In an effort to not only eat better to be more healthy, but to also be a bit more environmentally conscious and because holy crap meat’s getting expensive, I’m on the prowl for good meatless recipes.

No, we’re not going completely vegetarian by any means, but I realize that there are certainly ways we could cut back and improve our eating habits. I know if I go and stand in a bookstore and stare at the wall o’cookbooks, it’s going to intimidate and overwhelm me. Some of the dishes in there will seem way too fancy/complicated/involved and it’ll just languish on my bookshelf.

So, tell me what you eat. Are there brands/products I should always have on hand? Are there ones I should run screaming away from at the store? I am certainly open to suggestions from the carnivores here, too - my goal is to collect healthy recipes in general, so they don’t all have to be meatless.

And if your’e curious, this weekend I decided to kick my ass back into gear and get back on track with Weight Watchers. But, rather than filling up this blog with food-oriented posts, I started up a google doc and published it for anyone who cares to follow along. I’ll toss a link over there in the sidebar, but for now, you can find it here.

I don’t like getting political on this blog very often, mostly because when it comes down to it, someone over there under my politics sidebar or one of my more outspoken friends will have said what I’m feeling much more eloquently than I’d put it.

But Karl Rove’s questioning Michelle Obama’s patriotism really, really gets to me.

What she said in February, in a speech in Madison, WI: “People in this country are ready for change and hungry for a different kind of politics, and … for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”

Now go on and read her speech addressing the DNC Monday night, if you missed it. If you can read that, or better yet, watch it, and still question whether or not she loves her country, I’d love to know what more you think she needs to say.

I know, logically, that questioning her patriotism is Yet Another Sound Bite. Slap a label on a candidate, or their spouse, or someone in their campaign, and it’s sure to stick for a good, long time, no matter how untrue the words written on that label. Election years are all about taking things out of context and blowing one poorly considered phrase way out of proportion. I get that. I do.

But I can tell you exactly why it bothers me so much.

Come back with me to those terrible weeks after September 11, 2001. Come sit in my parents’ kitchen, in the house where I grew up. Have a seat at the table, in this room that is so familiar but now, while the whole world is reeling, looks so different. Everything’s changed, even this place I still think of as home, even though Greg and I had bought a condo back in January.

My parents’ house is still largely the same - they won’t start redoing the kitchen for another few months; my wedding is still a year away. This place looks the same now as it did when I was three, and thirteen, and here I am at twenty-three, and the only difference I can find is that at some point they finally took the child-safety locks off the cabinets.

Except.

Except outside there’s something new.

Tell me about your neighborhood on September 10, 2001. Tell me what the houses looked like, the decorations outside. Seasonal flags in harvest colors? Cornuccopias and falling leaves? Plenty of autumnal celebration? Count the American flags for me.

Now count them for me on September 12th, or 15th, or 30th. Everywhere, aren’t they? Lining every streeet, adorning houses that never once flew anything. Flying on flagpoles, or in windows, fixed outside the front door. Red, white and blue, stars and stripes as far as the eye can see, yeah?

My parents’ house, too.

Close the front door, come back into the kitchen with me. Look at my dad. Vietnam vet, drafted into the army, served his country, came back to a nation that hated him. He’ll tell you hilarious stories about his service. Ask about the rice wine someday (but don’t be eating when you bring it up.) Ask him how he got to go to Sydney, Australia by donating blood.

There are things he won’t say, too. I was there the first time he stood at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. It was 1992. We were there for the National Spelling Bee, and had the day to explore on our own. I don’t know what twenty-year old memories came to him, then, but I remember the tears coming on him like a sudden storm, and the recollection of it still hurts my heart.

Almost ten years later, we sit in their kitchen, the news still filled with those towers, falling endlessly. It’s all there is to talk about, really, isn’t it? Where we were, how we heard. He was still driving the trains then, underground and away from any kind of news. When someone told him a plane had gone into the World Trade Center, he thought they meant the one in Boston. My mom called me crying, afraid Boston was the next target, telling me to go home, go home, go home.

The panic’s worn off, now, but not the shock. I don’t know if that ever really goes away.

I ask about their flag, whose idea it was to get one. Both of theirs, he says, though my mom might’ve brought it up first.

“I’ve never wanted to fly one before,” he says to me. “I’ve haven’t felt like a part of this country since I got home from Vietnam. My country didn’t want me. But now, these last few days, I’ve seen the way people have reacted. How they’ve come together.

“For the first time,” my father says — and yeah, there are tears in his eyes, which means they’re in mine, as well — “I’m proud to be an American.”

You can be patriotic and not be proud of your country. There are things this nation has done that are unspeakably shameful. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be made right. It doesn’t mean that someone or something can’t come along that uplifts you, inspires you, and brings back that spark of pride. For my father, it was the way the people of this country banded together in the wake of tragedy. For Michelle Obama, it’s seeing the energy and the determination and the hunger for change that’s been so evident during this campaign cycle.

