As all y'all know, one of the things--perhaps the primary thing--I try to do with this blog is demystify the sausage publishing industry.

Well, Michael Cisco is talking openly now about some problems he's been having with Prime Books. And I'm here to publicly back him up: I have now heard from four or five friends and at least three acquaintances that Prime doesn't pay, doesn't pay on time, or doesn't pay without regular dunning letters.

Ben Peek shares his own stories of deals with Prime here.

Leah Bobet comments on the issue.

Now, what I'm saying here is not "Don't buy Prime Books." They publish any number of amazing authors--Ben Peek, and Michael Cisco, obviously. Sarah Monette. Ekaterina Sedia. The list goes on.

What I'm saying is, it might behoove Prime Books to conduct their business in a professional manner. And until they do--it's damned courageous of Cisco to publicly identify the problem, for the benefit of other authors who may be entertaining an offer from this company.

So I leave the office, needing to make one stop before going to The Duplex. I cross Eighth Avenue, and walk around three drunk men arguing. As I pass, one of them picks up a beer can and throws it in the air, splashing me with cheap beer (okay, it could have been malt liquor, I don't know; it just smells nasty) on my head, my perky blouse, my bag, and then on my calves and shoes as it hits the ground.

"What the FUCK is wrong with you?" I ask. The thrower is wobbling and not looking in my direction, but one of his friends looks upset and says, "I'm really sorry, ma'am. I'm trying to get him out of here before he gets into trouble."

"Good idea," I say, and pull a handkerchief out of my bag.

Over at The Duplex, the staff are trying to figure out where the vocalist microphone has gone, and whether they need to borrow one from Stonewall. I explain what my day has been like, and that I probably reek of cheap beer. Greg hugs me, and says, "I don't smell anything." I go up to the rest room area, soak my handkerchief, and use it to wipe myself down, then return to the first floor, where I discuss my "perkiness" with my friends. Joe, like me, is a rather non-perky person, so he shares my dismay; Susan, on the other hand, thinks that "perky" is a compliment.

It starts off as a relatively slow evening. Despite Greg's request, I decide not to start off with "Babooshka"

-- I never did post about Tuesday night, when I tried three new songs. "The Man with the Child in His Eyes" was something of a train wreck, as I lost both melody and pacing during the first bridge, even though I made it through the entire song; "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" felt incredibly low after that, but we enjoyed it, and Greg and I will do it again; and "Babooshka" went astonishingly well for a first try, enough so that I will try it again. I think the trick to it is to go all out, and not even think about what could happen; it's an overblown song, and needs an all-out approach --

so I start with "Whole New You," which really works well with the tambourines from the bar, then "Driving Sideways." The bar starts filling up, and various friends come in. Alison sings "I Touch Myself" to Greg's new head shot, which is a somewhat traumatizing experience. (gtrout, when you see the head shot, you'll understand.) Joe silences the room with a version of "Going to a Town" that rips the heart out; later, he sings "Plush" beautifully.

From my stool, I can see four or five young women stumbling along Christopher Street. One of them is wearing a gold cardboard crown, and I can feel some sort of doom fast approaching, so I warn Joe -- and a moment later, they wobble through the door. Two of them immediately ask where the rest room is, while the others take a table (one directly opposite my bar stool, of course -- when doom enters a piano bar, it usually finds me). One woman immediately falls asleep; the others wobble and sing for a bit, settle up quickly, and when a young man they know comes in, they immediately leave, presumably to share themselves with another bar.

An hour or so later, I sing again ("Live to Tell" and "Drop the Pilot"), get a nice response from the audience -- people seem to remember "Drop the Pilot," though I'd bet most of them don't know who wrote and sang it -- and head back to my seat. From the waitress station, Kimlee says, "Nice work, Perky!" and I think briefly about doing things that we would all regret, but settle for putting my book on the stool and banging my head on it.

I take a cab home, and the driver is a Slav of some sort, a poet, who is currently writing anti-Bush slogans, which he shares with me on the ride. I have him drop me off one block away from home, and walk in the cool night air to the building; Soren's awake and waiting for me with a kiss.

Another summer night in the big city.

This week has been nothing but youtube clips

For those of us in the creative/requirements gathering fields

Happy happy birthday to lomedet, an all-around fantabulous human being!

I'm so glad our orbits keep coinciding. *hug* I hope you have a wonderful day!

Long day, but I was amused that two co workers gave very effusive compliments to my car. "Sweet ride!" one exclaimed.

