A Monstrous Manifesto

Latest magic just in from Strowlercon (et al), which I hope to attend next year. Sorry guys, my best friend called 10/10/10 for his wedding day long before this came up ;-)

If you are in the Strowlers path, I implore you to attend! Great music, literature, performance, art, and company await you there!



A Monstrous Manifesto
by Catherynne Valente

If you are a monster, stand up.
If you are a monster, a trickster, a fiend,
If you’ve built a steam-powered wishing machine
If you have a secret, a dark past, a scheme,
If you kidnap maidens or dabble in dreams
Come stand by me.

If you have been broken, stand up.
If you have been broken, abandoned, alone
If you have been starving, a creature of bone
If you live in a tower, a dungeon, a throne
If you weep for wanting, to be held, to be known,
Come stand by me.

If you are a savage, stand up.
If you are a witch, a dark queen, a black knight,
If you are a mummer, a pixie, a sprite,
If you are a pirate, a tomcat, a wright,
If you swear by the moon and you fight the hard fight,
Come stand by me.

If you are a devil, stand up.
If you are a villain, a madman, a beast,
If you are a strowler, a prowler, a priest,
If you are a dragon come sit at our feast,
For we all have stripes, and we all have horns,
We all have scales, tails, manes, claws and thorns
And here in the dark is where new worlds are born.
Come stand by me.

Happily Ever After!

Speaking of fairy tales, here's a favorite of mine...

Happily Ever After (The Paperbag Princess)
music by Marc Gunn, words by Marc Gunn & Nancy e. Pearsall

In days that have long since passed,
There lived a fair mahogany lass.
An unmarried and virtuous princess, alas,
She was brave, strong and bold.

Tra la di di hidey ho
Di hidey hey, di hidey ho
Tra la di di hidey ho
Happily ever after.

One morning while riding no guard around,
Armed with sword should trouble abound,
She heard the most horrible sound,
And her nose burned of sulfur.

The sky it darkened, gave her horse a fright.
A dragon swooped as black as night,
Grabbed the princess then out of sight.
Her horse ran frightened home.

The king cried, "All knights be sworn!
Kill the dragon with your swords.
Return me daughter for this reward,
That you may marry her."

The bravest knight in all the realm,
Young, handsome and vain as well
Declared the maid his holy grail
And rode off to rescue her.

The knight he climbed up rugged heights
Snagged a run in his pristine tights
At cavern's shaft, he saw no lights
And heard no sound inside.

The knight called the dragon out.
But only a lady's voice came back.
"I killed the dragon!," the lady shout.
And stepped into the sun.

The princess dressed in scraps of cloth,
Her mahogany hair was all burned off.
A muddy face, the vain knight scoffed,
"Can you clean be for we go?"

The princess still in clothes undone,
Told the knight, "I work alone."
The knight rode lone into the setting sun.
And the princess was happy thereafter.

Tra la di di hidey ho
Di hidey hey, di hidey ho
Tra la di di hidey ho
Happily ever after!

Here's a link to download the song, huzzah!

Save Our Cat!

So remember that book I raved about a few days ago? The author is in some financial trouble, like so many indie artists and writers right now.

But her cult of loyal fans have banded together to help, and it's super heart warming:


Help Catherynne M. Valente


There are instructions on where to buy her awesome e-books, information on a serialized novel (that cameos in Palimpsest, yay), more of her projects, and a smorgasbord of goods and services for auction from her cult/army of artists. Jewelry, crafts, offerings from other indie writers, all full of awesome.

What's the best way to help any writer or artist? BUY THEIR STUFF.

If you are a professional artisan, see my appeal to professionals here on my jewelry blog. I don't cross-post these blogs often. This is a special case.

Go forth, feel the love, spread the word. Save our Cat!

Breaking all the right laws ;-)

I have the Soul Flu today :-/ To combat it, I'm trying to focus on happy stuff.

This is just about the happiest thing I see happening in my circles of friends right now. Ironically for this blog, it's a wedding. But it's a really fantastically awesome wedding.

ZeroGravityWedding.com

From their blog, because of course they are blogging this:

In a few short months, my fiancée and I hope to be the first couple married in zero gravity.

When we started talking about marriage, Noah joked that we should have our wedding “in space”. Although most girls would take this to mean Noah didn’t want to get married, Erin knew he was sincere, and that this was a serious request. We decided marrying on the zero gravity plane would be a good compromise.

As kids, we both wanted to be astronauts - at least until we discovered the extensive higher-level mathematics skills involved. Erin attended space camp at the Michigan Space Center, and Noah volunteered at his local planetarium.

