Has a Happy New Year?

Colonel Penguin

Choked on my water at work laughing at this.

And if the picture wasn’t hilarious enough, I’m here to tell you that this penguin is Colonel-in-Chief Nils Olav of the Norwegian King’s Guard.

The Worst Decade Ever?

All over the Internet, there are articles discussing the turn of the decade. Lots of places are calling this the worst decade ever. While it’s true that 2000 to 2010 did not yield the best results in a ten-year history of mankind, there are definitely things that gave it some light. For me, anyway. I certainly do not think that the last ten years have been as gloomy as Time magazine makes it out to be.

Here’s six reasons to celebrate 2000 to 2010:

1. I met John this decade, and we’ve lived [mostly] happy for [almost] seven years. (Okay, maybe this is a personal cheer.)
2. The majority of the Internet no longer operates on dial-up. A lot of younger Internet users hardly know what dial-up is.
3. World of Warcraft came out this decade. :p
4. This decade may be the end of blood-testing, thanks to the invention of Electro Needle Biomedical Sensor Arrays. This is a huge thumb’s up from the perspective of a hemophobe like myself.
5. Google became public this decade. Who doesn’t like Google.
6. Lolcats are a creation of the last decade.

Happy Holidays and New Year!

Found this while searching for basketballs for copy :)

Basketball-kitty by *NeoSlashott on deviantART

I can’t really cook, but…

In celebration of something I don’t remember (which must’ve meant it wasn’t book related; that stains pretty well on my brain), my boyfriend and I ate at a restaurant that was $50 a head two weeks ago (Opah, for the local and curious.) We weren’t all impressed with the food given the price tag, although to be fair, we didn’t order from the daily menu that my gut originally told me I should’ve selected from. Outback Steakhouse does a better job at real-good-but-not-OMG-quality steak, and our Brazilian steakhouse does a better job at $50/head. However, they had a tomato basil soup + grilled cheese that was to die for.

While talking with my friend on G-chat about my [lack of] cooking skills, I thought I’d try to give this tomato basil soup + grilled cheese a go. Something tells me it will not have as amicable of a result as, say, a $50/head restaurant, but it’s worth a shot!

So here’s the two recipes:

• Tomato Basil Soup, and comments suggest to put the milk in last instead of during like the instructions say or you’ll get some curdles goop
• A gourmet grilled cheese sandwich recipe! None of them are striking me, so I might end up experimenting. Oh, the horrors that could be!

And seriously, I never thought I’d want to go to Texas, but a restaurant dedicated specifically to grilled cheese sandwiches is such a win.

It’s all an endeavor that will unfortunately have to wait until this weekend. Too many other things at hand, like Wednesday and Thursday night classes. Thankfully, those are over this December!

Halloween’s spooking my writing!

Been having a blogging lapse.

Allow me to explain:

My mother can’t read fantasy.

I’ve been writing fantasy stories since fifth grade (I mark that as the starting point because a fifth grader writing a 30-page 10-point font story about dragons and sorcerers isn’t normal), and every single one my mother either couldn’t finish or struggled through 3-reads-over. I damn near gave up on writing in high school when I wrote a 200-page “novel” that none of my family could get through, but the interests of my friends told me something was there.

My recent book I finished (and am looking for representation for), FORGOTTEN WINGS, is a fantasy YA novel. I brought the first fifteen of the thirty-three chapters to my Hawaii Writer Conference trip so I had something to pick and poke and prod at on the airplane. My mother came with me to Hawaii (it was a week and the conference was three days, so it got turned into a mother-daughter bonding and writing-improvement trip) and while there, took the manuscript from me and mowed through everything I had.

That was nearly two months ago.

I’ve promised her to send the other 18 chapters; but the perfectionist in me, “tucking the octopus legs in” as Bird by Bird puts it, hasn’t sent the other chapters yet because I continue to pick and pick and pick AND PICK to try to make it shorter, tighter, crisper, sweeter. I promised to send her the remaining chapters before Halloween, and now suddenly the wicked holiday approaches like a monster out of the next-best horror movie. (And speaking of movies, Law Abiding Citizen was stellar and Couples Retreat was so-so funny.)

So that project has been burning at the forefront of my mind!

Meanwhile, I’ve been working on a World of Warcraft blog for smite priests that I am entering in National Blog Posting Month in November.

Halloween’s a big day!

Inconvenient writing urges are inconvenient.

Sometimes I feel like I am drowning in my own writing and all I can do to stay afloat is grab a random object of solice and hang on for dear life. Sounds like a broad-ended remark, I know, but when you think about the objects of solice, it becomes so much more specific.

