Deviant Dispatches

Halloween has gotten pretty ridiculous in some ways. (To be fair, so has Christmas.) Chuck & Beans I've been over the Drool-Inducing Costume of Uncreative Idiocy since before it started. Now, it's almost impossible to find a prepackaged women's costume that isn't  focused on getting laid as quickly as possible. We all get it: sexy mummy , sexy Mad Hatter , and sexy pizza are all a thing (NSFW links, duh). Try a different adjective; you're starting to sound like a bad romance novel. This is one of many reasons I prefer to craft my own costumes. I've always really enjoyed pushing boundaries and pretending to be someone I'm not. For example, these are some of my previous costumes. Tigger A hobo boy Princess Leia Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull Bonnie Parker of Bonnie and Clyde Beaker Sure, baring it all is bold and sassy. But I think it's bolder to think outside the conventional and be true to your inner badass. That's why I...

Today's a beautiful day in the neighborhood because there are some amazing books coming out that I've been anticipating for months. Sorrow's Knot by Erin Bow Bow's first book, Plain Kate, has totally enchanted my life. It's gorgeous writing (prosetry, more like) with a dark story and great characters. One of my favorite things about it was the shadow magic that was so crucial to the plot, which dark and creepy and everything I love in a ghost story. It's also why I'm glad Sorrow's Knot is focused on shadow magic. Binders are women who tie knotted cords that are full of magic, and the goal of these cords is to hold back the uneasy dead, who dwell in shadow. Otter, whose mother was also a binder, anticipates becoming a binder until her power turns and begins to tear her apart. Read some great reviews here , and if you're not convinced yet (which you should be), read an excerpt here . Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh Hyperbole and a...

Happy Monday! Are you the big goat or the little goat? This morning, my head felt like the little one. I'd love another day off, but that would be greedy of me. I had a great weekend, with lots of reading, knitting, time with Spousal Unit, and a few hours of wool carding at the farm. "You're not allowed to have better facial hair than me. C'mere, let me nibble it." This is one of the sheep I helped shear in the spring... ...and this is the resulting wool, cleaned, dyed, and ready for carding. I made seven rovings, which can now be turned into yarn! I really like the cotton candy one. And the blue, purple, and green one. Arranging the flower box cornucopia, just like my mama taught me.

Troy Noir, Private Eye (Part I) The dame gives me the low-down on Paulson. "He's been a high-stakes gambler for years," she says between sips of wine. "Poor idiot doesn't know when to stop, though. So he pulls schemes like this to make it up." "Like what?" I ask. Going in, all I knew was he scammed like the best of them. No one mentioned this dame as his partner, either. "His latest one was trying to sell air. As in, the air we're breathing right now. Not one of his better schemes, but would you believe some people were falling for it?" I'm a little shocked as she pulls a bottle of wine from her purse. Granted, she's been putting them back, but I'd have figured her as a flask kinda girl. "He's near the tracks," she says, nodding toward the railway by the river. "When you find him, offer a glass of this. He won't be able to resist." "'Tears of the panther,...

It was a crisp day in early October, one of those that makes you glad you wore long johns, and also makes you wish for something with a little kick to warm your belly. I headed to the local joint to have a shot of whisky, but they were all out, so I had to settle for wine. I don't know why I go to that place. The wine made me look distinguished, but do I look like a guy who cares? I had bigger fish to fry. I was on the case, looking for the guy who skimmed my client in a ponzi scheme. Naturally, the cellar was the place to start, but my clues were few and the wine was weak, so I couldn't get the ideas flowing. I headed out back to see if I could find anything there. Sure enough, this dame's out back. She has a smile like she knows things, right? Like she's there for more than just the wine. Any other PI would have fallen for it, but I was focused. "What do you know about Paulson's set-up?" I asked her as she ran a hand through her red loc...

It was a good weekend for sunsets Pepin, Wisconsin

Holy carp. I'm going to turn 30 on my next birthday. Which means I'm 29 right now. It seems odd, but I haven't directly thought about that until now. Anyway. In the spirit of cutting myself some slack, I've decided some of my goals for this year need to be easier to achieve. Hopefully I'll get higher than a technically failing grade this year - I'd be satisfied with at least a D. 1. Pet a penguin (or at least have fun writing letters to zoos about why I should be allowed to). 2. Get three rejection letters for my novel. 3. Read at least 15 books during the year (my reading pace this year was pathetic, but that was due to the novel). Five should be from my to-read list on Goodreads, and one should be Isaac Asimov . 4. Read six books from six continents, plus something about Antarctica. 5. Make cannoli. 6. Make something Norwegian that I don't often make, like fruit soup or sandbakkels. 7. Make applesauce. 8. Get serious about house hunting a...

