Qui Je Suis (Who I Am)

People are multifaceted. I'm a twenty-two-year-old audiophile, who studies children's literature, wants to be a YA author and has a disability. I've backpacked through Europe, and I have strong opinions about the BBC. Ask me about any of these things, and I will engage with you for hours.

This morning, I spent four hours being questioned about my skin disorder by the attendees of a dermatology conference, and it was hard. They'd ask me what I thought they should know, andI clammed up. One doctor from Edinburgh gushed with me about the town. Another asked me about the progression of the disorder. I found myself reverting to monosyllables. I wish I understood why I had such difficulty with the topic.

I mean, yes, the whole event was bizarre. If you were up this morning you saw my tweets. Dermatologists on parade, with bowties that were not cool, asking me about certain...uh...cycles. Lord have monkeys. Still, it doesn't explain why I can babble about everything else about me yet not this.

I can think of a ton of excuses. It's the one thing I can't control. Something that's so much a part of my life that I can't separate from it. Answering their questions tapped into a slew of body image issues, and truths I didn't want to face about what's gotten worse over the years. Nothing I can think of gives the difficulties weight, to my mind, because if I'm going to speak as I do of owning my disability, if I'm going to teach the teens I volunteer with and the people who ask me about it, that my disability is a part of me no more or less important than anything else...well... I need to be willing to talk about it. In all forms. Not just the ways in which I "overcome" it. The things I can do "in spite" of it, but the difficult truths.

I need to be as willing to be open about that part of who I am as I am about the other parts.

Although, next time i'm asked if I'm "mobile" I'll go with Mom's answer. "No. I Apparated here."

Friday Five!

1. I almost forgot it was Friday. Days have lost meaning for me because they are all "one less day until I'm out of purgatory." That's what these next two weeks are. The end of the semester, without much to look forward to before big changes. I'll either be going home for the summer, or I'll be in NYC. I can't plan for either because I don't know. I'll be querying, but the MS is with a final beta and my writing prof is reading my query. There is literally nothing I can do except work on next WIP. Which I am. But still. Purgatory.

2. Why didn't anyone tell me that Massachusetts skips spring before I moved here? We completely jumped over cool-but-wear-a-hoodie-you're-fine and went to wear-as-little-as-possible-or-die. I don't approve. I lived in Georgia the last five years. I love spring! Where'd it go??

3. I have listened to the Grey's Anatomy Music Event version of "How to Save a Life" thirty times. Don't judge me, you have shameful play-counts too, admit it!

4. Jo Knowles did a Skype visit to my writing class on Thursday. Not only was it INCREDIBLY less awkward than that time I Skyped into class so I wouldn't have to miss a friend's wedding, but it was very informative. She taught us about the way she storyboards her novels to track the important images and emotions. I plan to try this with my next first-draft. Or, possibly, the WIP that has gone through approximately five drafts and still feels like it's a first draft.

5. Kitten wif a hat.

Book Musings: Where She Went

Where She Went by Gayle Forman

I reviewed If I Stay back in December. I liked it. 

I read Where She Went last week. I LOVED it. It's much more character-driven than If I Stay, and I think this is where Gayle Forman shines. Adam's voice is spot-on and the way she builds tension in the scenes with Mia--by showing us his thoughts as opposed to his words-- makes the reader as desperate as he is to know what happened, to know where she went.

The flashbacks she used in If I Stay are back, and this time they fit much better into the narrative for me, possibly because they're filling in the book-to-book blanks, but also because they contrasts to the one-night structure of the book.

To me, this book was Catcher in the Rye if Holden had managed to find someone to listen to him. And, you know, with more music.  

The details of Adam's super stardom, Mia's recovery and stint at Julliard are all told very realistically. Their dialogue is great, but what truly sizzles is Adam's narration. The lyrics at the beginning and end of each chapter also give us insights into his character and their break-up, and I thought this was great. 

I listened to the audiobook as Gayle Forman recommended on her website, and I highly recommend it. The narrator's voice is great, and he really gets her words. 

A fabulous read.

Road Trip Wednesday!

 This week's YA Highway Road Trip Wednesday is "If your WIP/Favorite Book were music what song(s) would it be?"

Background Vocals is heavily based in music, one of the protagonists is a guitarist who's dying to be a rock star, and I'm still putting together the playlist, but one of the songs featured in the novel sums up the way my protags feel about each other. It's "Friend Like You" by Joshua Radin.



