July- A whole year of shit crammed into one month.

We've been talking about this for over a year.  We've been planning it for about half a year.  We've had our badges for a few months, our hotel reservations for a couple months as well... But only now is it really sinking in that I am GOING TO MOTHERFUCKING SAN DIEGO COMIC CON!!!!!  HOLY SHIT!!!

Okay, now that that's out of my system, I need to make sure you read that right.  I, DELEVA G. STANLEY AM GOING TO COMIC CON!  Did you get that?  Do I need to say it again?  I AM GOING TO COMIC CON!

Not trying to rub that in, but I've worked really hard to make this happen. Even though I've worked myself into the ground for it I still feel very blessed.  If nothing else, I feel lucky just to have gotten my badge, because the person I'm going with is a freaking awesome ninja who jumped straight into the queue and bought them for us while I was still trying to log in.  :)  I'm still working OT like nuts to make sure I have plenty of fun money.  But this is going to be the trip of a lifetime and it will SOOOOOO be worth it.  I'm checking the website every day to see if there are any updates about guests who are going. 

AND I just found out that through the mojo of friendship and this guy named Eric I am going to probably get a tour of Blizzard while I'm there also.

I'm also going to Westercon the weekend before.  Never been to a Westercon before so I'm looking forward to that, although it's going to be at the same hotel as Norwescon so I imagine it's going to be pretty similar.  :).  I'm doing the Writer's Workshop there so that oughta be exciting in the same way that it always is when you have stone cold writing pros critiquing your work.

AND my best friend Darla is going to be joining us for Comic-Con on Saturday, and then we are going to hang out together in So Cal for a few days, including another trip to Disneyland.  HOPEFULLY if I go in the middle of the touristy season I will be able to do Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion, which I totally didn't the last time.  We might even venture across the courtyard and check out more California Adventures, because we also didn't do that last time.  If I can talk her into it, I'm hoping for a stop by Camp Pendleton although hopefully this time there will be no catastrophic events that knock out the electricity for most of So Cal, leaving us with less than a 1/4 tank of gas and much further from home than that would get us.  :)

AND THEN, I am going to come back, work one day (probably, because I'm a masochist) and then hop a train to Portland for the weekend with my hubby and a few other friends. 

July is going to be very busy.  Part of it is going to be very hot because, yeah:  San Diego in July= hot as hell. 

But man, I am so looking forward to it.  And my gods, Facebook users beware.  I am going to be one picture posting bitch.  :)

My Happy Place

Generally speaking, I am a very sociable person. I like hanging out with my friends and as far as I'm concerned, the more the merrier.  I like big parties.  I also like being the center of attention at said parties because I'm an attention whore.

But there are times... times like now... when my happy place looks like this: 

It's a ramshackle cabin.  It's nice on the inside, because I don't want to live in a dump, but from the outside, it looks very uninviting.  Like, Last House on the Left uninviting.   It sits on the edge of a dark and scary forest.  There is a sign on the outside warning of land mines, volatile indigenous wildlife, and mentally unstable landowners with large, probably illegal automatic weapons.  It sits on the inhospitable side of a large ravine with a rickety bridge as the only means of crossing.  The ravine, if I have my druthers, is named something like, "Never Found the Body Ravine" or "Only One In Twenty Makes It Ravine" or "Did You Win the Not Dying A Screaming Death Lottery Today, Because If Not I Wouldn't Try It Ravine." 

There is a river below.   A big, deep, terrifying one that was, preferably, featured on the show "River Monsters."  I'm flexible on whether or not there are actually river monsters in the river, but if there are, I would like them to be large and visible and kind of prehistoric looking.  And obviously aggressive.  If I can, I will arrange for a troll under the bridge that pops up and demands a completely unreasonable toll like Hitler's mustache hair, or a feather from a velociraptor (not that kind of velociraptor, the other kind... ) or the vas deferens from the ball sack of a leprechaun or something.

In my happy place, Klingon cloaking technology is readily available, and I will have that available to me as a last resort. 

The point is, no one can get to me.  No one can reach me.  I have my Kindle, my laptop to write on (but not access the internet) and a large stash of coffee and beer.

And that's it. 

Be careful what you ask for...

.... because you might get it. And I really mean 'get it.'

So... I have recently been told that I need to be more assertive.

This... is a problem for me, but not because I'm meek. In fact, the problem is quite the opposite. It's very easy for me to start out being "assertive" and wind up being "dictatorial fuckdonkey."

I have tried very very hard to not be that person. I don't really like me when I'm that person, but I have to smash the urges to be that way almost every day. Everytime someone says something even vaguely complimentary, like "Hey Del, good job", I want to stand on top of a mountain and scream, "THAT'S RIGHT WORLD! SUCK ON MY AWESOMENESS! I WIN ALWAYS!" Seriously. Not really kidding about that.

