Sounding Off (and On)

Who's in?

I did NaNoWriMo last year and it was terrific. I got out of my comfort zone, out of the navel-gazing sci-fi world in which I'd spent the last few years, and the result was a standalone work that still holds my imagination a year later. Thing is, this year I'm so busy I can't find time to eat or sleep. Thing is, I hate who I am when I'm not working. Thing is, this year, I'm going to need some help.

Who else wants to write fifty thousand words in thirty days? It's actually not that big a deal -- just over fifteen hundred words a day -- we all probably come close to that on email and various social networking sites already. Really. This post is already over a hundred words long, and look how short it is to this point!

Do you write? Do you want to? Would you benefit from a little external nudging to help you? Do you want to try something crazy, something that forces you to silence that nagging editor in your head and just follow the characters wherever they want to go, for no other reason than the joy of creating something only you can create?

Sign up. Add me (amberdisa) as a writing buddy. Keep me honest. Help me remember that there is more to the world than the daily grind of a miserable commute and an uncertain future.

The website: http://www.nanowrimo.org/
The book: No Plot? No Problem

Seriously, who's in?

The last few months have, officially, sucked.

( Sucky details )

( The song )

I have been incredibly remiss. I have not posted to anything in over six weeks. I don't have time for a real post now, either, but I did want to say that I at least recognize how remiss I have been...

In lieu of something interesting about me, I present:

( Oh my God! There's an axe in my head! )

The South Beach Diet is frustrating, strict, annoying, embarrassing in restaurants, and more than a little inconvenient in our modern sugar-soaked world -- but it works.

( Geeky report with numbers )

( Reflections on the good and bad )

So, I'm back to (mostly) normal, with hopefully some healthier habits that will continue into the future.  I have no intention of weighing myself for at least two weeks; we'll have to see what happens then.

Off to dinner!  And fruit for dessert...

This made me laugh so hard today I couldn't help but share it.


Read the full blog entry here

Me?  I want to go wherever the Jamaicans mix the drinks...

When did I get so overweight and out of shape?

( Whining about why the Marine Corps thinks I'm fat )

( What I'm doing about it )

So, if you run into a grumpy Amber/Disa in the next few weeks, this is why (well, there is all the damned house stress too, and uncertainty about what I'm going to be doing this fall and/or next spring, and, well, all right, there's a lot of crap right now, but dieting is NOT helping). Hopefully I'll shed what I need to shed, run what I need to run, and can return to my normal level of grumpiness on August 3rd.

Every time I visit Yosemite National Park I swear I will never come home.

Several weeks ago, some dear friends and I spent a week in the park. They rented a cabin. I provided the services of nag, sometime guide, and full-time annoyingly enthusiastic Yosemite cheerleader. It was a wonderful time.

( Selected photographic memories )

Yosemite is the kind of place that, until you've been you won't believe, and after you've been you can't forget. I really am pretty content with basic things: blue sky, green trees, white rocks (well, no, it doesn't take much to make me happy, why do you ask?). Before this trip I spent a weekend in San Francisco, meeting new friends and discovering the riverine fun that is whitewater kayaking. Since this trip I have been thinking longingly of the next time I get to be on the river, in the mountains, outside where green things live and breezes blow and I can feel like a real person living on a real planet...sigh.

Ah well. As I plod along in my methodical and grueling search for a decent piece of real estate in the maritime desert that is San Diego, I can think of the cool mountains and smile, and -- thanks to our National Park system -- I can know with reasonable certainty that the mountains will still be there when I go back.

Lift thine eyes, oh lift thine eyes
To the mountains
Whence cometh, whence cometh, whence cometh help.
Thy help cometh, cometh from the Lord
From the Lord the maker of heaven and earth
He hath said thy foot shall not be moved
Thy keeper will never slumber
Never, will never slumber, slumber
Lift thine eyes oh lift thine eyes
To the mountains
Whence cometh, whence cometh, whence cometh help
Whence cometh, whence cometh, whence cometh help

I hate not writing.

Hate it hate it hate it.

I've been so distracted over the last few weeks that a whole month slipped by when I wasn't looking.  When I opened Enis's story today I was disheartened to see that I last added to it on 21 April (sigh).

But I had time today.  So, I spent three and a half hours re-reading it, all 130,000 words plus, with probably a third of the story still left to go.

It's good.  The story is compelling, the characters are vivid, I had to make myself stop and go to the bathroom.  It's rough, of course, and needs much polishing and de-purplification, but still -- I got drawn into the story, so much so that I was pleasantly surprised by the latest plot twist, even though I wrote the damned thing (a month ago).  I feel much better about myself.

