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New phone, three T-shirts from Toothpaste For Dinner et al., three pajama bottoms (picked to match the shirts), a bra, tights, and a new hairbrush, all in the past few days. BUY MOAR THINGS WITH TEH INTERNET.

I'm really proud of the clearance/promo/free shipping deal I just pulled down with Target. It took all night. I messed around with three different sites, janking together the best combo. Win.

One paper canceled, the other done. Literally too much time between now and the next deadline to be worrying about my thesis. I'm caught up on all my TV (DAMN I love Dexter), I've made a couple of classy ringtones for my new phone, and I've knit enough to make my tendons upset. I'm done, that's it. No blogs are updating because of the holiday, and I'm reading The Naked Civil Servant but it's going way too fast because it's awesome. I guess this is why everyone else has jobs? Leisure is such a burden.

UPDATE: I forgot I call myself a writer. I do have something to work on now. And I'm on it, I swear. Tomorrow I've been invited to Thanksgiving on campus. That'll also pass the time nicely.

I'm up all freaky early again, and today I'm getting an H1N1 vaccine and a fancy new (free) phone from Verizon. Medicine and technology yay!

I'll be working on my pedophilia paper I think until it's vaccine time. I watched L.I.E. last night with my roommate, and at this point it's probably my favorite movie ever (notice Gary with the gun in the avatar: my longest standing icon, and so versatile). I saw L.I.E. first when I was 15 or 16, about the age of the kid in the movie, and every time I see it, I notice some art I never saw before and come away with a deeper appreciation of it. I also like all the places it takes me personally, all the stages of my life it reminds me of. I saw the movie a couple times just before my mom died, and even remember telling her, "Oh this movie? It's about a kid whose mom dies," because I couldn't tell her the rest. It's got a lot of gravity for me.

It's also one of the biggest reasons (and my go-to talking point) for hating the de facto censorship of the MPAA's rating system. This movie got an NC-17 for subject matter, not content, and probably should have had a PG-13, which is what the director wanted. I saw this movie young, and I didn't die or go crazy, and with actual Parental Guidance (which these ratings are usually a replacement for), it would have been a doubly fine viewing experience. But what do kids or parents know, right? Fuck 'em.

I just got back from the store. After a week of being nocturnal, I now wake up at 9 AM. Thanks circadian rhythm!

Anyway: I got back and found an e-mail from my publisher with some excellent good news: Maladaptation will be a March alternate selection from InsightOut Bookclub! And also be available for order through Book of the Month Club 2! Win!

My publisher also had to verify that I'm some sort of LGBT for submission to the Lambda awards. Hmm. As I've been pretty well undefined since middle school--when I thought I was a stone lesbian for two years, only to realize how pretty some of these boys can get--I've been reluctant to put on another label, because I'm more fluid than that, and anyway, who's insisting? Well, Lambda insists, and so I went with bisexual, since it's true in an empirical sense, and it certainly says so on my Facebook (I like to keep my options open). That got me thinking: I've kissed more girls in my life 7:2, so if the Lambda Foundation needs verification, I can provide witnesses. They've promised they won't police people about it, but my publisher brought up that I'm a girl writing about boys, and people might grumble. I can cite Patricia Highsmith and Poppy Z. Brite and Eve Sedgwick as my sisters in brotherhood if they want yet more proof that having a vagina says nothing about (1) your sexuality, (2) your gender, or (3) your ability to talk about buttsex.

It rankles my fem. theory to even have to parse this stuff out, but so be it. And if there's controversy, then I'll consider it free press and make it very clear that I resent being asked in the first place.

The Russell A. Brown book made one more fail assertion, and one more good decision, and then stopped. It'll be a great book for someone with lower standards than mine.

Next up: the undisputed master. I get to read over some of my favorite Keith Banner stories in preparation for my Queer Theory paper. Friggin' untouchable how much I love everything Banner writes.