This is why I rarely say anything nice about myself without putting a caveat on it. This is mostly for my own benefit so that I remind myself that while I do have good traits, they are mitigated by a lot of bad ones too. No more so, I don't think, than anyone else, but if I let myself get carried away I will start thinking I have fewer than everyone else.

This is why I will take control of a situation, but only after everyone else has been given a chance and has failed to do so, even though my first instinct is to jump on, grab the reins and steer the bucking bronco of responsibility where I want it to go.

This is why I make a concerted effort to not "get too big for my britches" as Grandma used to say. I recently set up a new Facebook author page for myself, and instead of putting "writer and editor" I put "aspiring writer and editor" out of force of habit.

It's a dangerous road to head down, telling me to be more assertive. I'm like Jekyll and Hyde. On the outside I am confident and capable, but quietly so. On the inside I am a despotic inferno of domineering, vainglorious self-indulgence. On the inside, I am so cocky my hair struts. Do not hand me the world, because I will take it.

Having someone else encourage me to be more assertive gives me one more reason to let myself off the leash, to finally let loose the autocratic, selfish tzarina that lives inside me, Hyde-like, just waiting to come out and thwack someone with her scepter (which I picture as being encrusted with jewels and the fossilized self-esteem of lesser mortals).

But... the person telling me this is not wrong. I do need to be more assertive, and I need to be more out in the world. See, I want to try to get my writing career going and I'm not going to do that by hiding my inner princess. But she does still need to be moderated or I could get carried away (and by carried away, I mean on a palanquin with silk cushions, carried by scantily clad clones of Steve Vai, sipping chilled ambrosia while my Rottweiler, named "Precious" or "JuJu" or something, eats the most recent people who have displeased me).

Okay, it's not really that bad, but honestly, I do need to watch my ego. It will be very easy for me to start thinking wayyyyyyyy too much of myself.

The Frog That Broke the Camel's Back

I am a resilient person. I can take a lot before I break, and when I break, it's usually just in a sort of silly way. Like a pinata: I might be broken but I'm spilling candy and goodies all over the world, so it's kind of okay.

Right?

The point is that there is always some sort of catalyst that pushes me over the edge, some very little thing that just shoves my brain from "tired but still more or less cognizant of reality" to completely pants on my head crazy.

This time, it was this:

This last Tuesday, as I was climbing the stairs that lead up to our driveway, I spied this in the foliage out of the corner of my eye. I had never seen it before.

In a more rational state, I would have just assumed that my mother or father-in-law had placed it there as garden decoration. Which is, I should state, a perfectly reasonable thing to assume as it is in fact garden decoration.

My brain, however, was in absolutely no condition to process reason or, apparently, the fact that local frogs do not come in "coral." Or in the size of a Rottweiler puppy.

It was huge and pink. And to my frazzled brain, it also looked very real. I stared at it for several minutes, completely transfixed like a frightened gazelle. Would it move? If it moved, was it going to come at me? Was it an angry pink frog? Because (and yes, I really thought this) if I got stuck being a frog and pink I would be wicked pissed at life.

I was still undecided as to a course of action when I saw that there was another one.

HOLY SHIT. It was like some sort of pink frog apocalypse. I freaked a little. It didn't help that the other one was more concealed and kind of behind me so it looked a bit like I was being flanked.

At some point, the voice of reason (which had been sleeping on the job for some time, because SOME part of me had to sleep) perked up and said, "Oh my god, are you really worried about this? They're fake. They haven't moved a muscle and they are Pepto Bismal pink."

Still unconvinced, but beginning to acknowledge the point, I resorted to the only possible course of action to determine if they were real: The Poke It With A Stick method. When it "clinked" instead of "squished" and failed to either hop away indignantly or attack me with some sort of amphibian breath weapon or something, I began to laugh at myself. Here, reason came awake fully and naturally I decided that they had been placed there by my in-laws (which is not to say that there wasn't still a voice in my head telling me that the only two other options were some of sort creepy frog-leaving stalker, or terrifyingly sentient raccoons trying to fuck with us).

The rest of the week has been a bit of a blur of uncontrolled giggles, giddy happiness over absolutely nothing, and... well, there's a Rooster in there too somewhere but that's a whole different blog post.

Today: More completely F***ed up since... well, midnight by definition I guess...

Okay, so I know that I swore a couple of blogs back to be more positive. When I blog about something negative (PMS/ frustrating goalies) I try to at least make it funny. But even though I'm about to catalog a really rough night, and probably not in a funny way, there is no fucking way I can not blog about this, because it is just too fucking weird.

So. Yesterday morning was a really rough morning; hard to get out of bed. So I decided to go out of my way to sleep in a little this (Thursday)morning, something I do not usually do. I've been working a lot of OT, getting a couple hours in before my regular shift every day, but today I was going to fore go that and get some shut eye.