There'll be a longer playlist. One day. :)

Progression

Sorry for the lack of bloggage. I went down to New York yesterday for a meeting. It absolutely blows my mind that I can leave my dorm room at not-even an obscenely early time in the morning and be at MoMA by one. (There's a German Expressionist exhibit there I decided to basically run through before my four o'clock meeting).

That isn't the only reason I went, though. My current WIP, which I'll be working with an editor with for my mentorship in September, has been giving me trouble. It's existed in varying stages for a year and a half, and I want a draft I'm at least somewhat pleased with for the fall. But I've been having trouble with the plot, and finding the character's voice. A lot of it was inspired by the art tour I did last May, even though I had a draft eve then. A lot has changed with it, and with me, since, so I hoped to get some inspiration from the familiar pieces at MoMA.

The funny thing? My protagonist doesn't like MoMA. At least not now. At least not yet.

Understanding emotion, particularly in art, is part of her growth. I went to remind myself where I want her to be, so I can get her there.

I never thought much about location being integral to a character's journey before I moved to Boston. My soon-to-be-queried WIP was set here even before I'd moved, but once I was here--was able to actually walk the streets and see my characters there--a whole new layer was added to the story. It's almost as much about Harvard Square, in some places, as it is about my MCs. And I didn't plan it that way at all.

A friend and I were talking today about how A Wrinkle in Time wasn't as prominent in Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me at first, and now it's central to the novel. These things happen all the time with novels-in-flux and that's hard to remember when you want a first, second or third draft to be as polished as that read-by-ten-people, shiny manuscript next to it. I find it helps sometimes to look at crappy old drafts of the shiny one to remember it, too, once needed a lot of help.

But right now I need to stop looking back and look forward. To the next step, in art and in this novel.

Stories

Last night made me think about how many people are part of my story who might not even know they are, or how much they are. I think we all have people like that. I'm not sure if it's a product of celebrity culture, or if it was always there.

In my case, I was thinking of people like the Vlogbrothers, Neil Gaiman and especially Amanda Palmer.  Neil and Amanda know they're part of my story, but to what extent? I mean, also, they were part of it way back, before I'd met them in person. And what about people you do know, but they might not know how much they've influenced you?

What I'm thinking is this: we're all the main character in our stories, but the secondary characters vary and might not even know they rank there you know? And you may not be a secondary in their story. You may be background. Or you may be more important than you know. I guess partially i'm making the point that you should think about this in writing--who influenced your character and may never be on stage and to whom your character is an important secondary--but I was really focusing more on real life application.

Like, be careful how you treat people, because you never know if you're important in their story.

This Is The Life

No Friday Five. It's not Friday anymore.

Tonight I went to see Amanda Palmer play at MassArt. The show wasn't, originally, going to be open to the public, but she tweeted yesterday that it would be, so my plans for the day were changed accordingly.

New followers may not know that when I moved to Boston in September what kept me going were the five Late Night Cabaret shows I went to (night-clubesque concerts after the production of Cabaret at the American Reparatory Theater). Seeing Amanda play every two weeks or so, meeting people who felt the way I did about music, art and passion not only gave me somewhere to belong, it gave me the courage to be myself when I wasn't there--pink hair, monkey hat and all.

She's been in Australia most of this year, so I hadn't seen her play in ages, but tonight after the art students had a somewhat self-indulgent showcase (I have a lot of THOUGHTS about art, not art and learning to produce art that I shall keep to myself for now) my friend Samantha and I ended up at Amanda's feet while she played.

It was as amazing as ever, the love in the room, the acceptance of the music and the people. I rocked out, sitting there on the floor, and felt alive again like I haven't in a while. I'd spent the morning writing, and when I went through the signing line just to say hello and I love you and I missed you, and then I realized she was signing in silver, and well....

It was the laptop I propped on the stage and wrote with during breaks in The Dresden Dolls shows in November. It felt appropriate.

I walked the mile home from MassArt through creepy, quiet hospitland where I live (.7 miles on googlemaps, but a full one in the end because Simmons is STUPID and locks all the gates so you have to go around). There was a time when I wouldn't have done that. Because I wouldn't have tried.

The first show I ever stood through was Amanda's show in London two years ago. Before I wouldn't have done that. Because I didn't try.

I try now. To create. To live. So I can have days like today, creating and seeing wonderful music played.

Also, I ate mozzarella sticks. They are crack.