People are so funny about cars, man. :) Me, I am just glad that I won't have to worry about the tight parking behind my apartment as much, since I won't be shimmying to keep my (usually) all-black clothes from brushing against my dirty, dirty car. I was able to get the window the rest of the way up, too, since I was able to press the switch and hear a little bit of whirring from the motor. That's usually a good sign that I can manually push it the rest of the way without much resistance.

And now I am at home, willing myself to get sleepy, but also working now at getting all of the pins in TWEWY. I also managed to buy enough stuff at the department store that they treat me with a little freaking respect there now. Finally. Yeesh. Nice wristwatch, though. Too bad I like the red handbag much, much more ...

Speaking of TWEWY pins: Pikalek, I am sorry I never called you back - I wasn't trying to ignore your voicemail, but things continue to be hectic around here, and I am forgetful. Looks like Ranger D got some decent pins from the person selling them at Cafe Press - however, I wonder if the image file I got from tclap might be even more high res. It looks like the Wikia site that I've been using hardcore has gotten some nice hi-res versions of the pin images, and Ranger D suspects that's where the Cafe Press pin-maker got 'em from. But if that's true, then what I've got is probably at least a little bit better. Eh, we'll see! I just need time to breathe, is all.

No time to breathe, but maybe I can level up a few more pins ...

Oh right--

There's something else I was gonna say, but I figured it should have its own post.

Now that I has a SHINY NEW RED KITCHENAID, I don't really need my old one. I'll put it on FreeCycle if no one here wants it, but I figured I'd give the folks I actually know the first chance.

Offered, free to good home: One used white KitchenAid tilt-head stand mixer, model K45. Has bowl, and has the flat beater, whisk, and dough hook attachments. Still runs, but is quite a few years old; a gear or two in there is audibly slipping (at least I think that's what that quiet intermittent clicking is). Fishy can comment on the feasibility of fixing it oneself (he didn't think it likely). Also, its rubber foot pads are on their way to disintegrating (it leaves bits of rubber stickily on my table in hot/humid weather). Has made many a happy batch of brownies and cookies and bread dough in its day (just made brownies with it on Saturday!). :)

We live in North Seattle. If you want it and could pick it up either in the Haller Lake area during the evening, or in the Greenwood area during the day, that'd be extra groovy.

Anyone interested? Edit: CLAIMED! Within minutes of posting, too. Don'tcha love LJ? ;)

My birthday week has been a pretty good one! :D

Highlights...

( Events, and people, and events with people, and kittens and chocolate and fire and shininess. )

And of course, the requisite birthday question: ( what'd you get? )

And then... there's the mystery gift! :D Some kind and generous and wonderful soul got me another item off my wish list-- a shiny shiny new red KitchenAid!! (The purple one is no longer being made; the red was my next choice.) I have an oldish one, and it works okay, but it was my mother-in-law's cast-off, and I've never owned a new one of my own. I am thrilled and can't wait to set it up! And I want to thank the giver... except... I don't know who the giver is. It's one of those situations where the item was bought through Amazon but actually sold and shipped by another seller, and the only "from" info anywhere in the packing or labeling is that of the seller. So I don't know who it was! If it was one of you lovely people out there, please tell me so that I can sing your praises. :) (Actually I suspect that this might *also* be my mother-in-law, but I haven't yet gotten past the weirdness of asking.)

Someone asked me if I also got Alton-esque flame stickers to go on it (like these). I am thinking maybe I will figure out a way to give it fox ears and a tail. :D

All in all, it's been a pretty good week. :)

Psst...fwiw, this will be one of my last performances before I pop!

*

Perverts Put Out For Dore Alley!

Held on the eve of the notorious Dore Alley Fair, this star-studded spoken word smut salon will be twisted, sexy, and thought-provoking as always. Whether it's foot fetish fiction, true-life sex worker tales, reviews of bad sex toys, or cut-up pornographic poetry, Perverts Put Out will surprise, titillate, amuse, and move you. Candy for the brain and the groin!

Performers will include Raina Bird, Gina de Vries, Thea Hillman, Kirk Read, horehound stillpoint, Martin Inane, and Lori Selke. Emceed by Simon Sheppard and Carol Queen.

When: Saturday, July 26 2008, 7:30 pm.
Where: CounterPULSE!, 1310 Mission St., SF
How much: $10-20 sliding scale to benefit the Center for Sex and Culture. No-one turned away for lack of funds.

Keep track of this and other shows at:

http://simonsheppard.com/pervertsputout.html

Please feel free to forward and/or repost!

See you there!