To paraphrase someone from sometime with regards to something (I'm fuzzy on the details, but I'm fuzzy on everything right now... we'll get to that later), plans are great until first contact with the enemy. Well, I have seen the enemy and it is me. I went to bed a little after ten. I was tired, physically and mentally, and the last couple of months I've been falling asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow (barring a couple week bout with insomnia a bit ago). So I should not have had a problem falling asleep.

And yet I did. I slept for maybe a half an hour, but kept getting woken up. This... frustrated me. I was really looking forward to a more than full nights' sleep and not getting up early, and there I was, not able to sleep at all.

Fuck.

Finally around midnight I got back up, checked my email, did a full edit on a page of the story Rob and I are working on, and read a bit. The night was still salvageable, though I was still angry that it hadn't gone as planned. Around one a.m., my eyes were starting to blur and I was starting to get very tired again. Yay! I thought, I can sleep now! So I went back to bed, curled under the covers and-

*eyes pop wide open*

Fuck.

I toss and turn for another couple hours. I think I might have snuck in another twenty minutes or so, maybe. Finally, I realize that my frustration is making me sigh, toss and turn, and grumble, which is only going to keep Aaron up, and that's not going to make anyone happy. So... back out of bed I get at 3 a.m. This time, I don't bother trying to make myself sleepy so I can go back to bed. Nope. I just curled up on the couch and tried to go to sleep. It worked. For about 45 minutes. Then something woke me, who knows what, and I lay there, feeling irritated.

Fuuuuuckk.

By this time, I'm sleep deprived, irrational, temperamental and generally speaking kind of a soul sucking harpy. I'm really glad none of you had to see it. I might have fewer friends if you had. Anyway, in a futile attempt to maybe, juuuuuuuuust maybe get enough shut eye that I can function at work today, I decide I'll skip washing my hair this morning (something that takes a long time for me, when you factor in drying it) and do that tonight. That way, maybe I can sleep in until 9 or so. That would get me about 5 hours at this point, and I know I'm capable of functioning on that. I do it all the time. So I close my eyes and start to drift off a teensy little bit.... and then Rosco (the cat) starts yowling at the door. I mean really yowling.

FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK.

I take a deep breath, remind myself that I oppose animal abuse, and call him over for some attention, which works to shut him up... for a minute. Right about this time, I get a bit frustrated. When the attention doesn't work and he just keeps it up, I have to break out the spray bottle, which I do. I chase him around with it for a couple of minutes... which is when I learn that one of the cats has thrown up on the floor... because I stepped in it.

FUCKFUCKFUCKDOUBLEFUCK.

At this point, I completely lose my shit. I mean seriously. I am at my wits end. I lose my temper TOTALLY and slam the water bottle down on the table. The plastic water bottle. On the hard tile table. It shatters, water goes everywhere.

GODDAMNED,MOTHERBONING, SQUIRREL BUGGERING, GOAT SHAGGING FUCK ALL.

At this point, I realize it is hopeless. It has all been for naught. I am not going to sleep and I'll be a flea fucking termite if I'm going to work (none of that made sense; I'm a little delirious).

So I sit up and read. I check Facebook. I do some other stuff. Then when I deem it a reasonable hour to do so, I call my boss and tell him I won't be in today. If there's a vacation day on the calendar I'll take it so I don't get dinged for attendance, but if not, I'm not worried about it. So the boss goes to check the calendar, and he says, "What day is it today, the first?"

Those words shock me down to the soles of my feet. Yes, it's March 1st, I tell him, completely flabbergasted. I get off the phone with him, and sit down to write this blog.

For you see, the last time I was up for almost 24 hours straight, was exactly nine years ago, down to the day. How could I possibly remember that, you ask? How could I possibly forget? Exactly nine years ago, early in the morning of March 1st, 2003, Aaron and I received a call saying his grandmother had been attacked and was being taken to the hospital. We came out to her house immediately (which was next door to Aaron's dad's house and his aunt's house). We received word a while later that she hadn't made it, and we stayed with the family until 8 or 9 that morning.

As this is something I try really hard not to dwell on, it having been a horrible, emotional, violent night, I haven't really been thinking about it so I'm not sure I think these two sleepless nights are directly related, even subconsciously. But it is really odd, don't you think? I mean... weird, right?

On the plus side, Aaron just got up and I told him all about it, and he was able to make me laugh by dubbing me Deleva, called Housewaresbane. :)

Four Reasons Why I Hate PMS

I am preaching to the choir. I know this. I don't have to tell you about PMS; it doesn't matter if you're male or female. You already know, at a damned near molecular level, why you should hate PMS. It's part of the collective unconscious of our society why you should hate PMS.