It's seriously not the worst book ever (that honor is forever reserved by Brian Lucas and The Boy With Black Eyes). In fact, I'd recommend it to someone who'd never read Sherlock Holmes, since they wouldn't know the difference about how wrong it is. In all fairness, here's a line I thought was cute, from the Wilde character, naturally. Watson has to go on a gay-baiting sting (the plot remains stupid as ever), and wonders how he'll tempt dudes to approach him, to which Wilde explains:

"My dear Dr. Watson," said Wilde, "have you ever observed how a flower pursues a bee? You are still a fine specimen of manhood. You have only to go to the right place and be a good flower."

I guess I forgive you for being wrong, book. You have less than 30 pages left, and if you don't royally botch anything between here and then, I'll forget all that fail from before and keep you on my shelf. Meet me halfway, my brother.

"It is improbable as I stated it, and therefore I must have stated it wrong. But my instinct felt the presence of the safe."

If you answered Sherlock Holmes, you are as wrong as you have ever been. And I'm looking at you, Russell A. Brown. When would Sherlock ever admit that he (1) misspoke, which he never did ever, (2) listens to his "instinct" instead of empirical observation, or (3) feels the presence of a safe that is hidden from sight. He didn't sound a wall or notice a scuff mark or smell it or something. Really, sir? Doyle was a big mystic-y asshole who might have claimed to "feel" a friggin' safe, but not Sherlock. Not. Sherlock. Fail-cakes.

Sherlock Holmes and the Mysterious Friend of Oscar Wilde needs to stop jacking with me. Every time I'm about to hurl it away as trash because everyone designated "low class" talks like Eliza Doolittle and they all walk around talking about "them types wi' the limp wrists" like it's the only thing that happened all day, something oddly believable or funny will keep me hooked for another three hideous chapters of nonsense. I feel like there's quite a bit of talent for Victorian cadence being wasted on this apostrophe-strewn dialect crap and this R-tarded plot made of fail.

Seriously: where is the consistency when every person on the street greets each other with a ridiculous Victorian approximation of "how 'bout them queers?" but Sherlock Holmes, he of the scrounging street detection and shady contacts, upsets his tea every time someone mentions the word "friendship" in a pointed tone? That isn't even remotely likely.

And one last request: PLEASE DON'T EVER LEAD ME TO BELIEVE OSCAR WILDE TOLD SOMEONE THAT CUNT TASTES LIKE COLD MUTTON WTF I HATE YOU.

My topic for my final Queer Theory paper: Leo Bersani's "Is The Rectum A Grave?" applied to the movie L.I.E., Keith Banner's short fiction, and possibly my own "The Funeral Director" as a responsible justification for homosexual molester-sympathetic stories, since I really enjoy them, ARTISTICALLY, and am not interested in feeling bad about that.

But then my professor suddenly turned into my mom when she asked that I please keep the paper from going into graphic detail about the kid sex. Whuh? How many papers on Lolita or the vast age difference in marriages from ye olden times got the "hey, don't talk about sex with kids too much while you're talking about sex with kids" caution? Seriously, it was precisely like when my dad demands eye-muffs during a sexy scene in a movie (I'M TWENTY-ONE YEARS OLD) or when my mom would demand I fast-forward through the gay sex when I finally convinced her to watch Queer As Folk with me (POINT: MISSED). It's just good ol' fashioned squeamishness, and I didn't expect it in my Queer Theory class at The Liberal-est Arts College in Florida.

Way strange. It's not like I really fanfiction it up in any of my papers, even when I wrote about Jessica Benjamin's "The Bonds of Love" and Querelle, which was a paper literally about the dynamics of buttsex and who is doing what to whom and in what position. I'm actually way more of a prude in the classroom than this very professor, unwilling to use fuck-words even when she does because I was under the impression after 12 years of educational boot camp that you weren't allowed to talk like that in school. It's taken four years of college to finally get used to being able to speak frankly, and now this. Again I have to wonder: whuh?

