Archive for » April, 2009 «
Is it odd to be scared? I’m working through my last read through now on Earth Shatterer and it’s just about ready to be released into the beta world. And I’m petrified. Well, maybe not petrified but I’m nervous as all hell. I’ve never been nervous about an edit before and I’ve had my work critiqued face to face. This is over the internet. So why am I twitchy?
I think it’s because it’s my first novel plus the fact that I didn’t find nearly as much wrong with it as I did the first novel and that has me pretty freaked out on its own. I’m still thinking that maybe my inner editor’s gone on vacation without telling me but at the same time I’m afraid to dig too deep because I don’t want to start manifesting issues that aren’t really there. I just honestly can’t believe that I’ve written something this aerodynamic on the first go. What if I’m missing something major and the betas find it and go, “why the hell didn’t she catch this?” I’m afraid of that. And losing my editing knack. Now that’s petrifying.
I should be done with it this weekend or early next week and I have three people lined up to beta. I’m going to scour an unbiased fourth person from Absolute Write and maybe I’ll find a fifth, just to have a nice even block of a number. Should I get more? Do you think that’s enough? Should I just hand it out to those people, wait and see what they have to say and then decide if it needs more eyes? Eep.
To everything.
I went to the allergist for the first time ever yesterday. My mom was always afraid to take me when I was little because she would look at my uncle and go hell no. My uncle had those allergy shots when he was younger and they rotted out his teeth. Apparently my mom would rather dope me with Dymatapp than take me to a doctor. I guess she was afraid they’d make me get shots. Not like she had the power to say no or anything.
But I went yesterday and as I thought, they did a bunch of those pokey tests. You know, where they dip the little plastic thing into an allergen, poke your skin with it and then wait for it to react. 22 of them to be exact. They used my right arm for the nuts and various types of pollen and ragweed. My left arm was for the dog and cat dander and molds and fungus and dust, plus the control spots. Well, I was allergic to nearly everything that was poked into my right arm. I’m sure you can imagine just what that limb looked like after 15 minutes (shit, as soon as I was poked I was blotchy and tomato red, not to mention light-headed).
I didn’t find out anything that I didn’t already know (I’ve been dealing with these damn allergies my entire life, you’d think I’d have stuff figured out by now) except that I have ragweed allergies, which is the late summer and early fall (fun stuff). Um, never had so much as a sniffle during that time. But I guess it’s there. The doctor said if I don’t present now, I could in the future. All the more reason to move to California. I’ve been there in the fall. Nada.
So right now I still have OCD heroin arms but at least I’ve found an over the counter medication that subdues my allergies a bit. My boss recommended Alavert to me because he loves it so much. So I tried it. OMFG I can function! It’s not as good as the Benadryl used to be but I’m not a slobbering pile of itch! Yay! I can take my dog for a walk without feeling like dying! Yay! I can write! Yay!
The allergist also wants me to use eye drops for my eyes to keep them from itching, plus a nasal spray (fun times right there) and basically seal myself into an airtight bubble to keep the allergens out until mid-June. No driving with the window down, keeping the windows closed at home. Staying inside. Um, no. Especially since I don’t use air conditioning until I have problems breathing from the heat. And the air conditioner in my car needs to be charged. So, um, no again.
I’m better than last year and now I just have confirmation of what it is I’m allergic to (believe it or not, my food allergies are the result of being allergic to certain types of tree pollen). Now if I could just find a medicine that worked like the commercials said it worked, I’d be happy. Or I just move out to California. Yeah, that sounds good.
And what a laughable sight it is. It makes me wonder what’s going through the heads of the challengers, if anything at all. According to Yahoo! News, The Kite Runner was among those at the top of the list. But the number one book? And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell about a gay penguin couple having a baby. The reasons for challenging? It’s anti-family, pro-gay and anti-religion. *headdesk* And people wonder why our country is the way it is?