But I'm going to tell you anyway. What's that you say? The horse is dead? I'M BEATING IT ANYWAY. Deal with it or YOU'RE NEXT.

1. It's sneaky. I am an absent minded person. I can barely remember what I had for breakfast this morning. I'm so absent minded that I say that I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning when the simple fact is that I probably didn't have breakfast this morning at all. BECAUSE I FORGOT. That's how I roll. So to say that I don't really pay attention to the calendar to dog when the Red Tide is coming in would be like saying that Hitler didn't hug a Jew today: it goes without saying (because he's dead but also because of the other thing). So no matter what, it always catches me by surprise. I always log when it does get here, so I have that... but when the next one is coming doesn't stay in the forefront of my mind. Which sort of leads into...

2. It's insidious. For me, PMS is almost subtle (almost). It doesn't make me completely irrational or send me into spontaneous crying fits for no reason. It takes my perfectly normal, socially acceptable feelings and just amplifies them a little. Say I'm irritated. On a normal, non-rampaging hormones day, I would grit my teeth and roll my eyes. On a hormonal wingding day, I start threatening to punch rainbows until they bleed those smugly happy colors all over that leprechaun and the bullshit pot of gold he rode in on. Normally I am aware enough to avoid shedding innocent blood but if I'm already stressed out about something else and then the PMS hits, some lambs are going to the slaughter.

3. It's a little like being on nitrous. Here's how I describe being on nitrous: there's a part of you that is perfectly conscious and aware and rational. Then there's the part of you that's in control of your mouth and all your motor functions. That part of you is tripping balls and wants to make sure that you are at some point court ordered to remain at least fifty yards from schools and holy ground at all times. Everytime I overreact while I'm PMSing there's this little voice in the back of my mind going, "You know, normally you're more resilient than this. Also not a joy-devouring she-rat wallowing in the sewer of others' suffering. Have you considered that something might be amiss?" Eventually this voice of reason will penetrate the cacophony of horribleness created by my misanthropic alter-ego. But for a least a while, that voice is lost in the din of someone's innocence dying after doing nothing worse than asking me to pass the sugar at Starbucks. All of which leads to...

4. On the bright side I wind up losing weight because my entire diet consists of colloquial CROW. As mentioned above, at some point, that voice of reason yells loud enough that I finally hear it. Then I look at the calendar on my external brain (phone) and swear loudly and proficiently, but for the first time that day, not at someone whose greatest crime was being on the same continent with me. This time I am swearing at the calendar because 1. I realize that I have forgotten to pay something important (see above re: absentmindedness) and 2. I realize that I have been a total douche canoe all day for no better reason than that my body is producing an excess of Hell Hath No Fury juice that is filtering through my system like that filthy chocolate fountain at Golden Corral. My need to be responsible for my actions and fess up when I mess up (I just made that up. Feel free to use it. You're welcome) then begins a bitter war with my absolute loathing of admitting I'm wrong or apologizing. Now that I'm aware of what's happening, I calm down a little and make concerted efforts to keep the acid breath-weapon that is my hatred of mankind from burning any more holes in my social life or sense of self worth. Eventually I do the right thing and apologize to anyone I've seriously wronged or greivously injured, but I'm still hormonal and I just wind up feeling resentful that I've had to debase myself thusly. Serioulsy, you'd think I'd been made to strip naked, dance the Macarena and play Achey Breaky Heart on a vuvuzela before a jury of my peers.

And so, in closing, fuck you.

*checks calendar*

Goddamn it. Sorry. :)

The Fun That Can Be Had By Candlelight With a Random Name Generator

Thanatos Horiuchi.

Thanatos Horiuchi.

Let that one bang around in your head for a second.

Thanatos.

Horiuchi.

Last night, at my usual write night, my writing buddy introduced me to the random name generator on Scrivener. Even after the power went out, we giggled for probably an hour at least at the things it threw at us. He denies it but I'm pretty sure he unknowingly had his on some sort of Retarded Polish preset or something because every first name was unpronouncable and the last names all ended with "-sky." But there were also names like Modest Murphy (he was the most humble of Irishmen....) and Farewell Copper ("You'll never take me alive, copper!")

But mine threw out my favorite, the one that made my imagination go nuts.

Thanatos Horiuchi.

I immediately began conjuring reasons any sane person would give a child a name like that, what incredibly bizarre, interracial circumstances would lead anyone to name their obviously Japanese child after the Greek incarnation of Death. And what sort of person he would be.

Right now, all I can come up with is this:

Thanatos Horiuchi: Death Rides a Pale Suburu.

Stayed tuned for developments. :)

Also, was challenged to write a ghost story featuring a chicken, a New York cabbie, ABC gum, and fifty feet of rope (with a bonus cookie for including a Girl Scout, pun intended!) . Might work on that too. :)