Just because I can. ::happy sigh::

In which I am totally busted by my husband.

I am not going home until I have gotten through fifty more pages of copyedits. On the way home, I am going to pick up laundry soap and q-tips. When I get home, I am going to write the next ten thank-you notes on the list and call both of my grandmothers.


Poll #1419459 and then:
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

and then bears should get a treat?

treat should be:

(and while I have you here...) when I get my hair cut tomorrow, I should get it cut like this:

I have learned so much in the last week I think my brain hurts. I am going to apply ice cream, for its well-known anti-inflammatory properties. Then I am going to come back here and implement some solutions as best I can.

That schedule thing has really not worked out. Maybe I'll try it again next week.

Taking a break from caffeine is unlikely to have helped, I'm thinking.

Excelsior.

1. Have started making rice balls at home. I'm not sure why I never did this before, since I /love/ them, but yesterday with some leftover rice and some mock duck I though - well, why not? Why not indeed? Mmmmm. Rice balls.

2. Crowdsourcing is very powerful shit, people. Do not mess.

3. Got a very reassuring email from my ed. at Arsenal about the new book. No major rewrites, well-enough rounded. ::breaths a sigh of relief::

3a. If you've never published a book, here's what happens. You sign a contract, and then you write and write and write, and send it your manuscript ever how many months or years later, and then....you wait. To see if it's okay. Or maybe they think you've lost your touch and need you to start all over because everything you already wrote is shitty. Or maybe it's all hopeless and would you please return the first part of your advance? So these sorts of emails are rather precious when they come.

4. Have now dug into a new solo project for the summer, a total rewrite of a Young Adult book I started about five years ago. The 13k-odd words I did in the first version are good for background, but after spending six months with teenagers I have, shall we say, a different matrix now. So far it is progressing much better. If there are volunteers to read along who are of a high-school age or near to it, or work with young people of that age, let me know. I could use a few beta readers.

5. I tried to take dog video today at the park, with all the joyous frisking about, but it didn't work out somehow. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow. She was super extra cute.

bonus: tomorrow, I am taking my Secret Agent Lover Man to Nevermore, part of the LuminaTO festival. Woot.

Call For Submissions
GENDER OUTLAWS: THE NEXT GENERATION
Kate Bornstein & S Bear Bergman, eds

Deadline: 1 September 2009

In the fifteen years since the release of Gender Outlaw, transgender narratives have made their way into cultural locations from the margins to the mainstream and back again. Today's trannies and other sex/gender radicals are writing a radically new world into being. GENDER OUTLAWS: THE NEXT GENERATION (Seal Press) will collect and contextualize the work of this generation's most forward-thinking trans/genderqueer voices—new voices from the stage, on the streets, in the workplace, in the bedroom, and on the pages and websites of the world's most respected mainstream news sources. Edited by that ol' original Gender Outlaw herself, Kate Bornstein and writer, raconteur, and theater artist S. Bear Bergman, GENDER OUTLAWS: THE NEXT GENERATION will include essays, commentary, comic art and conversation from a diverse a group of trans-spectrum people who live and believe in barrier-breaking lives.

*What we’re looking for*

GENDER OUTLAWS: THE NEXT GENERATION wants to collect work that represents a quantum leap forward in thinking and talking about gender and the gender binary, in the same way Gender Outlaw did almost twenty years ago. So blow us away. Bring the smart, bring the sexy, blind us with science, break the gender barrier, shine a bright light (or a disco ball) on the whole gender situation. Tell us about your future, what you imagine, how you want things to go and what you (and your friends) intend to do about it. Think big.

We’ll look at whatever you have for us – essays, graphic art, interviews/conversations, haiku, rants – as long as you’re thinking smart and fresh about sex and gender (and being an outlaw, of course). We will feel especially keen about your work if it adds to or advances the conversation about gender (as distinct from simply reflecting it, or lamenting it).

People of any identity are encouraged to submit work. This means you – yes, you!

We intend to privilege non-normatively gendered/sexed voices in the book but will include all the good stuff we can, regardless of current identifiers of the author.