My damn phone's camera still doesn't work. I'm really annoyed. I spent close to six hours tonight trying to fix it, and I ended up doing everything from upgrading to bricking to wiping to reloading and a whole lot in between. And the camera STILL doesn't work. The only thing that's different is I'm now on a slightly higher OS...I'm on .52 instead of .46, yippee. The camera is still funky and not saving pictures, everything it pretends to save is 2MB instead of 400k like it should be. The only thing I didn't do is downgrade to 4.2 and then re-upgrade to 4.5, as that MIGHT be what fixed it last time, but I can't be sure. I still love my phone, but I would love it a lot more if it had a working camera. I thought surely a wipe would do it, but I didn't downgrade to 4.2 in the process, so maybe that's why it didn't help. I'm pretty confident it's NOT a hardware problem, because I was able to fix this in the past, I just don't know what I did. I think it was the 4.2 to 4.5 upgrade, so I might try that again, but I spent enough time on it tonight, I'm giving up until tomorrow at least. I miss my camera phone!

OK, so due to server issues I've missed the last couple of Friday Current Shinies updates, or else had sufficient photo issues that they didn't really count.  I say the best thing to do now is to put up all the new shinies starting tomorrow and continuing over the weekend, and to have a bit of a sale.

Hey, if I sell everything, I can sit at my table at Worldcon and make new stuff and chat, right?

I just discovered that I am ovulating.

Some women's bodies are subtle and lowkey about fertile moments. Mine seems to be rather of the "Scream and pounce" sort. it would also explain some of the idle thoughts that have been going through my head lately, and the way some of my conversations have gone.

Fortunately, this will subside rapidly.

Meanwhile, there is a drum-and-triangle-and-fife-and-whistle band, or something like it, practicing in the playground behind my office, as far as I can tell. And they have gone from Abba to Parliament. "Tear the Roof Off the Sucker" is not nearly as impressive with fifes and triangles.

It's time to leave this neighborhood today.

Before Ab Fab, there was French and Saunders. After, there is the Vicar of Dibley and the first season of Clatterford, starring French, Saunders and Lumley.

I just watched the first French and Saunders (1987: The Ingenue Years).

The opening sketch is Beckett. Pure and simple.

WOW.

Email exchanges from my office:

From: HR Director
Subject: J.G. no longer an employee

Just want to confirm that yesterday was J's last day. If any calls come in for her, please forward to Velma or B., since I'm not sure who is taking over her schools.

Velma or B., let us know if there's a better way to handle those calls.

Thanks,
HRD

*****

From: Velma
To: HRD
Subject: RE: J.G. no longer an employee

Forward them to me, since I was her assistant. I promised J. that I would make up stories for where she is.

"I'm sorry: Ms. G.left here, escorted by a large number of Secret Service agents. I really can't tell you any more."

*****

From: HRD
To: Velma
Subject: RE: J.G. no longer an employee

Works for me, although it does cause some concern about what you say when you're covering the front desk. May explain why I get fewer calls during those intervals :-)

*****

From: Velma Bowen
To: HRD
Subject: RE: J.G. no longer an employee

"Lithuanian Embassy. May I confuse you?"

What would you expect me to say?

Today, however, I am flustered. I am wearing a white blouse. One that I’ve worn before: it’s rather femme, with borders on the sleeves and collars that are too heavy to be lace, but too light to be crochet-work. My boss and cubicle-mate commented that I looked very femme today; the receptionist asked me if I was going out on a special date tonight; the VP of Development told me that I was looking surprisingly femme.

Okay, I get the message.

But when a twenty-five-year-old guy in the office comes by to ask me a question, and says, “You’re looking very perky today, Velma,” I start to lose it.

Perky.

Perky

PERKY

The concept that there might exist any article of clothing in this world that could make me look perky fills me with dread.

I think I shall take this blouse home, exorcise it, and then burn it.

perky

Went and got the oil changed on my car, since I actually had nothing urgent at the office going on, and I've needed to get the car detailed and washed and stuff since I got it shipped here. There's just been no time.

Of course, the dude slightly rolled down the driver's side window, even though I warned the first guy. So when I leave work tonight, I will be attempting to pull and shove that window back into its closed position. Again. Stupid motor. Stupid old car.

But now it smells of "Spice" (look, they had a list of fragrances, and I decided against Baby Powder and Bubble Gum, OK?), and the guys at the place are friendly and are ready to do a coolant flush for the poor gunked-up works, next time I get a chance.

I am still looking for a good mechanic, though. Or, to become independently wealthy so that I may purchase a Prius outright and not have to worry about the Grand Prix overheating on the 101.