I have a little free time between serious thesis work, since my second chapter is really light reading with only two books (the first chapter required I read six, the third has the entire Holmes series). So I'm doing some quasi-thesis reading before I get my next deadline. I started the Russell A. Brown Oscar-Wilde-meets-Sherlock-Holmes book, and um... hmm.

It's not terrible. In fact, when Brown isn't quoting Wilde or Doyle, he does a much better job of selling me on the premise. Wilde's character at least is pretty fair and believable, being kind and patient and amused (though I'm a little bit tired of hearing what a hideous blubbery lake monster he is--Oscar Wilde was plenty attractive when he was in his heyday, and I wouldn't have kicked him out bed just because prison and exile didn't agree with him either, so cut it out). There is, however, a COMPLETE FAILURE to accurately characterize any of the Holmes crew, including Watson and Mrs. Hudson. COMPLETE.

Seriously, I've read all these books too, dude. Holmes is by default a calm person, in that he is a controlled person. Between cases, he sits at home running experiments and doing drugs. He's not a busy-body, and he minds his own business. No way is the motherfucker going to rally troops and run over to Oscar Wilde's house like an asshole and yell at him for being queer. If he wanted to yell at homosexuals, he could stay in his own house, for one. And two, if we're under the supposition that he's a real figure in the late 1800s, then with all the sailors, soldiers, drug-users, jail-birds and street boys he knows, he's not shocked, and I mean just shocked, by the concept of buttsex. What about Holmes and Watson canonically makes you think they'd blanch at some deviant sex? Watson's a war surgeon. Holmes is a crime-solver. These are grizzly professions, so what's with all the pearl-clutching? In my view of it, Holmes and Wilde would have got along great; both huge intellects, both strong but independent moral cores, both kind to children and women (even if Holmes is a bit more of an ice cube about it). I mean, they wouldn't have a lot superficially in common, since Wilde was studied triviality and Holmes was studied practicality, but they should at least find one another curious and unique, and that interaction would be fun to see.

Maybe I'm working with a strange reading of Holmes--seeing him more like a self-denying criminal who surely wants to cause havoc but won't let himself do it--but even if he's just a prudish defender of Victorian domesticity... he's still reasonable! He admits his prejudices. And he can intellectually grasp why someone would murder/blackmail/steal/etc. even if he finds it reprehensible. Why would he be different about sex? Why write this scene like buttsex is inconceivable and have him puff up like that? Holmes doesn't puff with outrage and indignation more than maybe twice in the original series, and it seems out of character there too, to tell you the truth. A little moralizing laid on top of the crime porn to justify it. Holmes recognizes that he too is strange sexually, being at least mostly passionless, if not a repressed queer himself. That peculiarity is established through Doyle's actual canon, so why is it steam-rollered here? It comes up, but you don't stay consistent. Way fail, my man. Holmes and Wilde could have been an epically fun friendship from the start, and if the book's building to that anyway, then why put me through this unlikely mess in the first place? What did I ever do to you?

This and the other Wilde mystery series (where I believe Oscar joins forces with Doyle instead of Sherlock--an interesting conflation) will make for an excellent footnote somewhere. And I'm plenty amused by knowing all the facts behind every little altered detail, and being able to spot errors without having to look up quotes to verify. I get the impression (pure speculation), that Brown did the research for this book specifically (the way facts like Wilde's address or Queensbury's boxing rules are shoe-horned in suggest it) instead of knowing it all organically and fusing it into a more artful whole. It's the same thing I noticed between Rick R. Reed's retelling of Dorian Gray and Will Self's: Reed's was a blow-for-blow literal translation, interesting in that everything is different while staying the same, but of very little independent value; Self's did more to chop up the plot, but successfully conveyed the spirit of the original in a new and intriguing way. Self not only let you rethink Wilde's book, he gave you something to think about in his own too. I did a whole ISP on those two retellings and pretty much declared Self the winner.

That, incidentally, is why there are footnotes on every other page of my thesis. I've been collecting these nuggets for years, and it's time to blow my load.