We hope that by having the first zero gravity wedding, we can promote the new wave of private space travel and space tourism. We hope that we can one day experience space flight and perhaps make a small contribution towards space exploration.

I know Erin from the NYU Sci Fi Club (we were both Doctor Who fans before it was cool), and I think this may qualify her as one of our most awesome alumni ;-) This is also the first zero-g wedding of all time, so there are lots more articles about it linked from the blog. Also pics of the wedding dress. *giggles*


This is why I don't want to settle for less than awesome in relationships, romantic or otherwise. Because my friends have set the bar pretty damn high :-D

Don't Pity the Spinsters ;-)

My friend emailed me about this awesome article:
Don't Pity the Spinsters

Yay! It it so awesome to see women taking care of themselves, and their own. In a large swath of our society women are supposed to take care of themselves last. Supposedly a man is also supposed to take care of her, and children are supposed to be grateful and respectful, but when that fails the wife/mother has to pick up the slack anyway.

I agree with the author that if a person has found a partner that truly works and cares in equal amounts, awesome! Unfortunately, lots of people have a hard time distinguishing the differences between a partner and a parasite. Both men and women need to watch out for social/emotional/economic parasites. But when society still tells us we need to get hitched, this can get confusing and depressing.

I really like my life, I take care of myself :-). Well... I'm getting there. At least I have the time and space to listen to myself and fix my problems. It actually saves a lot of time and energy when you're not waiting for someone else to fix things for you.

Some people have not been supportive about this path I'm on. My friends and this author have similar stories. I still think that kind of nastiness stems from insecurity, that weird unhealthy need for people to tear others down. Especially when different choices lead to less miserable outcomes. Insecurity leads to the Romatrix, Neo.


While lurking, I found another article from Charleston that I liked:
A Home of One's Own

After my own real estate adventures, I'm still not quite ready to post advice on it. But I will someday. I totally know where this lady's been, although my situations and plans are a little different. Real estate makes ya crazy.


Now I'm leaving work to hang out with writers, bohemians, and crazy types ON A BOAT!

S.A.W. Epilogue: Back from the abyss

Hey guys, sorry I dropped off the face of the earth towards the end of the S.A.W. Blogathon, but I don't usually blog on the weekends. Also, had some emotional recovering to do after the co-op calamity last week :-/ That hasn't been resolved 100%, but the forecast is fair, and I won't be able to do anything more about it until next Monday. Until then, I resolve not to give it a second thought. It's working so far, and I feel much better today than I did a week ago.

I meant to catch up with the blogosphere on Monday, or Tuesday, but I also came down with a mild stomach bug. Yuck. Today I'm back on the job.


As for Feb. 14, I spent the day running errands and hanging out with friends in a cloistered pub, so I kept forgetting it was also V-Day. I was just keeping on with my life and enjoying the day :-) But according to the Singles Awareness Website, S.A.D. is February 15th. In that case, I spent Sunday laying around the house and smooshing polymer clay. Also very rewarding!

However, after a week of blogging, I feel like I'm not explaining my ideas and blogging-goals fully or properly. Other people seem supportive, but still don't think anyone really *gets* what I'm trying to say, or understands what kind of online community I'm trying to create. It's something I want to work on more. Perhaps I'll write a manifesto...


So thanks again to those who participated in the Blogathon!
My co-blogger, Luscious Sealed Lips
Singlarity: Singles Awareness Day/First Date Butterflies
Saroj: Valentine’s Day/Singles Awareness Day
Tantrumzz of the Rat: For u Pink Lips!!!!
Life, Universe, and Everything: The Singleton Set

See you again next year, same spinster time, same spinster place :-)


This week and next week are going to be craaazy busy for me (real estate and vendorship), but if I have any braincells left there is an amusing new series of posts under construction. W00t!

S.A.W., day four, part two, clerical errors

Just noticed something odd. In Luscious Lips's announcement about the blogathon, there is no functional link back to my Sassy Spinster blog. Is it just my browser, or is anyone else having that problem?

That might explain why I've been blogging all week, and getting ZERO COMMENTS from the other bloggers. Shucks.

How is everyone else doing?

Singles Awareness Week, day four!

So we are not alone as happy singles! Hurray!