*The Details*

Deadline: Sept 1 (early submissions are encouraged). Submissions should be unpublished; query if you have a reprint that you think we’ll swoon for. While we hesitate to list a maximum, please query first for pieces over 4,000 words. If you have an idea and need help writing it out, contact us to discuss an interview-style piece or other accommodations.

Submit as a Word document or black/white JPEG (no files over 2MB). Please include a cover letter with a brief bio and full contact information (mailing address, phone number, pseudonym if appropriate) when you submit. Submissions without complete contact information will be deleted unread. Payment will be $50 and 2 copies of the book upon publication in Fall 2010. Contributors retain the rights to their pieces. Send your submission as an attachment to genderoutlawsnextgeneration@gmail.com.

~please repost lots and lots, as appropriate~

Have made dinner (seared baby bok choi with tofu and mushrooms, all very garlic&gingery, quite tasty except the tofu didn't take up as much of the flavor as I would have preferred) and quite stylish, very gay, new stationery. Dinner has been eaten, now letters will be written (as thank-you note schedule permits). Woot.

I am seriously considering putting myself on a schedule when I'm at home, to see how that goes. If nothing else, perhaps it will make weekends seem more, you know, like weekends? I'm thinking:

7:30-8:30 caffeinate bear, walk dog

8:30 - 1 work (or business-side stuff maybe every third day?)

1 - 2 lunch and pissing around

2 - 3 either gym or housecleaning

and then errands, dinner prep, and so on. With commitment to getting dishes done /before/ bed.

Maybe I'll try it for a couple of weeks and see how I do. Is anyone else who's freelance/self-employed.etc. on a schedule? How does it go for you? What have you learned about it? Please share? I am very not interested in one of the kind of schedule that makes you feel vituous for ten days and then kablooey. I want one I can seriously work with.

Maybe I should create a number of variations (possibly including take a damn day off, schmendrik), and then draw one from a deck each morning? a la Crossfit, or similar? How many would I need? Hm.

Have been banging around all morning being Efficient and Responsible, which is to say, doing things like folding the laundry, doing the dishes, and mowing the lawn instead of sitting on the couch with an iced coffee reading or shopping for houses on the interwebs. Later, when it's cooler, I think I will so some fridge cleaning, and try my hand at some red cooked tofu. Or maybe ma po tofu, depending on what we have in the house (or what I discover the utz to go out and get). Perhaps this means a visit to T&T, the local pan-Asian grocery. I also have an extremely long email from my dad with many many questions. That's next on today's long list of useful things that must get done.

However, let me register here: I would like a couple real days off. Away, quiet, read-in-bed-until-noon days to recuperate and decompress and recharge my brain and spirit. I think maybe if I get enough done I can earn them. Um, right?

1. I'm weirdly suspicious of, the the point of being quite resistant to, artificial sweeteners, re-usable plastic food-storage containers, and microwaves. I will eat a McDonald's hamburger from time to time, but if I don't finish it it gets stored in a glass biox and reheated in the oven (or, I suppose, in a theoretical glass box and oven, as no meat is allowed in our kitchen per order of my Secret Agent Lover Man). I think this is a little strange, but I mostly go with it.

2. I was, speaking of food, ridiculously pleased to have a final "so long and thanks for all the fish-equivalent" meeting with our wedding caterer and have her say that they felt really proud of the resulting menu, with all the unusual and interesting foods we pushed them to, and that they intend to offer it as future proof to vegetarians that they're ready, willing, and able to get the job done.

3. I really need to cool it with the &%$#@! commas.

4. My very excellent little brother (who is actually a grown man of over six feet tall, but whatever*) has just gotten his first-ever curating gig, soliciting and selecting the art for the public spaces in this project, an SRO in Spanish Harlem for people moving from homelessness or incarceration back into working lives. I'll post the call when he spits it out; it's super exciting.

5. And speaking of curating, he and I are both on projects these days. I'll be making an formal announcement in a day or so for a new anthology, and posting a call for submissions. Woot.






* for the first time ever, just then, I understood the use of "whatevs" as a sound alternative to whatever, as opposed to yet another abbreviation that makes me rant like a curmudgeon.