Can I append a poem to the end of my thesis because I think it captures the theme of what I'm saying and it's too big for a footnote? Because I'm going to try. I wish I was an art slash sometimes, so I could make a multimedia scrapbook instead of a thesis, full of songs, quotes, poems, video clips, comics and jokes. It would get the same point across in the end, but with much more style. Or do a thesis in hypertext, with links leading to my thesis books, sub-topics, pictures, other papers I've written, so that way I don't have to regurgitate anything, it's just pure argument where I can assume a reader knows everything I know because I linked it. That would make for an intense reading experience. After a lifetime with the internet, that's how I picture my thoughts; a huge expanding text with an infinite number of hyperlinks that connect to each other. Maybe I'll write a novel like that, and it'll be hailed as a brilliant new art form, and I'll be studied in colleges, and future students will write their theses in the manner and style of L.A. Fields, Hyper-Writer.

It's a good idea, because right now, this is the most anecdotal thesis in the whole world. I can't go a page without all these useless facts falling out of my head. And I'm worried about how much boring shit I have memorized. I can cite some quotes without looking up what page they're on, because I know it by heart. I copied down my appendix poem from memory, commas and all. Most of my sentences entail Oscar Wilde quotes, and probably only me and him could spot where each and every reference is, because I don't cite shit when I'm just being cute and playing off of Wilde's epigrams. I even snuck a freaking line from The Sound of Music in there, as an inside joke for me. I want to to write Hyper-Thesis, dammit! It'd be so cool. Quit trying to put everything into words and let some shit just speak for itself. In fact, you know what? If I get into one of the art schools I applied to, I'm going to try this out. Take note, SAIC and CCA. I'm serious.

I've decided to start watching Jeeves and Wooster as a treat when I finish this chapter. It occurred to because (get this) I was writing a footnote about cross-cast actors in movies based on my thesis texts, one of which Stephen Fry is in, and then an article said something about one of my Ripley books sounding like Bertie Wooster (Hugh Laurie-> House-> Holmes-> Thesis Chapter Three), and I was like I GET IT OKAY and I'm finding episodes online. Ooh, how about a public hyper-linked LJ novel? Bet I could get class credit for that at an art school. Hell, I'm sure I could get credit for it here. Hyper-thoughts.

"God damn it I hate marriage. Ooh it's so sanctified up in here. You can't just have a divorce because you're so unhappy you can barely see, you have to ask nice and earn it.

Jesus Christ, no wonder my dad's so psychotic and shut down, everyone's masculinity is totally fucked.

Oh good, telling the kids about the upcoming divorce. I LOVE THIS IT'S JUST LIKE BEING FIVE YEARS OLD AGAIN THANKS SHOW.

What is wrong with conservatives? Who wants to go back to this? Feminism ruined the country? Go home and ask your mother how great it was when you were growing up, you selfish, hateful FUCKS.

This is torture, and I can't believe I have to wait a week for another episode. I mean, the food here is terrible, and such small portions!"

My sleep schedule is completely torn up from last weekend, and because I barely had class all week, I never corrected it. I stayed up until 12 noon Sunday watching the rest of Battlestar Galactica (choice!), went to bed and woke up right now, at nearly 8 PM Sunday.

I definitely should have been doing thesis work that whole time, but I don't have class until Tuesday, so this time-wasting is perfectly okay. I have about three chapters left in my last Ripley book, and I've already written 2-3 pages of my 5-page Ripley section. What's left is mostly about the movie and various odds and ends anyway. I really hope this thesis stays so easy.

I'm collecting up every variation of "All Along The Watchtower" that happened on BSG, and I think that's what I'll be listing to until the next time I go to sleep. No telling when that will be.

What I expected to be author copies of Maladaptation turned out to be a big, gorgeous book from the SAIC, which is encouraging. It's like they're saying, "Look at all our pretty art! Scope the student body! Come to Chicago where we have the money to send send out quality tomes to anyone who smiles at us!" Nice.