Here are some of our fellow contributors so far:

From Singlarity: First Date Butterflies

From Piyush: The Singleton Set

From SabbatHunter: Single and Happy

Keep 'em coming guys! It's not to late to join up ;-)


Today I'm still in the middle of an extended game of phone tag, trying to save my co-op deal. But if it ends before lunchtime, I'm gonna to jog over to my favorite gourmet chocolate shop and pick up a box truffles. I also do this for my b'day in May. This store is great, because you can have the people at the counter pack you a custom box, so you get all the flavors you like best :-D

Another friend invited me to a cookie bake/trade on Saturday, but I'm not sure if I'll have the time to bake cookies by then. Darnit. All this real estate craziness is getting in the way of my Single Celebration!

<3 Sassy

Singles Awareness Week BLOGATHON!

The Sassy Spinster and Luscious Sealed Lips are plotting and scheming. Muahaha. Ha ha.

As you may have heard, February 14th is also known as Singles Awareness Day. This year, Luscious and Sassy are celebrating with a week-long blogathon!

And you are all invited to join us!


The Guidelines:

1) Comment on either of our two blogs with your blog name, blog address, and email if you would like to participate. That way we can put together a BIG networky list. Wordpress, Livejournal, all are welcome. Repost this with links on your blog so we can spread the word around. We promise not to do naughty things with your email, just keep all us bloggers in contact about the blogathon. My email is on my Blogger profile if you want to contact me covertly.

2) Make *at least* one blog post during the week (February 9th through 13th) about how awesome it is to be single, or how awesome single people are. You don't have to be single to write about it, but we are here to celebrate Singledom. And make sure the blog post is publicly accessible.

3) Blog in your own idiom (fiction, fact, satire, politics, articles, science, zombies, gossip, etc.) about how awesome it is to be single.

4) No bitter bottoms allowed! This isn't about settling. It's definitely not about whining. It's about embracing what you do and can have in your awesome life!


On Friday the 13th (giggles) I'm going to round up all the posts and put up another big list. Or if it's a really big turn out I'll filter it down to my favorites. Feel free to compile your own favorites list too!

Have fun, wreak havoc!!

Luv,
Sassy

http://thesassyspinster.blogspot.com/
http://luscioussealedlips.blogspot.com/

Study finds romantic comedies may be bad for us.

Romantic comedies 'spoil your love life' sez Heriot Watt University.

I started blogging a few weeks ago. Now whenever I start thinking about or working on a new post, something new from the interwebs shows up to tie everything together.

The other week I was thinking about a particular Spinster stereotype. I was home & sick that weekend, but I did not sulk while watching romantic comedies and dramas. Instead, I watched 10 hours of Babylon 5 (my friend got me hooked a few months ago, still haven't seen it all) without the sulking.

During Thanksgiving weekend I happened to see the movie 27 Dresses, and the long, slow, painful trudge through co-dependence almost made me cry. And not in the happy-wedding way.

Like the friend that pointed out this article to me, I was never into most romantic comedies. And after a year of figuring out my head-workings, I'm even less into them, and sometimes have averse physical reactions to them. I like some romantic plots, depending on the story, writing, etc., and usually as part of a larger entity. Especially in the SF genre (so much Bab 5 'shipping, OMG). Shakespeare is the exception, but I can't resist his text.

So I'm going to introduce another tag-cloud of posts about movies and other media that do not reinforce the agenda of the Romatrix. Be prepared for some really odd flicks.

Back to the beginning

Like a good librarian, I started this project with research. I looked for other blogs and articles about Spinster-hood, and it was discouraging at first. Most bloggers use the term to bemoan their single status. I wanted to put something together that was more upbeat, more academically detached, and a lot less whiny.

I did find a small handful that embrace their status (rather than settle for it), and a few articles and books that followed suit.

Spinster in the City: In her own words, "Living Single in SLC. Not a bad existence, but I'm tired of feeling like a second class citizen!"

Spinster, An Evolving Stereotype Revealed Through Film: An academic paper published and posted in 2000, very interesting. Inspired me to take a more detached, academic look at my sitch.

The Search for Wisdom- The Modern Spinster: redefining "spinster" for the 21st Century.

Spinsters and Lunatics, online home of the "Spinsters and Lunatics" newsletter: Good FAQ, but hasn't published since June 2008. Fie.

Reclaiming "Spinster": an article that includes lots of nice quotes, some from blogs that I tried to hunt down but are now MIA.

Not Married, Not Bothered: An ABC for Spinsters: a paperback from the UK. Unfortunately, not very quickly available in the U.S. without paying crazy shipping charges. Still on my "to read" list for someday. "Not bothered," is pretty much where I am with my status right now.

Am still on the lookout for more books, articles, and bloggers. Networking is luv ;-)