Patronus

I was searching for something to blog about today, because YA highway's Road Trip Wednesday is about comparing your first kiss to a book character's, and no book has ever featured a first kiss from a random guy at a pub.

Then I watched Melinda's video asking what memory you'd use for a Patronus charm.I started to think. Most of my happiest memories are peaceful moments, Going shopping with my mom and baby brother, my 20th birthday on my own in London, riding around Atlanta with the radio up and the windows down, a friend in the driver's seat. I don't know if I have a rip-roaring moment of happiness the way Harry does, but then again my defeats haven't been as great as his. Maybe it's all relative.

What memory would you summon if a patronus was nearby?

Book Musings: Paper Towns

Paper Towns by John Geeen

Since I became a Nerdfighter it's been on my to-do list to read the only John Green book I hadn't yet read. I picked it up at the Harvard Coop the other day and read it that night. I loved it. 

There's so much I admire about Green's writing. His willingness and ability to show smart, self-aware characters. His use of 19th century poetry within the novel. The themes that are SO TRUE about the way we see others and ourselves. 

It made me feel better about my own writing, my quirky characters, and also gives me so much to strive for. The book made me laugh out loud in a "did that seriously just happen?!" way, and also turn pages dying to know what happens but also amazingly wary. The end--and almost everything in between--was perfect for the novel emotionally, thematically and circularity... (this last word does not fit).

Except. 

In two places the characters use the r-word (retarded). I am willing to concede all the ways in which it works with the story. There is a scene where Q, the main character, protests against the use of the word "faggot", so his (or his friends') casual use of the r-word shows the way we may protest something in one arena but ignore it in another, we are fallible and changeable. It was also used in the way teenagers use it. Added validity. It wasn't a gratuitous joke the way I've protested it in other books.

But I still don't think it was necessary. I hate censorship, will defend an author's right to use profanity until the Great White Wall of Cow (Paper Towns joke) comes home. But I wonder if there were other readers with disabilities who let out a little sigh of disappointment--in the way I did--while Green's LBGTQ and racially diverse readers cheered on other parts of the novel. 

Still, I loved Paper Towns and plan on rereading it. It's going on my shelf of favorite YA (re:on top of my printer).

Also, found this in my copy and it made me supremely happy:

Friday Five!

1. I had lunch/coffee with my friend Ayala from Israel today. How wonderful is this world when we can say something like that? I love having friends from all over the world, and discussing interesting things like art and language and travel. The things that make every culture so unique and everyone's viewpoints so fascinating.

2. Because we were in Harvard Square and this is what I do there, I bought books today, from both the Harvard/MIT COOP and Harvard Bookstore. Two YA (PAPER TOWNS!!!), a writing book and Art as Experience by John Dewey, part as research for the WIP and part because I have--thanks to certain professors--become seriously interested in the way we experience art, both as viewers and creators.

3. I love how accessible-to-everyone books are. I'm in a specialized program now, so can no longer take art history or philosophy on a whim. But I can read about them. I can research online and talk with people about all the random things that fascinate me. And I can, eventually, put my opinions and thoughts on these things into words and characters and premises. The world--literary, intellectual, social--is one huge conversation, building on others.

Isn't that incredible?

4. I finished reading Pablo Neruda's 20 Poems and a Song of Despair. My first reaction was that he was at times overly-sentimental and often superficial in a sort of "black wires grow from her head" Shakespearian way. Then I read that he was twenty when he wrote some of the poems and this made sense. The copy I have has illustrations from Picasso. I'm not sure if these were printed in the original. They were contemporaries so it's entirely possible. But it made me think, these illustrations are from the beginnings of Picasso's work, before Dadaism and Impressionism took hold, and I imagine the poems are the beginnings of Neruda, too. The modeling off the masters to jump into experimentalism.

Conclusion? I need to read some of his later work, because he's part of the generation that so fascinates me. Woolf, Eliot, Picasso. Everyone trying to make sense of the world after the first war. But the fact that it took the Picasso drawings to make me see this makes me consider the way the poems and the pictures relate--how they are art as a whole as well as separately--and what this says about name association and selling things and interest and--

4. Sorry, sorry my liberal arts is showing,

Kitten?

Pitch Contest!

There's a pitch contest with Natalie Fischer here! SuperAgent!

How Pretty The World Is

Last Saturday night Matt Nathanson gave a concert at my university. My undergrad could never have afforded something like that--and frankly Atlanta has Eddie's Attic so why bother X-D--so it was a first for me to see "Matt Nathanson!" posters all over campus.

