A Great Man....

Is gone.

I didn't get a chance to surf the news as I usually do yesterday, so I was shocked, literally to tears, to discover this morning that George Carlin died yesterday.

I'm dripping as I write this.

Just Friday I was listening to a special interview on XM Radio, in which Carlin detailed his rise to iconic status, starting out as a disc jockey.

I've been a fan of the man since I first heard his comedy many, many years before most would have considered it appropriate for my age. The amazing thing is, as many times as I listened to, watched, or read his routines, they never ceased to make me giggle, and they grew with me.

Once I was old enough to think, they always made me do so. I've long maintained that Carlin is... was... not only a fabulous comedian, but a modern-day philosopher, who happened to make you laugh till you wet your pants, while forcing you to consider things in new lights, or bringing concepts to your attention.

A great loss to the entertainment industry, comedy, and mankind as a whole, as well as to his multitude of fans individually.

George, I hope that wherever you are now, theres a stage, and more importantly, an audience.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go blow my nose and hit Youtube, to honor the man in the only proper way... with laughter.

My Boyfriend Is The Abominable Snowman

Time to pull out all the fuzzy warm pajamas, and my big soft fuzzy robe, and my nice warm slippers that I'd put away for the summer, and take them over to CM's apartment, so that I don't freeze off what little ass I have.

Every time I sleep over there I wake up, all nice and toasty in bed, comfy and well-cuddled... and then I get up and start shivering. He likes it cold.

This morning he laughed his ass off at me standing in the kitchen trying to wrap my whole body around my coffee cup, muttering about breaking out the long underwear.

But then, he wakes up and puts on jeans, a t-shirt, a long sleeved shirt, and socks, right off the bat, so of course he's not cold. Meanwhile I'm in a pair of athletic shorts and a tank top, with roughly three miles of exposed, goosepimpled skin.

I also need to figure up a schedule so that I'm actually spending enough time in my own apartment to justify the rent. Four hundred bucks a month is a bit much to pay for a storage unit....

Roughing It

So, my good friend R is having some (elective) surgery today, so I'm up in even-more-BFE-than-usual watching her children. The youngest is just a baby, pretty typical. The older boy is hell on wheels, but definitely doable. Her daughter is staying with a friend.

The daughter took the laptop, though, which made me sad.

That is, it made me sad until I realized that it meant I had a perfectly acceptable excuse to play with the Tablet PC. That's right, Farmdad. I've got a tablet in my hot little hands, and I'm having a blast with it.

R's husband works at a place where they just have things like this laying around. He won't just "lose" one for me though, he's stingy.

I've also got an adorable eight week old schnauser pup snoozing in my lap.

Man, the next couple of days are gonna be rough...

For My Bookworm Friends...

Especially those of you who read sci-fi/fantasy...

We've been eased into "non-traditional" heroes and heroines in these genres over the years. We even have vampire characters who are unarguably blood-suckers, but still good guys. The vamps have come a long way since Bram Stoker.

Is there any reason that a writer couldn't take a leap further into the ever-blurring good/bad character zone?

Is there a line, in your minds, that separates what can be a good guy and what can be a bad guy, based upon what the character is rather than what they do?

With vampire White Hats in books and serial killer vigilantes on TV, is it simply a matter of time, or is there a sensibility line that can't be crossed? And if so, where does it lie? Blood sucking is apparently ok, and being a crazy mofo that does The Bad Thing for the right reasons (Think Edward from the Anita Blake books, god I love that character) but what about animal sacrifice?

If you're squigged out by the idea of animal sacrifice in books and you read Anita Blake though, I'm gonna have to whack you upside the head with a clue.

How about zombies? I mean in the traditional sense (Haitian voodoo) zombies are slaves to their creators, but popular culture has morphed them in many ways over the years. From shambling undead killing machines (either moaning "Braiiiiins" or grunting, it doesn't seem to make much difference) to coherent raised remnants of the dead (a la, you guessed it, Laurell K Hamilton, sorry, I love her books and she pushes the line that I'm addressing so well, it's easy to use her as an example) to movies where they're not really zombies but act like them because of a virus, there's a wide variety of interpretations on zombies now.