I am done with the book, and brain is therefore slowly returning, though I have a new project to start with that I can officially announce Real Soon Now, and then another thing I'm percolating up a drafty book proposal of, because I am the enemy of leisure. I also have all that nice French school on my computer, and oh, look, my gym membership. Maybe I'll even get some things done this summer. Hey, a Bear can dream.

It's nice to be at home for a stretch. Different to how it's nice to be on the road. Definitely more productive, writingwise. I'm getting kind of a lot done, these days.

I love my journal title (Just A Big Guy With A Fun Sense Of Sin) because I think it describes me well and has the bonus excellent quality of really good meter, as it should since it's cribbed from a Patty Larkin song. But just today I suddenly wanted to change it to "As the whore said to the bashful sailor:" which cropped up in what I was reading and delighted me. Perhaps I will have writing paper made with it instead. ::grin::

I did make bookplates today, for our entire library (it's telling to consider whether 1000 bookplates will be enough for less than five seconds before realizing that of course it won't be) made to the specifications of my Secret Agent Lover Man, to wit:

</a>

I found the dog image on Etsy, bought the charming little pen-and-ink drawing of it, and used the artist's very high-quality scan to make the bookplates. They're not quite right yet - not sure why - but we're close. And my SALM has always wanted personalized bookplates. So there you have it.

Maybe I should look for pen-and-ink drawings of sailors and whores for my writing paper? G-d, that would be fantastic, wouldn't it? Paper and envelopes, embellished with custom-designed dirty little doodles? Well, I'll settle for the amusing text to begin, I guess, and we'll see.

::wanders off, wondering whether Katie Commodore takes writing-paper commissions::

Have started a gravlax, inspired by the lovely and talented perigee. I'm afraid I didn't use enough dill, but it is already producing a great deal of liquid and seems to be curing in there.

There are not enough iced grande caramel doubleshots in the world for me these days.

I have all these ranty little 200-word beginnings of things, but I cannot seem to find the funny. Has anyone seen mine? Please advise.

If I have ever told you a funny or sexy story about gender or sexual orientation, especially my personal gender or sexual orientation, now (as in this minute) would be a great time to remind me of it. In the comments, via email, text, tweet, call the house, stop by, whatever you got. ::makes a cutely pleading face:: I seem to be a few short.

Comments are screened so that different recollections can all be present. I'll unscreen when I'm done with them.

I have been valiant against the forces of entropy, with the assistance of Charlotte-from-Craiglist who took $10/hr in cash to assist and motivate. The first batch of wedding-related detritus has now been conquered, and all living spaces are livable once more. She's going to come back next week to battle the storage area with me, but for now I feel victorious indeed, and am now waiting for my husband to come home, exclaim in delighted awe over my accomplishments, and get me ice cream as a richly deserved reward.

Hello, I am a gratuitous icon post.

I'm married. The wedding weekend was wonderful, insane, packed absolutely full of people and love and food and blessings. Eventually I even calmed down enough to be able to really enjoy it. It was amazing to have so many people I like all in the same place, magnificent to have so many of my very best and closest folks (many of whom had never met) all with me, and by yesterday afternoon was as calm as I get. Not that that's saying much, but still. Very calm.

A few undigested thoughts in no order:

I loved our ceremony. I had been afraid it was too long, but if it was I don't care, and my husband (!) wrote the most extraordinary vows. We did something we had been thinking and talking about which was then sharpened into focus by our friends' Jess and Jet's wedding, where we asked the people assembled to take on the responsibility of supporting us, individually and in relationship. And then we said a blessing of thanks for them, and I think that might have been when the last few holdouts started crying.

My grandmothers, among the last people who still use my first name, kept introducing themselves by saying "I'm Sharon's grandmother!" Many people looked at them in a kind but generally WTF way, like "Um. That's nice. But why are you here?" I giggled a lot with friends about this.

I spent forever on the table seating, and ended up being very glad I did when I table-hopped some to see everyone and found various of his/my/our friends cheerfully and enthusiastically enjoying a good chat with people who had been strangers. Many people commented on the unusual attractiveness of the guest-list (I claim no credit; our peeps are just hot like that) and several people said they thought they were at the best table. I am still fielding requests for post-wedding yenta. I am almot positive that there was wedding nookie, and I know that friends have been made, for sure.