I'm a huge fan of concerts, but after October when I almost passed out at an Ingrid Michaelson show at House of Blues (I hate House of Blues) I was wary. All other shows I've seen since then had been...well... Amanda Palmer or The Dresden Dolls where even when I was standing I was surrounded by people who would not let me get crushed. Luckily, Simmons is small, and I've been to so many shows on my own being afraid was so not an option.

Concerts inspire me. There's just something magical about live music, and they make me think about this one novel (possible companion to main WIP) that I want to write one day. I love seeing all the different ways musicians interact with their instruments and their audiences.

i've seen some fabulous shows over the years--impressive to me considering at my first "club" concert time I left after the opener (who I came for) because I didn't think I could stand through the opener (who I now realize was Matt Nathanson. I could have seen the awesome FOUR YEARS AGO). I saw P!nk in Glasgow singing from a trapeze, but also sitting on stage with a guitar. Amanda Palmer's Who Killed Amanda Palmer tour that was so full of performance you didn't know where to look first.

I've seen Snow Patrol, The Fray, Taylor Swift.

I dance, standing in front rows with my cane. I belt lyrics I've only ever sung before in my bedroom.

And here's the thing, I could easily not. I could say I can't deal with the crowds (pretty true), shouldn't be standing for that long (definitely true), but I'd be missing out on one of the things I love. So I guess I'm saying, sometimes I just ignore the limitations for the experience.

Because watching Matt attack a guitar the way he does? So worth it.

And I'll see him again ASAP because he didn't play my favorite song.

What's the best show you've ever seen?

Scars

Today's Road Trip Wednesday over at YA Highway is What is the story of your best scar?

Which, if you know me, is hilarious. I'm COVERED in scars, bruises, marks and the like. When your disability entails "bruising and tearing" easily, there are a lot of tears that don't get put together so as not to scar. My favorite used to be one on my leg that I called my "funny-looking scar." It was a cut I kicked open in the middle of the night when I was three. Pretty sure the scar has been too distorted through surgeries to exist now, but I liked it.

In other news, YALSA's Hub has an article on a book related to Autism Spectrum Disorders. Go look!

Chelsey Person

My dream last night was a strange flashback to high school. I don't mention this much, but all through school I had an aide.

aide  (n). Woman (usually above middle-aged) who follows the short, easily injured one around lest one get trampled by other students. Often found butting into one's business without permission.

In my dream, I was visiting my friend Sarah in New York, and for a part of it we were trying to evade my aide (this was a game often played by my friends and I in high school--two points if you can get away with an unassuming teacher's permission).

Now, other parts of my dream were senseless and involved dating Logan Echolls. But I think a big theme of it was illuminating the difference between my life now and my life as a teenager. Then I would never have spent my free time wandering a city on my own--I couldn't even walk down the hall of my high school screaming at the top of my lungs by myself. Nothing now, no matter how obnoxious certain aspects of my disability get, is quite so suffocating.

People thought things when I had an aide. That she was my mother. My nurse. I don't know what it meant, really, to everyone else that I had this woman trailing me. But I do vividly remember one afternoon when she went to speak to my theatre teacher. I stood to the side, waiting, and heard my teacher exclaim: "Oh! Chelsey Person!"

I beamed.


I don't mean that it was good for this woman to be striped of her identity by my teacher. However, there was something incredibly validating for me to be the one she saw. The one behind the accommodations, even when they were another person. There's a part of me that knows I probably owe an apology to the women over the years who were Chelsey People, because I wasn't the nicest to them. To me they represented the things I hated--the being singled out, the lack of freedom.

I think it's important to remember that behind every piece of equipment, every cane, wheelchair, pair of glasses, extra tutoring session, there's a person who wants to be free of it all galavanting the streets of New York. (Or whatever).



Also,  i invented the best phrase today. "Lord have monkeys." Don't you dare tell me it makes no sense, I loves it.

Book Musings: The Liar Society

The Liar Society by Lisa and Laura Roecker

I missed the Liar Society blogging/reviewing hoopla, mostly because I got my copy from Borders online during the HP Alliance fundraiser, and Borders is not Amazon with speedy!shipping. What I'm going to do when my one year of free Prime is up, I know not. 

