Tag: random

For all you fiction writers

Tim had the best idea a few weeks ago. Do you ever have trouble coming up with character names? Oh, usually there are reasons why you choose the names for your MAIN characters, but you know those moments when you need a name for some random someone who’s found his way on your page? So you scan the spines of your books or glance through the magazine on the table, or dig out that baby name book you’ve had since your nephew was born in 1971–wait, that’s me.

Tim suggested using the names of all those lunatics who send us mail for p*nis enlargements, ci*lis, and the like. And they DO have some great names! It’ll be amusing, though, if we start seeing the same names in books by our favorite authors. At least we can be sure they know how to enlarge their p*nis*s.

what do numbers mean

The way we look at numbers is a strange thing. A few weeks ago, nearly a mile after I filled my car with gas, I glanced down and realized the photo opportunity I’d missed. I shot the photo anyway, intending to use it for a post on June 6, then promptly forgot about it.

Tim’s recent post on hate crimes statistics made me think a lot about numbers. One time I read an article about trying to help people conceive of the horrors of the Holocaust. The writer posited that we can’t really conceptualize “six million” dead because our mind can’t see six million of anything. We can easily see six. Six apples. Six pennies. Six books. But six million? There’s no picture for that many in our head.

A number too high to visualize loses impact.

Low numbers, on the other hand, while easy to visualize, make us pull out “relatives.” For example, if we say, “Thirty people died in this flu epidemic,” it’s easy to see thirty. But it’s also easy to think, “Thirty’s not so many in a city of X million or a world of X billion.”

I often thought about this strange concept we have of numbers in relation to AIDS. Because in the early days of the epidemic, that very thing happened. “A thousand people have died? Well, X number died from bubonic plague.” Or “X number have died from cancer.” The numbers didn’t seem so startling in comparison to other catastrophes, so it was hard for activists to get people concerned. But only by getting people concerned could they provoke effective strides toward prevention and treatment.

A number too low never achieves impact.

Except… When a bad number includes someone you know and love, it’s always too many.

No matter how we see (or don’t see) the numbers, to an optimist or an activist, thinking about a problem leads to talking about it. Talking about it leads to doing something about it. Doing something about it leads to making those numbers decrease.

One element of the Kevin Aviance story (which prompted much of this recent discussion in public forums about hate crimes) that greatly disturbed me was the idea that people saw it taking place and did nothing. How many people who saw it had cell phones? At a minimum, couldn’t they have called 911?

And at a minimum, even if we don’t always agree about the meaning of numbers, public discussion and debate may help get a truer reporting of those numbers and ultimately, a decrease in them.

**Update: I had no idea when I wrote this post that there is actually a debate going on in Tim’s comments. I just saw that, and now I look like I’m just exploiting it. Sorry.

Around The Compound

I don’t know what time I went to bed last night. I was really tired. I know Rex was all WTF?!? when I put him in his crate, as it was definitely many hours before Tim’s usual bedtime.

I then got my pillow and a quilt from downstairs and stretched out on Tim’s bed. (Not under your covers, not using your pillows, so it’ll be like I was never there. You know I hate making Tom do more laundry. Heh.)

I fell asleep quickly, but I woke up about every two hours and tortured myself trying to figure out what time it was. Finally, just before six, I got up and released Rex, who once again had that WTF?!? expression on his face. It was mirrored on Margot’s face when Rex and I took a walk around the yard. I spotted her staring out the Home Office window at me. In her case, the WTF?!? look was her sense of betrayal that I’d spent the night out with another dog. Somewhere inside, I’m sure Guinness was just thinking, “Is it time for breakfast yet?”

During the course of the night, my dreams let me know everything I’m stressed about. For example, I dreamed that I was filling my car with gas. Even though the gas was $1.67 a gallon (cue Rex’s WTF?!?! face here), it cost the guy in front of me over $300 to fill his truck.

I also dreamed that I needed to turn off the air conditioner. I don’t know why, because I damn sure wasn’t cold at Tim’s. Here at The Compound, we’re keeping the thermostats between 85 and 90, and I’m still thinking we’ll need to pimp out Tim to pay the utility bills in July, August, September, and October. Any takers? (Right now, in the suburbs, Tim’s face just got the WTF?!? look.)

I also dreamed about the TJB5 manuscript in progress. Which was kind of good, because I’ll probably get a chapter out of what I dreamed. Although I’m sort of 0 for 4 on pleasing my writing partners with what I’ve written so far.

WTF?!?

Confidential to redleatherbound

The secret’s in the skillet. Seasoned. Cast iron.


Real buttermilk. And whether you use a mix or make your own, no sugar. NO SUGAR.


Don’t overmix your batter. Coat your skillet with bacon grease and GET SKILLET HOT (either on a burner or in your oven) before you pour the batter in. A hot skillet is key. Use a drop of water or a pinch of cornmeal and listen for the sizzle. Did I mention there’s no sugar in the mix?


Place in a 400-degree oven and keep an eye on it. Most mixes (cake or cornbread) shouldn’t bake as long as the directions call for. Knowing that will always prevent dryness. By the way: cake mix? Sugar. Cornbread mix? No sugar.


Golden on the top.


Brown on the bottom.


Light. Not dry. And NOT SWEET. Because there’s no sugar.

To those Southern cooks who might scoff at me for using a mix, I say, “People have wept over my cornbread.” And to those who use sugar, I weep over your cornbread. (Sorry, Shawn!)

Let sleeping blogs lie

I just checked my list of bloggers. I have 28 blogs on the list (these are separate from my LJ friends). There are another five or so nationally known blogs (usually on politics or popular culture) that I check from time to time to keep up with what’s being talked about. Then there are around ten that are linked on some of my favorite blogs that I also read occasionally.

When I first got online in 1997, I was all about my chat room. Actually, there were two chat rooms–the one where I met my writing partners and made some other good friends, and one that was for authors that I visited from time to time but where I rarely talked and made no friends. About four years later, my main “room” had changed a lot, and my focus shifted to message boards. There were four of those that interested me and where I made an entirely different group of online friends based on shared interests.

About 18 months ago, my interest shifted to blogs, and around that time, I followed Tim to Live Journal. I don’t consider myself to be a blogger. I like what I’m doing because it’s no pressure and random. It’s not a problem, but reading all those blogs can be. As a person who’s always shunned TV as a time thief, it’s deplorable how much of my time and energy I’ve given to this computer monitor. So I’ve cut back on blogs–and cut back again. I may go a couple of weeks and read only my top two or three favorite blogs, then rapidly skim some of the others for anything of interest.

So I was doing well with my online time management. I’m not an e-bay, craigslist, myspace, or online games person (although the games thing was a passing interest for a while), so except for keeping up with Live Journal, I’ve been using my Internet time for research.

And then… in the middle of that research–I swear!–another blog sneaked into my online world. I’m not going to link to it. I’m not going to promote it. Not because it’s anything that’s weirdly out of character for me. It’s not porn. It’s not Republican. It’s not dogmatic. Far from all of that. This blogger seems to be a regular person. A working man. A very articulate working man with a distinctive voice and an unapologetic attitude that is so not politically correct that it’s… refreshing. And I’m so jaded by liars and posers that I can’t believe he’s real. I keep waiting for the “Gotcha,” and until I’m certain it’s not coming, I guess I plan to keep him my reading secret.

It’s murky, this online world.