It's a Jewish tradition for married people to give each other wedding gifts. My SALM had a charm from his grandmother's wedding bracelet set in a bail and put on a chain for me to wear - a grandfather clock, with a spring-loaded mouse that can be made to run up it. It's old and feels good - I keep touching it, absently. What's funnier is that I also gave him a clock present: a small sculpture called Tree O'Clock, made of an old 1930s-style alarm clock, in which the guts and face have been removed and a graceful, delicate wire tree installed instead.

We got fantastic art as wedding gifts. Really amazing, gorgeous, brilliant pieces that I love and cannot wait to hang or display, including several things that had been commissioned from artists just for us or made by wedding guests. Plus extraordinary writings - cards and 'zines and a homemade cookbook and all sorts of wonders.

The train that Toronto people were supposed to take to the wedding was cancelled. And the highway exit for the botanical gardens was closed. Wait times at the border were terribly long. But people really made it work, with very little meddling help from me, like magic. It has been suggested to me that this is not at all unusual. Hm.

Our families actually seemed to be having a good time at the wedding. Like, an honestly good hey-this-way-fun kind of good time, not the I Am Enjoying Myself At My Child's Wedding, Look, See? kind of good time. I assume this was at least in part due to the high concentration of funny stories and cute babies, but they all said in some way or other how much they liked our friends, and how wonderful it was to see how well-loved we clearly are. And we clearly are. I feel incredibly, extraordinarily blessed with great friends and great love.

Getting married is exhausting. I had a variety of big plans for how today was going to go, and it turns out that my biggest accomplishment was going out to breakfast with Turner. Might see a movie later. My SALM is having a richly deserved nap, in which I would join him if I didn't know good and well it would keep me from sleeping tonight. But I am actually seriously considering hiring someone to just come over for a few hours at the end of the week and help me sort out all the leftovers and pack up the stuff we're giving to the battered women's shelter transition program and unpack the new things those items are replacing and take a couple carloads of boxes and paper to the recycling center and get the kitchen cleaned and the dishes done and so on and so on. I would, among other things, like my office back.

Our boutonnieres were unexpectedly fabulous. Much nicer than I expected. They did a great job for us.

The food was great, mostly, and so was the service once they got the idea that it was okay to serve food while entertainments or speeches were happening. On the other hand, there was so much food that, evidently, no one was much bothered by this except me, my SALM, and a few of my relatives.

Being married is nice. I really, really like talking about my SALM as my husband. I expect I will bring him up in every conversation for a while yet until the thrill starts to wear off. And when I say "the thrill" I mean the thrill of the new lexicon. I do not imagine that the pleasure of being married to that man will wear off, ever.

I did not want my peoples to leave. Not a bit. I freely confess that I am already campaigning to get them back, or at least closer.

And now, I think, a snack. Yum.

Also I have more Dreamwidth invites. Anyone I didn't get last time still want one?

Project: The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You

Wordcount: roughly 43k

Goal: 60k

Deadline: 23 May

Reason For Stopping: Chores

Exercise: Bossing the good boy around

Stimulants/Chemicals: Grande Starbucks Doubleshot on Ice and sheer terror.

Musical Inspiration: None

Other Creative Activities: Bossing the good boy around

Reading Materials: Harry Potter Book 3

Darling du Jour: Social stories are the kind in which you read about or talk about something that is happening or, ideally, will happen to them. Seals go to the dentist, tiny blue aliens get tiny blue baby siblings, the parental units of hippopotami come to see that they have irreconcilable differences, mice fly on airplanes, and so on.

Mean Things: Bullying.

Things Learned/Discovered: Wedding seating plans are hard, man.

crossposted fromsbearbergman.dreamwidth.org

I am cranking out book chapters and edits like there was a gun to my head, and it seems to leave very few words left for other things. Anything, really. Brain seems to go to mush by lunch, leaving me enough power to fold clothes and read something not-too-challenging.

I'm thinking of you, and will send/post excerpts soon. Promise.

this entry is crossposted from sbearbergman.dreamwidth.org