, and even then...no.

We live in society that is weird about sex and mating. A lot of people on television, certain books, fanfic, and in film appear to use it to escape themselves and their lives, ie. a drug, which you know is not what sex should be used for.

3. There's an Indian fair or Bangladesh fair about two-three blocks away, might as well be outside my window. They are loud. I feel like I've moved to India or rather Bangladesh.

I walked to the grocery store and felt like I was living in another country. I felt like a minority. I feel like a minority a lot in NYC, which is an interesting experience and has taught me a lot about myself and others. So I'm grateful for it. I'm the only tall, white, English-speaking female, not wearing full Muslim garb on the street. (I've seen it so often now, I'm used to Muslim garb.) Everyone is about four feet tall. Okay, that's an exaggeration. Probably 5'2. I'm six foot, so...

Even the men are tiny. Which is mind-boggling. Apparently Southern Asian/African and Europeans are small and Northern tall. Not sure why. But noticed a definite pattern.

All these tiny little people (in height and width), dressed in bright colors, from head to toe. Speaking a language that I can't understand, rapidly. I felt like a giant walking amongst them. Other than that? It's your typical street fair. Rides, ice cream, etc. People are two things, no matter where I go: Tribal, they stick with people who look exactly like them, and they like all the same things as everyone in all the other tribes, except for dress code (for some weird reason) and language (weird too). I don't know why clothing and language are the two major behavior variables amongst cultures.

Ah, spring in NYC and street fairs. Not a fan of street fairs. They are loud. Crowded. With pricey bad food, and bad music. But others appear to love them.

Anyhow, treating my neighbors to the strands of classical music to block it out.