Dammit, I'm going to write tomorrow.  I want to know how it turns out.  The only way to find out is to sit down and write it!

Wish me luck...

Via Wired:

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05/star-trek-a-military-analysis/

Full of spoilers, but if you've seen the movie, read it.  I fell off my chair at "missile defense still doesn't work."

Bonus entertainment in the comments from people who clearly didn't get the memo about snarky sarcasm and why it's funny.  Enjoy!

So I was reading all the reviews of the new Star Trek movie this weekend, and feeling really sorry for myself because I was stuck on deployment and wouldn't get to see it until it hit DVD-land, when I might or might not get to it (I have yet to see *any* of the X-Men franchise for similar reasons, and now I'm so far behind it's hopeless) and I was ready to begin exerting massive self-control to stop myself from reading any spoilers until I got back.

Then it occurred to me. I'm not in darkest Africa. I'm not living in a tent in some godforsaken sandblasted outpost of our undeclared American empire. I'm in Jamaica, for crying out loud, in the largest English-speaking city south of Miami, fully outfitted with all the benefits of modern Western civilization, including traffic, drive-through restaurants, and multiplex cinemas.

Duh.

I sent the new crew of Marines off on their "get lost in Kingston" mission, fabricated an alibi that involved a trip to the laundromat, and snuck out to the mall by myself in an old-school, over-the-wall, breaking-liberty-rules episode of playing hooky. I went to the movies!

( Thoughts with spoilers, skip if you haven't seen it )

If you haven't seen it, GO SEE IT. It's good. Set aside your preconceptions and enjoy the story and the characters on their own merits, and go along on a fun ride that will leave you impatiently waiting for the next one.

Oh, I had a nice time on leave!

I swapped in some timeshare points for six days in a resort on the Dutch side of St-Martin/St. Maarten.  Gina and Mik came down from Colorado (airline pilots will show up if you invite them, no matter how obscure the location) and we bummed around, drank rum, had adventures, and generally enjoyed a nice Eastern Caribbean vacation.

My timeshare deal is the best EVER because it comes complete with cooks.  They bought, scaled, gutted, filleted, and cooked a whole red snapper with vegetables (and in the process we all learned proper respect for the Scotch Bonnet peppers in jerk seasoning).  I had an honest-to-god Cheeseburger in Paradise at the Barefoot Restaurant one afternoon.  And the 12-year-old rum and the Red Stripe and the Mackeson and the Sangster's and the Jamaica mudslides and the Guavaberry coladas...oh my goodness I need to hit the gym tomorrow...

( Adventures )

Hope all is well with everyone!

What a two weeks it has been.  Since I last posted, I have:

( Done a lot of cool stuff )

On Saturday we did the standard Marine swap and there is once again a brand new set of CA Marines here in Jamaica.  They went out and got lost in Kingston today on the obligatory "drive around on Sunday when there's no traffic in order to figure out this driving on the left thing" mission.  When they get back I'm going to do a turnover with the team leader, and then tomorrow I'm leaving the island (for another island) on a sanity-saving six-day trip away from the DC Army National Guard.

I know in the pictures it probably looks like I've been on a long vacation here in Jamaica, but it's been far more slogging than partying -- I just don't take pictures of staff meetings or long days on the phone or long miserable drives in the rain.  I need a vacation!

Hello to everyone.  I miss you!

Or maybe "eep" is more appropriate :)

I get it now.  I get why Jamaica is a big deal, why the Beach Boys wrote a song about it, why Jimmy Buffett opened three of his Margaritaville restaurants here, why everyone important in my life hates me right now.  I didn't understand what the fuss was all about -- Kingston is a big dirty city and the whole Jamaica deal seemed really overrated.

It took drinking hummingbirds and mudslides at the swim-up bar of an all-inclusive resort, but I get it :)

( Ah, Jamaica... )

I should hit my halfway point this week sometime.  As lovely a time I had last week, as exotic and interesting and adventurous this trip is proving to be, right now I just want to be done.  Wah.  Poor me.  Here I am, stuck in Jamaica... [ironic grin]  I know, I know, I'm getting no sympathy.  And you're right, I am being silly.  It's not so bad.

Happy Easter, everyone, spring greetings and happy thoughts to all and sundry!  May everyone be blessed.

That's what the calendar says, five weeks.  It has been three weeks since I last posted an update.  Funny, I just turned around twice...  One rotation of Marines has come and gone and we are halfway through the second rotation.  Time flies in the Caribbean, I guess.  Sigh.  I really did mean to update this journal more often, honest I did.  But since I've fallen so far behind, everyone is going to have to make do with a quick re-cap and a few selected pictures, accompanied by a solemn promise that, should you ask, I will bore you to tears with a zillion photos the next time I see you.