Anyway, I was very excited about this book, and it didn't disappoint. The Veronica-Marsesque tone and narrator made me super-happy as I'm a bit V*Mars obsessed these days. I loved the pink hair (need to touch mine up, come to think) and the very realistic way she reacted to dangers, not just pretending like they were par-for-the-course. 

I thought the setting might be a bit odd--are there many uppity private schools (not boarding schools) in the midwest? Not ruling it out, just seemed odd. And occasionally the most-noticible traits of a secondary character were mentioned a little heavy-handedly (wants to be skinny, eating, overprotective parents). It didn't detract from my enjoyment from the book, and I think it might have come from restructuring and the arrangement of the flashback chapters. (Two books I've read recently have alternated between two years of high school. Occasionally confusing, though not as much here). 

I found the climax a tad hard to follow, and the reaction of the police--though very V*Mars and suggesting of a sequel--surprising. Still, Kate's voice was fabulous, the adventure of the book fun. Well, well, well worth the read and I can't wait to see the next book the Roecker sisters produce! I cannot IMAGINE tag-team writing a book. Kudos just for that!

Book Musings: The Splendor Falls

The Splendor Falls by Rosemary Clement-Moore

A friend gave this to me for my birthday back in February, and it was on my to-read pile for ages thanks to the Notre Dame de Paris re-read and the other three paperbacks I'd bought the week before my birthday. But I finally picked it up this week, and I'm so happy I did!

I'm not a huge fantasy fan, but the ghost-story, fantasy in this book reminded me in a vague way of the Betty Ren Wright books I read as a young teen, where the real story is the main character's life changes, and the ghosts are part of it. The story was woven very well, and took place on an old Alabama estate, which made this Southern transplant very happy. Cousin Paula--by the way--reminded me of both my mom (whose name is Paula) and her friend Miss Paula (or Big Mama)--not because they share the cousin's somewhat busybody attitude--but because at least Big Mama has the Higher the Hair the Closer to God down pat. 

There's a lot to love about this book. Sylvie, the MC, is a ballerina who can't dance. She broke her leg at her debut as the youngest soloist at Lincoln Center. My friend gave me the book for this reason. One of my MCs is a gymnast who has a similar accident. Sylvie's voice is spot on, and you really feel her pain. As much as I subscribe to the "don't cure the disability" school, I wanted her to be able to dance again as much as she did! 

The love interest is a Welshman, which sold me on him, and incredibly debonair and intelligent. All the characters are smart, and unabashedly so, which I loved. I've read reviews that want the first fifty pages or so consolidated, but I disagree. I love the careful way everything is developed, and how Sylvie gradually comes to terms with the changes in her life.

A must read if any of its many intriguing elements interests you!

I'm Not The Only One!

A few weeks ago, I contacted YAHighway to ask about doing a guest post on disabilities in YA. They said, yes! fabulous! but....

We've got someone doing that already.

And here's the thing, I withheld judgement, but I wasn't disappointed. I was (potentially) thrilled, because I wanted there to be someone out there in the YA world who thought the same things I did.

The post went up today.

It's fabulous. Sarah hits all the necessary points (Like NOT curing your MC in a fantasy). Also, she has some book reqs I didn't know about, which gives me great fodder for this blog! :D

Go read and comment!

Friday Five!

1. My madre linked me to this article in the Huffington Post about Florida's current governor Lex Luther Rick Scott. It's a bit tongue-in-cheek, but the facts stand. Scott has, in a short time, attempted to pass much legislation that will cut funding seriously for projects to help children with disabilities. Florida is my home state, and it's there system that I sprang from and spent years helping my mom to improve. It shouldn't be torn apart.

2. This has been a downer week for me. Query breakdown, misunderstandings with friends, lack of news from other things... just not a great few days. So, trying to look on the upside, I've talked to some great people in the YA lit world over the past few days, participated in some awesome discussions and read some fabulous books. These are things to be happy about.

3. Seriously, though, yesterday I left my phone on campus, had to trek back, run all around the building like a mad woman because they'd already cleaned the classroom (after twenty minutes!) and almost cry in front of a very nice janitorial staff member. These things are not okay. *saves for future protagonists*

4. This video gives me hope for one day finding nerd love! Yay!


5.  Reason eleven-hundred to move to NYC one day? There's a screening of the first two episodes of series six of Doctor Who there on Monday. Oh how I wish I could go. If I didn't have my volinternship on Monday, I probably would, let's be real here.

The Grey's Connection

Mornin' y'all (You can put me in Boston, but you can't take out the Southern).