You can check out the ten most challenged books of 2008 here and marvel in the absolute stupidity of people. I mean, the Scary Stories series promoting satanism? C’mon. I understand people in this country have the freedom to challenge such things but I also have the freedom to think them complete, close-minded morons that are doing nothing but spreading bigotry, fear, hate and intolerance. What a wonderful country it’d be if they actually succeeded, right? O_o
Be there or be square, man.
From May 11th to May 17th, do all you can to celebrate Children’s Book Week, brought to you by the Children’s Book Council. There are events scheduled, literally, across the nation, from New York to Seattle, so be sure to check out the websites and make a visit if you can. Children’s literature needs all the support it can get!
You can help get the word out about this marvelous week by displaying the poster or the Book Week logo on your website. How about trying on their widget for size? You can even vote in the Children’s Choice Book Awards. Or let a young one know they can help decide who gets to win such a coveted prize. There’s a section for children’s voting and teens’ voting. Hell, if you’ve read any of the books on their finalists list, go ahead and vote. I did! *blush*
Don’t let this valuable week go by without doing something for it. Whether you just tell other people about it, make it to one of the events, or whatever else you can do, be sure to promote it. I might have to make my way either to New York or Boston for one of the events. I’m a Yankee fan, after all, so we’ll see how that one pans out. 
Connecticut has made national news again as a slew of New Haven firefighters take their discrimination case to the Supreme Court (even though Fox News makes me die a little on the inside, that’s still a good article). One, I have no idea why they insist on calling it reserve racism or reverse discrimination. There’s nothing in either definition that makes the words inherently against minorities. Anyone can be discriminated against. Anyone, of any color, can be the victim of racism. Calling it reverse discrimination and is like an author calling himself a published author. The extra word’s just not needed. And two, this has got to effing stop.
If you don’t know what’s going on, all these firefighters took this test that was formulated by this company that does these kinds of tests for all sorts of government and business institutions and their job is to make sure these tests are as race-neutral as humanly possible in accordance with federal law. This particular test was a means to get a promotion, either to lieutenant or captain. A mix of firefighters took the test and the only ones that passed and were eligible to move on just happened to be 19 white guys and a white/Hispanic guy. The city came back and denied ALL of them promotions based solely on the grounds that there wasn’t even one black guy that was going to get promoted which would violate even more federal laws. They claim they might have found a flaw in the testing.
O_o
Ok, here you have a test that is as neutral as humanly possible. It doesn’t sway to gender or race. Everyone gets the same test and in the end it measures your qualifications and helps determine whether you can be promoted or not. How could it possibly be adversely eliminating black people from the equation? Is there a mass conspiracy going on?
Now, I’m not a firefighter although I could call my cousin up, who happens to be a fire chief in the state, and she’s a woman, and she can tell me just what this test entails and if it could possibly be slanted in any way, shape or form to favor white males. But aside from the fact that I’m sick and tired of the race card being thrown all over the place like a Frisbee, I’m doubly sick and tired of it getting done in the emergency workers’ field. Why? Because promoting people based on skin color or gender in the field of firefighting puts the greater public at risk. They’re not getting ahead based on their competence and ability to do the job. They’re getting ahead because they finagled their way up the ladder.
Incompetence is color blind. Just look at our country. It’s been run into the ground by a bunch of incompetent white men. Dumbassitude knows no bounds. No one should get a job because of who they are, what color their skin is, whether they’re a pitcher or a catcher, who they date or any other superficial determining factor. But this isn’t a perfect work and, unfortunately, this is how it works.
And it needs to be banned, first and foremost, in the emergency worker field. I don’t want some 110 pound feminist bitch becoming a firefighter because she wore her vag on her sleeve. Why? Can she support 100 pounds of equipment PLUS carry a 200 pound deadweight body down numerous flights of stairs? I don’t think so. So her being in the house makes her a hazard to not only the people that need saving but her co-workers as well. That’s what happens when you play any card and try to screw with testing.