For example:

• While on the job. A bathroom key. There’s only one for all the estrogen-riddled employees on this floor and so I feel like I am regaining some sense of control when I have it. I realize this is totally Freudian and therefore illogical.
• While driving in the car. The iPod, followed by a near-accident-inducing shuffle to the Sirenia song, “Led Astray.”
• While in class. The last page of my notebook, where I scribble furiously until I can think about something besides my book, FORGOTTEN WINGS, or my blogs (and if my imagination is emptied, I typically default to food or sex.)
• While shopping. A pen so I can slash an ink mark on myself; this is a reminder to convulse creatively in a similar fashion later, when paper and pen are hopefully handy. The problem with this is that the convulsion occurs without the thought process, leaving me in a riddled “NYAHHRRGGHGHFFF!” state.
• While sleeping. I try to ignore it until I inevitably leap onto the computer and moan in agony while slamming the keyboard with a Notepad document. Or I have dreams about the characters in my book (which always makes me sleep through the alarm.)
• When I am doing nothing. I stare at the wall and wonder why I have no inclination to act on my creative impulse, even though when my creativity totally inconveniences me, I go out of my way to make sure it is expelled. You’d think when you actually have the time to act on it, you would.

The moral of this story: I am a sneaky ninja that obsesses over primal functions like the restroom, food, sex, and I tattoo my skin like many of the ancient cultures you find yourself studying more-or-less apprehensively in Anthropology general eds.

One of my recent creative impulses that has turned into a more long-term project is Johannah the Smite Priest, which is a World of Warcraft blog on smite priests.

I think I will also inevitably be moving this blog to a Kourtnie.net subdomain.

I have three words for you, public bus.

My boyfriend came by my work to go out to lunch today.

We’re driving along to get some Panda Express when the public transit bus stops in front of us. It looks like this:

Boyfriend says, “Fucking bus. Fuck my bus dot com.”

I stare at it for a moment and break into hysterical laughter [and demand an iPhone shot of what you now see above.]

Too bad the website isn’t that hilarious.

I have no issues with public transit, by the way. The random stop seemed out of place at the time though, and the words were fitting for the situation.

Writer happiness.

At the Hawaii Writer Conference, I met an amazing agent that gave me her business card to submit the first 30 pages of FORGOTTEN WING’s manuscript.

I was freaking out about it, but the thing is, I got to write my story, and that alone is enough. Finding a home for my book will be stupendous, but I am truly happy just to have this magnificent fantasy YA story sitting on my computer and in spiral-bound booklets, and to have met one of the most amazing literary agents ever to boot!

Lots of other hilarious and awesome things happened in Hawaii outside of the Hawaii Writer Conference, too!

Life is good. (Minus the weight I gained on vacation. :p)

PS – If you have not spent a moment of silence in memory of 9/11, do so now.

Green hair extravaganza.

For purposes of telling the story in an efficient manner and getting back to the room so I can get sleepies for the 8 am Hawaii Writer Conference classes tomorrow, here is the Green Hair Extravaganza in bullet point form:

• I have hair that I want dyed.
• My mom, a hair stylist, brings green dye.
• My mom warns said green dye stains.
• We concoct a plan after ruling out the Sheraton bath tub and my personal shower/at-home application skills that we are going to apply the dye on the beaches of Honolulu and then I am going to run into the ocean to rinse out the dye.
• We wait until 6:00 pm to do this because it is obviously the intelligent thing to do.
• We put a Cosmoprof bag over my arms so I am wearing it like a plastic Superman cape because we forgot the drape.
• It is dark and the dye has been applied and we discuss the pitch for my novel.
• We run out into the ocean and she proceeds to convince me to bury my head in the salty water’s tongue.
• I balance on my palms while slipping off random shelves in the ocean floor while she runs her fingers through my hair and we both laugh hysterically.
• I am sure I look like a squid that has been frightened but we can’t see in the dark.
• We run off the beach, still laughing hysterically, and discover in the light that my entire back looks like a shot straight out of a Hulk comic and I am not rinsed out much at all.
• She tells me to cover my green hair and Hulk back with my beautiful new white tiger towel.
• We get to the room and I stain the bath tub anyway.
• I shampoo my hair nine times while my mom runs to the ABC store to buy Comet.
• She arrives with Tide because apparently the ABC store can sell condoms, macademia nuts and earplugs (that block 30 decibels but still do not save me from her rampant snoring problem), but does not sell cleanser.
• She scrubs the tub with Tide while I yet continue to laugh hysterically.
• She scrubs my Hulk hide.
• I get a haircut.
• My hair looks normal [as it can for having a green underside] and I love it.

I have seriously not laughed so hard in several years.