Yesterday continued to be the most wonderful birthday in the world even after breakfast. I finished draft 4 of the book, got a massage, had a great bath, and went to The Melting Pot for dinner with Spousal Unit, where he showed that he really does listen when I talk about things, even if I feel stupid for wanting jewelry for my birthday (because it's so not me). A blue opal necklace! (October's birthstone) Anyway, that's not what I came here to talk about. I came to talk about my 25 things that I did in the last year (or tried to do). Lately, I've been trying to cut myself some slack, because things have been rough and my standards are always so high that they're asking me, "Dude, where are all the snacks?!" So I will go easy on myself when interpreting whether something was accomplished or not. 1. Take a creative class - painting, writing, etc. - I'm counting this even though the "class" I took was free - I still created a pendant ...

Spousal Unit is the best. Yesterday started off with me forgetting my lunch. Spousal Unit had told me that he was working a later shift due to some West coast webinars, so we had driven separately. I called to ask him to put my lunch in the fridge, and he volunteered to bring it to me before he had to work. He brought it in, looking quite dapper in his work clothes, and hustled back out the door. Shortly after that, word got around my department that I was taking today off because of my birthday. So people started saying happy birthday and wishing me well and asking what I was doing for my birthday, and because I'm quite an odd duck, I got a little stressed about it. Don't get me wrong - I appreciated all the well wishes and that my coworkers care enough to pry because they want me to feel appreciated. I feel very lucky to have coworkers who pay attention to that kind of thing. But having all the birthday wishes burst forth when I'd almost managed to keep it a secret ...

Last weekend, we visited Eplegaarden , "da apple orchard vit da Norvegian experience." They have pretty much everything you could want in an orchard/pumpkin patch experience. Awesome animals were among them. Here, Spousal Unit and his goat friend model their fabulous hiar. We picked a small bag of ginormous apples - honeycrisp! Sandy picked her first pumpkin - ever! A great bluegrass group serenaded us as we paid for the produce. Even the shop in the big red barn was charming. This clock ran backwards! Ole &Lena's Time: Going back to the Good Old Days

Sometimes, little things are really amazing to me. Look at the clouds here - wisps of moisture floating through the sky, carried on high currents of wind to a place far from us, far from now, where they will fall as rain, rise to the sky again, fall as snow, and evaporate, over and over. Some particles might abandon the cycle to be one with a lake or a stream. But they will eventually join the same cycle again. I am amazed that conditions on this planet are right for such a complex system, not to mention all the others in the sky and on the ground and in the oceans. And I am amazed that those little wisps of moisture can be so beautiful while ignoring gravity.

" Pomegranates on black" by PiskunovArt Sunset skin hiding pinpoints of blushing ambrosia easily burst as the whole breaks in two, then more while mining the seeds dull and placid promises now stripped from the bitter flesh.

Our cat Titania, adorable and sweet as she can be, really freaks me out sometimes. This usually happens in the middle of the night. Early on, she doesn't come to cuddle; she stays away until we're half asleep. Then she hops on the bed, walks up next to my back, and falls over into me as though she's lost all muscle control. Then we all fall asleep. Things are fine for the first few hours, but usually, I wake up at some point in the night. Maybe it's a loud truck passing by; maybe it's a storm. After the disturbance has passed, I notice the kitty beside me, zonked out. At least, I think she is. She's so still and so quiet that I start to get worried. She's never  this motionless - she's a little terror, running from room to room, knocking over vases and eating plants and stealing my yarn. In my sleep-addled mind, there is no good reason for her to be like this. I lift one of her legs and it just plops down beside her. And then I think that I...

Yesterday evening, after my second day in a row of writing absolutely nothing (which hasn't happened in many moons), I was so befuddled that I put a can of whipped cream in the freezer, then promptly forgot I'd done so and blamed it on Spousal Unit. Before bed, I made the mistake of asking him to open and pay his credit card bill so I could send the check in the morning. Turns out our last payment never made it to them - I have never  lost a check in the mail, so naturally, we have no record of it ever existing aside from a skipped number in our bank statement. Stress like that is a bad thing to have before bed. I had just made a cup of tea, and it stayed in the kitchen, full, all night. This came after a surprisingly jubilant afternoon and, combined with the unusual heat, made for a tossing-and-turning night. This is probably part of why I started singing Sleigh Ride in the shower this morning. It's going to be a weird day. Which is why I gave myself two little heaps...

Mom (and all others who don't care to read my thoughts on dino sex), steer clear today. There's some weird stuff happening up in here. You all probably remember the terrible romance book covers I've posted in the past. I think those are all lovely in comparison to these over-the-top books. Spousal Unit found these . Christie Sims writes dinosaur erotica.  As in, woman-on-monster lovin'. I'm kind of horrified (but not really surprised) that this exists. There is nothing  sexy, attractive, or even remotely entertaining about interspecies relations when it comes to dinosaurs. Or even gryphons. Even that triceratops - that tiny, unrealistic triceratops - would maul you before he'd buy you flowers and take you dancing. Not cool. I prefer my romance with a little less death and stabbing. There's also the issue of lingerie. If these women are randomly pulled back in time, where they somehow decide that sexy dinosaur time is their only ticket out of there...