Same with werewolves, vampires, witches/wizards, technology, aliens, you name it.

But could you fall in love with a zombie hero?

Is the distinction the characterization? Is it ok to have a creature that would usually be stacked on top of the Black Hat category be a White Hat if he's really a good person, fell into it through no fault of his own, made a mess of things before but had a miraculous bout of leaf-turning and now fights for the side of good?

Or is it the overall tone of the book? Do you prefer a "gray hat" hero in a kick-ass mystery type, or is it easier to love them in a less intense setting like Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse novels? And does there have to be some kind of "bad" material to the character to make it believable? Ms. Harris makes us love Bill the Vampire right along with Sookie for a while, but then it turns out that he's an ass, although more on a personal level than a life-or-death one.

Where are these lines for you?

Just how smudged and stained can a writer make that white hat before he's not a good guy anymore, to you, the reader?

I'm very curious to see what the responses are on this one.

Why The Hell???

Or alternately: Time To Start Shelving The Baseball Bat By The Dryer Sheets.

I've been doing laundry today. It's a harrowing experience, because the building only has one washer and two dryers, for twelve apartments. I also have a lot of stuff which means if I don't catch the washer open when I have time, I tend to say "oh well, I still have clothes" and try again another day.

Sometimes, this results in the Mountain-O-Laundry. Today it's the Mountain-O-Towels, mostly.

I've been doing laundry steadily since ten this morning. At one point I went out and someone had opened the washer (presumably after the cycle had finished since I knew it was nearly done the last time I was out there.) Ohhhkay someone else is needing to do their laundry. Unlike a couple of others in the building, if I'm doing my laundry and see someone peeking into the laundry room (more like a laundry niche) every ten minutes, and I have enough done that I'm not in danger of having to go to the grocery store in my unmentionables for lack of a t-shirt, I'll leave the washer open once my current load is done cycling. Generally they jump right in there and get theirs in, no fuss.

So, I left the washer open. Nada.

Went out to check on the time on the dryer, and someone had opened the door on it, thus halting the operation, but not the timer.

I'm having a major Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment here. Why the hell would you do something like that? It's bad enough that the complex won't allow you, under any circumstances, to put in your own damn washer and dryer because they get a kickback from the coin-op company, without someone wasting my $1.25 on top of it.

Leave my damn laundry alone. I don't mess with yours.

Of course, the repeat has me wondering (in my suspicious twisted mind) if it's not some skeez looking for women's skivvies to paw. For their sake, I almost hope it's just your run of the mill branch of the peckerwood tree, or Sumdood's slightly-less-evil cousin, the Laundry Gnome.

I catch someone other than Cowboy Mechanic coon-fingering my butt-covers I'm gonna give em an excuse to get a brand new pair of their own, the absorbent kind the nice nurses put on you when you just can't help yourself.

Wait, What?

Perusing my sitemeter I came across this link.

I'm not really sure what the heck is going on with this but I'm kind of flattered that they included this little blog in it.

Anyone have any ideas as to what the heck this is all about?

Ohhkay Then

Well. Apparently I've become an organized writer over night. Either that or I'm being possessed by a character that I didn't know about.

That new thing I mentioned briefly before? It's taking on a life of it's own. It's been cropping up here and there (at least once a day, not always when I'm writing) for a while. I finally decided to sit down and take some notes on it. All of a sudden I have a concept, a general plot outline, an idea of who my villain(s) are, and a list (yes, a list... I never list things, except on the blog for clarity) of Questions That Must Be Answered.

I'm stopping now because I'm starting to get dizzy and I think if I don't I'll come back to myself in six months with a finished novel....

And everyone thinking I'm dead.