That’s why I take such offense at Rove’s statement. Because if he’s questioning Michelle Obama’s sincerity, he’s questioning my father’s, too.

Okay, there are several of you in various stages of waiting - Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Heroes, Lost.

Trust me now.

You trust me, right? I know you do. (I’m looking at you, OPB, and Torteya.)

Okay, good.

Go rent Eureka. NOW. If you have Netflix, stick it in your queue and bump it to the top. Our friend Chuck gave the first season to Greg as a birthday present, and once we started watching it, we were hooked. I guess if I had to classify it, I’d call it science fiction/comedy, but there’s definitely a serious, darker undertone running through the whole show, which makes it all the more awesome.

The cast is pitch-perfect - I love Zoe Carter and Henry Deacon the very most. The dialogue is excellent, the timing great.

Oh, and you BSG fans? The music (at least in the third season, not sure about the first and second) is done by Bear McCreary.

GO. NOW. WATCH.

What the hell are you still doing here?

My college campus was a stop on the commuter rail. You’d hear the whistle as the trains came and went, back and forth, shuttling people into the city in the mornings and back out again at night. Sometimes I’d be in class when that whistle would sound, and my mind would drift, wishing I was on my way in to Boston.

The city seemed so exciting to me, maybe because I’m from a small town. Maybe because I remember when I was small, my mother worked here in what we called “the Pregnant Building” for the way the bottom floors bumped up and out, then went back in. Even now, when I have a dream about walking in Boston, I almost always see that building there somewhere.

As I came out of Government Center yesterday, something about the air and the early morning light caught me up and sent me back to that. I can’t define it much more than this: it was one of those days that, if I’d been back in college, I’d absolutely have ditched classes and rode the train into town, like I did a few times back in the day. The air was cool, summer fading towards fall, clear blue sky promising a day that would be warm but not too hot. I wanted to go ramble through bookstores around Harvard Square and have lunch on the plaza in front of Trinity Church.

Instead, I had to keep going, across the street and into work. Stupid grown-up responsibilities.

I’ve worked in Boston for nearly nine years, and I’m not sick of it. The commute gets to me, sure, but that’s because the time I’m physically spending in Boston isn’t spent exploring the city.

One of my several writing projects is a story that takes place (at least at the beginning) in Boston. I’m realizing that when I ran it as a game several years ago, I didn’t really need to know the layout of the streets too accurately - my players were forgiving enough (and some were probably less knowledgeable about the city’s geography than I was.) Now that I’m working towards putting this in front of a larger audience (someday, maybe), that’s an aspect I’d like to make sure I get right.

Fairly early on, there’s a chase that begins in the North End. It’s ultimate destination is Cambridge, but the end of the flight can certainly end well before that. I’d like to try walking the paths the characters will take, or part of it, since I really don’t plan on travelling through sketchy alleys and hopping fences and getting arrested for trespassing. I’ll be bringing the camera along if I do this, so you’ll probably find yourselves on a photographic walking tour/preview sort of thing one of these days.

While I’m at it, might as well toss out a bit of a writing update, too. Anna’s backstory is finally done, which is nice. Took her long enough to tell it. Though, in finishing it, I was reminded of the intrinsic value of a good walk for unravelling plot threads. I was so close to finishing the final scene when it was time to shut down for the day. And, as much as the story was done, the way I was ending it felt too abrupt. So I got up, walked away, and played it out in my head on the way to the train.

I don’t even think I was out of the building before the true ending - the right one - came to me. From there, it was just a matter of spinning out the dialogue and typing it up. The final word count ended up over 17,000 words, 27 pages if I were to print it out. A bit longer than I’d intended, but a few scenes that I hadn’t originally planned demanded to be written, and I think they made the story better.

So, now on to outlining this new-old project (oh god, outlining. /hate). But one thing I’ve learned is, any time I’ve picked it up, I’ve gotten stuck on a particular scene. It’s something that needs to be there, but for whatever reason, I get the characters there and just… stall. In an hour of outlining it, though, I think I might have worked through the problem.

It was also kind of heartening, when I dusted off my old game notes (you don’t want to know the length of that file), I looked at a lot of the stuff I’d forgotten and thought, y’know? This isn’t half-bad.

So, there’s one thing getting a bit of a second wind, plus Lil, who’s rolling her eyes at me from her short story, a revisit of “Kate” sometime soon, and only about a hojillion things I owe other people for Davien, Threnn and Anna.

It’s a good kind of busy.

Today is Tuesday, but it’s Monday-like for me, since I was home sick yesterday.

You see, Sunday, my mother rode in a Dressage show. (I took many pictures. I will unload the camera later and show off the horse who is competing with me for maternal affection.) I showed up at 8:30 AM in a tank top. Yes, I had sunscreen on. I didn’t think the day would get hot as fast as it did, so my only real covering was a wool army surplus shirt, which I figured I’d be wearing for a few hours.

Nope. It was hot as all get-out, and that bad cat came off by 8:45.