( Whirlwind tour of the last five weeks... )

Little has changed with the work situation; the staff is still frustrating, the meetings are still eye-poking marathons of mediocrity, and I still have received very little in the way of direction.  After being here a while, I have decided I have two main goals:  to make sure all the HCA missions happen despite the serious lack of planning on the part of the Army, and to make sure that all the Marines who rotate through on their two-week training get good CA experience and have a good time in Jamaica.  Anything more is likely to be a case of the juice not being worth the squeeze, I think.

I miss my friends.  I miss good roads and being able to write every day.  I'm starting to realize that three months is a long time to stare at the same four hotel walls every night.  But honestly, I can't bring myself to do too much complaining -- it's Jamaica, after all, and once I got out of Kingston I began to understand why so many people love this island.  Not a bad deal by any stretch!  Now if I can just get to Montego Bay next week without killing anyone...

Last Sunday I took a trip out to the once-bustling-city-turned-tiny-fishing-village of Port Royal.  Click the link for the historical details; I'm too lazy to repeat them here.  Sadly, none of the pirate-themed shops were open (pout) and so the town had a sleepy, almost ghost-town feel.

( Pictures and thoughts )

It's already 1 pm on Sunday, so I don't know if I'll get a tourist trip in this week or not; I might just walk over to Emancipation Park and take pictures and call it done.  There's a lot of work coming up this week, so I don't feel too bad about being lazy today.

Eleven weeks to go :)

Well, I arrived in Jamaica two weeks ago today.  Kind of hard to believe, actually, that it has been so long, but I'm in a sort of timeless hotel world so my sense of duration has probably been thrown off a little.

I've spent nearly all my time in and around Kingston, although I did make one long trip out to Morant Bay.  Everyone back home is giving me the evil eyeball about hardship duty in Paradise -- but I have decided there are three Jamaicas:

- The tourist paradise of pristine Caribbean beaches and all-inclusive resorts and charming touts selling overpriced gewgaws (north coast)
- The bustling city of Kingston, which is big and built up and modern in a cramped, dirty sort of way, as if someone dropped East LA into coastal Africa (southeast coast)
- The rural mountain communities where goats graze on the narrow roadside and people never travel more than a few miles from where they were born (everywhere else)

Guess which Jamaica I'm *not* working in :)

( More random thoughts on random things )

So, I'm getting settled in, and there's plenty of work.  I'll be here until the end of May.  I'm certainly broadening my horizons -- I've never even visited the Caribbean before, so this is kind of a cultural overload for me, but I'm enjoying it.  There's always something new to learn!

I'm here! And I'm recovered enough from the stress of packing and the long day of travel to pay my $7 and get on the internet for today (free hotel internet is evidently not a Jamaican thing), so here's my first initial impressions.

It's the Caribbean. It's hot. I can see the misty Blue Mountains of Jamaican coffee fame from my hotel window. The sun outside is so strong it feels like a slap on my face.

They drive on the left. Left. Left left left left left not that far left oops there's the curb left left left left oh gods where did that car come from look out! Whew. Left left left left left...

( Driving excitement )

( Thoughts on ethnicity )

Here's to grand adventures and expanded horizons!

I'm home again from Estrella War in Florence, AZ.  I couldn't attend last year, but the stories were horrendous, and I was warned about how it was going to be wet and rainy and windy and the site was going to be a sticky mudhole.  It actually turned out to be absolutely gorgeous!

( No sh*t, there I was... )

It was a long drive and a long war, but I'm glad I went.  Unfortunately I'm back now, to my half-packed apartment and the craziness of my mundane life, but for a few days I could just hang with my friends and hit people with sticks and participate in the magical shared dream that is the SCA.

Sigh.  Back to reality.

This past weekend, I attended the SDSU Writer's Conference down in San Diego.  I have to say, at the end of the day it was a good use of time and money, and I'm glad I went -- but I significantly underestimated the toll it would take on my mental health!

( Boring, long-winded, angsty conference details )

So, I don't feel the conference was a waste of money.  But I ended up feeling like my brain had turned into pudding.  I had to escape my house full of half-packed boxes, and went out to Barnes and Noble with my laptop to get some work done today.  My real estate agent finally told the bank (who is already an entire WEEK late in responding to our offer) to pack sand -- so I'm not buying a house in Oceanside before I leave after all.  I did get a lot of good work done today, and tomorrow I will take one more pass over my first three chapters, and then I'll print them out and send them to the agent.  If you're wishing me luck, now is a good time :)

Jamaica in three weeks, for three months. 

What a crazy life I lead.