So what’s going to happen to this test? Is it going to get changed? Is it going to get dumbed down to make it easier for everyone to pass? I fucking hope not. Because what’s on that test is there for a reason. Should the physical test to become a firefighter be more lenient or entirely different for women so the workforce can be equal? Fuck no! Women need to get it through their brains that they can’t do everything that men can do and ESPECIALLY in job positions that require extraordinary life-saving measures on a daily basis because we’re just not built to lug 300 pounds of weight on us. Yes, some women can do it and do it taking the same exact test as a man can. And they will respect her for it. Don’t expect any respect if you slime your way in because the workplace needs to be more equal. No one will want you around and I sure as hell won’t want you saving my ass in a fire, especially if this is how you do it–
The fire test – among many other feats – requires that you run up seven flights of stairs while wearing and carrying over 100 pounds of equipment, pick up a 150-pound human dummy and carry it all the way back down – within a certain number of seconds. Just like you would in a real fire. Brenda couldn’t do it. She had to drag the dummy down by the feet for the last five flights. So her lawyer – the noted feminist Gloria Allred – argued that Brenda, by dragging the dummy, had actually helped save the dummy’s life because smoke rises and therefore keeping the head on the stairs the whole way down and below the smoke level was better.
No mention of the fact that five flights of head-banging might lead to a 150-pound quadriplegic. Or the fact that even back then, the only fire victim you’re gonna find who weighs less than 200 pounds is either an infant, an anorexic or a crackhead. Unless the fire was in a modeling agency. This is America – most people you are going to rescue in a fire have THIGHS that weigh 150 pounds.
Doesn’t matter.
Brenda won the case and was then thoroughly dismayed at the lack of respect she received from the guys on the job. She even went so far as to say – immediately after 9/11 – that looking at the names of the 343 firemen who dies that day disgusted her – because it didn’t have one female name on it. That going to the funerals and hearing the words “firemen” and “fireman” and “the brothers” and “the brotherhood” used during the eulogies was “hard to take after twenty years on the job.” Not hard to take because 343 genuine American heroes had given their lives in what goes down on record as the single greatest rescue event in the history of the fire service. No. Hard to take because it wasn’t about her and her “cause.”
Open vagina – insert head. – Why We Suck by Dr. Denis Leary
I remember this worthless, sorry excuse for a woman opening the fat hole in her face and saying these things. People like that give women a horrible name. Those of us with heads on our shoulders know that we have greater physical limits than men. Sure we can crank a ten pound watermelon out of a very tiny orifice but that strength doesn’t equate to lugging an obese person (because, statistically speaking that’s who you’re going to get in a fire, what with the obesity rate being around 64%) PLUS the assload of equipment you have to carry to keep both of you alive. They’re different strengths. I’m just under 5’4″, somewhere between 125 and 130 pounds and I’d be sorely delusional if I thought I could actually do that without snapping my spine in half. But I’m not about to go out and demand the tests be changed to be fair.
I don’t want fair, people. And I’m sure if your ass were stuck in a burning building you wouldn’t want fair either. You’d want someone that could get you out alive without giving you a massive TBI and leaving you to wander around with a Raiders helmet on for the rest of your life. You want competence and someone that can perform the physical requirements of the job.
Look, I don’t give a shit if you’re white, black, red, yellow, maroon, chartreuse, fuschia, gay, bi, tranie, likes the Red Sox, have a twat, have a dick, are a eunuch or are a three foot midget. If you can pass the test that exists for the sole purpose of ensuring the safety of the public, not to get you down because the man’s being unfair, then you should get the job. Any job. But especially emergency workers. Lives are threatened if the requirements are compromised. This kind of bullshit shouldn’t be allowed to touch such positions. If you didn’t pass, you’re not qualified. Period. Go lift weights, take steroids, study harder, whatever it is you need to do to pass. And when you do, you know you’re good enough, that you measured up to the standards that mean you are qualified to save lives from perilous situations.
Stop with the lawsuits, people, ok? Stop with the political correctness. It’s gotten ridiculous.