So, there I am, running around, taking pictures in the sun for, oh, six hours.

Yeah, I got a wee bit pink. Nay, worse than that. I will go so far as lobster-tastic.

I’ve had worse. Oh, believe me, I’ve had worse.

But! My mom did great, even though her judge was a wee bit harsh. This woman is, as my mom puts it, “Classical.” So if you get something even a little bit wrong, that’s it. No leeway, no sugar-coating.

Still, she took home a ribbon. Fourth place in her group, I believe. And I think she was more shaky than she usually would be. Because, about an hour before her ride, she got thrown.

I didn’t even see it happen - she was riding around like everyone else, warming up. I must have been looking at another horse, or trying to take a picture of someone. I heard a thump in the direction she’d gone, but when I looked, she was standing beside Cisco. I thought she’d just dismounted for some reason.

She came back to where Greg and I were standing and said, “He doesn’t usually do that.”

Me: “Do what?”

Her: “You…didn’t see that?” Cue my mom’s “Oh shit, I shouldn’t have said that” look.

Me: “Nope. What happened?”

Turns out, someone had put up one of those little awning things, made out of blue tarp. The wind caught it just as she rode by, and the flapping made Cisco spook. She thought for a couple of seconds there she was still on - almost righted herself, then he did a little swerve thing and off she went. But she really did bounce right back up, her butt a little grass-stained, her pride a little hurt, but otherwise okay.

Go mom.

So, I ran around in the sun (for some reason, I thought there was more shade there…) and by 2:30, I was ready to go the hell home. I don’t think I realized the sad state of my shoulders until I got in the car and felt the air conditioning come on. I drank enough water to drown a small country, but I still woke up feeling bleh on Monday. I stayed home from work.

So, of course, today is Monday-like for me, and in true Monday form, the train I took into work was running late. So late, in fact, that I didn’t get to work until 9:30. I start at 8:30. At least my boss is cool with commuter troubles. She goes through it herself.

Also, your hostess was thwarted in my quest for lunchtime coffee, since I didn’t have any this morning. It’s raining pretty hard out there, and I have no umbrella.

And a white shirt.

Which means, Starbucks Mocha Frappucino from CVS. Coffee isn’t supposed to be this thick. Stupid Starbucks. Stupid rain. Stupid Tuesday that’s acting like a Monday.

Courtesy of Jim MacDonald at Making Light. The original post itself is funny. Then the regulars join in, adding verses in the comments section, and oh, the slashtastic, multi-fandom hilarity that ensues.

Mommacow’s going to kill me. I can’t stop giggling.

My friends have looked at me oddly for months, when I’ve occasionally uttered “STARVING!” and peered around expectantly, hoping they’d get the reference. I know I sent around the link to the story from which it comes, but chances are the site was getting slammed at the time. It was linked off of Making Light and several other places, so my friends probably gave up in an impatient 404-rage and never tried again.

Bastards.

ANYWAY. Lori has recently discovered the hilarity that is the sweet potato story, and now, because I am a good friend and I love you all, I link it here for you:

Littera_abactor’s I Has a Sweet Potato.

It’s funny, the last couple of weeks I’ve been more lax about checking the email address I use for submissions. I wasn’t expecting to hear back from Strange Horizons until sometime next month. Even still, I was checking it daily-ish, just in case, but every now and then I’d forget to look.

I must have checked it on Friday, but I didn’t look yesterday. Today, I logged in to find a reply from the editors.

I won’t keep you in suspense: they passed on “Kate.”

However, I was figuring on getting a form response - basically a variation on “Thanks, but it’s not right for us at this time,” since they’re probably pretty swamped with submissions. It’s not insulting to get one of those; there’s nothing to really read into it. Editors just plain don’t have the time to respond to every single thing they read - otherwise, nothing would ever get published. And, y’know, that’s bad.

BUT! The awesome part of this (yes, the awesome part of being rejected) is, the editor who responded took the time to say some really nice things about the story itself, and offered suggestions for improvement - where the story bogged down for her, a note on the ending. And in addition, she offered some awesome compliments on my writing, so I definitely don’t feel like it’s such a big ball of suck anymore.

So, “Kate” will have to go back into my to-be-worked on pile for now, because I really do agree with her comments. I’m not sure whether or not I’ll resubmit it to them when it’s done, at least not for a while. I’m very timid about the etiquette that goes along with follow-up submissions - she didn’t say “Take a look at these things and then resend it when they’re fixed,” so I’d feel kind of presumptuous, when it’s revised, to resubmit. Because, as she also said, ghost stories are really tough sells. They see a lot of them.

Anyway, yeah. Reworking, revisiting, and actually pretty okay with the rejection. And feeling some warm, fuzzy and huge respect towards the editors of Strange Horizons for such a gracious reply.

Dear Hill:

I still have it.

(And for the curious, if you can read it off the picture, the website still exists. Warning: the design alone will make your eyes bleed, not to mention the content…)