On the other hand, I got my e-mail answer from California explaining how one uploads documents to the interwebs. Thank you? That wasn't the question, because I know how to upload documents. Maybe they get a lot of confusion on how the internet works? That doesn't bode well for the peers I would have out there. Suspicious.

Summarily: Chicago is up and California is down, but this contest is far from over! I'm still in graduate limbo, where I have no idea if I should be groveling for any school to take my sorry bones, or if I'm a strong enough candidate to have them vie for my favor. I'm flipping back and forth right now betweeen confidence and concern, and I suppose that will continue until I hear back and can count acceptances vs. rejections. Get ready for me to absolutely intolerable if I have to choose between two or more. Dance for me, grad schools!

Today I arranged to get maintenance for my car, I made a doctor's appointment, and I donated blood for the first time. Yay adulthood!

I also had to fix a new glitch in my Firefox which may or may not have been prompted by all the messing around I did last night, but if that's the only fallout, then so be it.

My copies of Maladaptation are in the mail room, but I can't get them today because offices are closed for Veteran's Day. Tomorrow I'm going to pick them up, and sign three for my favorite professors, who make up my thesis committee because I love them. I want to hand those out before this weekend, and also pick up some NCF pamphlets that feature me for scrap-booking purposes, also check to see if my book is in the library yet, since I had the school order it. ME ME ME.

I got this cheepo computer over the summer and discovered two things very quickly: Windows Vista is the retarded offspring that results when you force-breed two species (Windows and Macs) that are completely unrelated, and the speakers/mic in this thing sucked. Today I decided I would sit here as long as it took to be able to record streaming music. That's when the horror began.

Vista and these Conexant speakers got together and put me through at least five hours of fuckery before I finally found a way around their complicit RIAA-loving union. Thanks to some other intrepid soul who enjoys fair use with recording technology, I HAZ B-10 THEM.

And don't worry colleges I'm in or may soon be accepted to: none of this is in any way prosecutable. In fact, it's all technically and technologically legit. The thing to take away from this post: I have a lot of patience and follow-through. :D

There's a review of Wilde Stories out that mentions yours truly:

"The balance through the collection is flawless, starting with "Bluff" which may be short, but is also richly textured and exactly long enough to hit its stride and then deliver a genuinely chilling twist..."

Yay! Bluff is later referred to a "gem," and this review is so glowing in parts that it's making me really excited to read through the anthology whenever I get the time, which will probably be over winter break. Can't wait!

I've been watching interviews with the people involved in the latest Dorian Gray movie (IT'S HOMEWORK JEEZ), and I think I'm actually going to like it. The soundtrack, first of all, is not kidding around. In fact, the whole movie seems a lot more serious than I thought it was going to be, in my snooty book-worshiping skepticism. They're messing with the story of course, but in interesting ways that are way relevant to my thesis. These actors and film people are all, "blah blah Gothic, blah blah timeless, blah blah--doesn't everyone have a sense of these spooky Victorian stories without ever really knowing if you've read them or not? Just in the back of your head?" Word.

There's no release date yet for when it'll be in the States. I bet the internet has it first. Maybe I'll even be able to hook this up for Mystery GIFT.

I'm on my last Ripley book. The last one got a little boring, and I actually think it's because it got more gay. I didn't have to work for it, you know? Tom Ripley put on drag, went down to a gay bar, and felt tenderly towards a young boy. Tease me a little more than that, man!

And speaking of teases: Barnes and Noble lists Maladaptation under YA (which it totally is sort of) and offers a Children's Holiday discount. *agog* Can you imagine? Merry Christmas, have some scandal! That made me smile.

I wrote my Russian paper casually on Friday night, around Mystery GIFT. It was way easy because Dostoyevsky's "A Gentle Creature" is a damn fine story. Once again the only work I have hanging on me is the ever-present thesis, which isn't terribly like work in the first place.