I've got a book to be reviewed this evening, but first I wanted to share a blog post I saw yesterday that is super timely with yesterday's post on issue books. It's about the so-called "pandering" to gay couples happening on Grey's Anatomy, which, as we know, is the love of my life. Read it here. I'll wait.

Back? Cool. As the post notes, Shonda Rhimes was very outspoken against this idea for the very reasons I cited yesterday about making sure minorities OF ALL KINDS are represented in YA just being themselves. Shonda's young woman in the Midwest who is a lesbian is my girl with Cerebral Palsy in Florida. They must be able to see themselves in the media.

As Amanda Palmer says, "We are the media" and it's time to take it over. We need to stop pandering to the nay-sayers, because they're the ones already represented!

The Issue with Issue Books

As someone who tries to read as much disability-oriented fiction as possible, I often come across issue books. Like Follow My Leader these books often deal primarily with a protagonist whose goal is to deal with their "issue". In this case, it's blindness. Sometimes it's drug addiction, homosexuality or something other "taboo" subject. Frequently, as in books like Luna, the protagonist's sibling has the "issue" and the viewpoint character is nothing but a lens.

A lot of people dislike books like these. I have my problems with them--usually due to the stereotypical depictions of characters--but I think they're necessary. Having read From Romance to Realism: 50 Years of Growth and Change in Young Adult Literature, and other books dealing with the history of children's lit, I see them as part of a pattern. The issue books emerge before the "problem" can become mainstreamed in literature without question. They serve a purpose, they give immediate satisfaction, immediate I'm-not-alone, how-this-can-be-dealt-with, this-is-what-this-looks-like. After all, often in a teen's life, the issue is everything. But they are NOT enough.

I read Follow My Leader so many times that my copy may fall apart. I have low vision, the fear of blindness is real to me and I use some of the MC's techniques to deal with life without my contacts. But I'm also aware of how rare it is to have a secondary character who is blind. Just an MC's friend, or an MC with a whole other set of problems who happens to be blind. The issue hasn't been solved with the issue book.

LGBTQ characters are doing better. They exist in the back and foreground without the whole book focusing on this element. We're not there yet, by any means, but the issue books have opened the doors. The toys are out there and can be played with. It's the job of authors now to utilize these things and weave them into larger narratives.

After all, would you want your life to be depicted only in the issue books?

Book Musings: My Most Excellent Year

My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger

Again, I have a different cover. What gives, Amazon? 

Anywho, I read this book in one day and LOVED it. It had some quirks I don't normally go for--like adult voices in a YA novel--but the way they're presented, as ephemera I imagine the kids coming across and maybe even posting into the journals the story is made up of, works. 

Plus this book had two key elements I'm passionate about in YA fiction: LBGTQ issues and disability. The disability isn't even alluded to in the back-matter, which almost impresses me. The little boy who is deaf in the book is just another kid, granted with a tragic past, who happens to sign and read lips (very efficiently, except when it works for the plot, but still). 

It has theatre, French, Julie Andrews and Boston. The voices are unique, the kids are endearing and I really connected with the era. It takes place in '03 and the main character's birthday is five days before mine (as in, February 16th, 1989, literally five days before my birth), so I think that helped me connect too. The characters are intelligent (!) and witty. 

This book is what I most want to see in YA novels.  

Friday Five

1. My query is up for discussion over at The Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment. Go play!

2. I am in unabashedly love with the Grey's Anatomy musical event. I understand all possible objections, but see, Shonda and I are quite similar in our love for all things nerdalicious and musical. I am her target audience for the event. Me. Just sayin'.

3. I've been waiting on an email for a week and a half. My mother says my freaking out about this means I will be impossible to live with if/when I'm ever on submission. She doesn't live with me, so the point is moot.

4. I've transfered my domain off of GoDaddy. If you haven't heard about the kerfuffle, their CEO filmed himself killing and elephant and put it on the internet. When I called support last night, the girl sounded like she'd fielded about a million calls to cancel already. Jump ship. (More about that here) Namecheap is doing a deal where you can transfer for $5.

5. This is my friend Shelby. I've known her since we were about nine, and she and her dad have always been up on the latest in accessibility tech. I think the coolest thing about the video, though, is that her Personal Care Attendant isn't some old woman getting paid by an agency. It's her friend. I think that's what comes out of inclusion these days. The people who care enough to do things like that are your friends. The way it should be.