Six Things You Learn From the Zoo

1. The animals are smarter than most of the guests.

I won't put up a picture since some people don't like bugs, but I passed a board with the shape of a beetle on it, made entirely of pinned beetle specimens.

While standing there, I heard someone ask in all seriousness, "Are those alive?"

Yes, zoo staff and PETA are totally cool with bugs being impaled on pins and dying slowly for days, weeks, years... you had to wonder how new he thought this (clearly old) board was.

2. The sea lions are surprisingly fun. I thought they'd be boring, but they get irritated at everything and roar all the time. Plus, it's obvious they're actively being trained by zoo personnel because they'd come up to the glass and do tricks for their audience before realizing they wouldn't get fed and then zooming off in a huff.

TREEEEEEAAAAAATTTTSSSSS

3. The gorilla house is creepy. I know they live a lot longer and more comfortably in captivity, but dang, anything with eyes that intelligent makes me think of alien overlords shoving us in zoos.

4.  No matter your place on the food chain, you are capable of turning into a troll.

Picture I took of a zebra trolling the cheetahs. "WHO'S TOP OF THE FOOD
CHAIN NOW, HUH?!"

5. There are some awesome parents in the world.

Small child: "The stupid cat isn't moving. I want it to do stuff! Be interesting!"

Awesome parent: "Yes, that is totally how animals work."

6. Actually, there are just some awesome people in the world. You haven't lived until you've heard an audience of 40-odd people pretend that the asian elephant is in a race from one side of the enclosure to the other. "Come on, elephant! You can do it! Yeahhhhh, come on, we're all rooting for you! So close elephant, so close, YOU DID IT! GO YOU, ELEPHANT!"

Outlines are Ikea Chairs

In that they involve a lot of swearing.

But in other ways too! Really. I was just thinking about this the other day, and I think there are three types of outliners. And I will CLASSIFY them using IKEA FURNITURE ASSEMBLY because I am a SCIENTIST but, like, a really bad one.

1. Burn the instructions!

This is the person who won't look at the outside of the box, let alone the instructions. They want to take out all the components and play with them; to get a feel for the way things are meant to fit as they go along. Also known as pantsers.

wat

2. Okay so you can show me the box

These people like to have a vague idea of where they're going, even if they don't know every step they're going to take along the way. A lot of these middle types do a rough outline of a page or so that hits on major plot points. They also tend to change it up a lot along the way, because although they usually know roughly WHAT happens, they didn't nail down most of the specifics of HOW things occur. These are my people!

uh no

3. Hand over the instruction manual or die

Last but not least are the hardcore plotters. These guys have beautiful, color-coded outlines that may be longer than the actual manuscript at any point in time. They plan out every little detail painstakingly.

ikea go home you are drunk

Which are you? Did I miss anybody? :)

Bringing the Funny

Humor's a funny thing.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

As am I, clearly.

Seriously though, I find it fascinating how humor is at once so individual and so universal. There are some things that we all agree on - like cats freaking out at anything is always, always funny.

IT IS A UNIVERSAL TRUTH

But then some things are cultural - take the British and American versions of The Office, for instance. There's a reason they made two separate versions. Different things appeal to American and British viewers. And if you watch both of the shows you can see some of the changes they made. In the British version every single character is irredeemably worthless and horrible - that's the joke. But in the American version, although a lot of the characters are jerks they all have moments where their better nature comes to light, and even Michael Scott is relatable to some extent. The humor comes from other places.

To give a more personal example of this, I turned on a song in the car the other day. There's a verse in it that goes

It's my problem, it's my problemIf I feel the need to hideAnd it's my problem if I have no friendsAnd feel I want to die

My british mom's reaction to that line was to laugh out loud. To her, coming from a culture where people are fairly closed-off about their emotions, this is completely over the top and the only reason anybody would say it was for a joke. On the other hand, my American friends listen solemnly and hear it as a plea for help from a desperate person. Cultures! They're different!

And of course, humor differs on an individual level too. No matter how many times people make me watch it, I will never get Monty Python. I'm sorry, shun me later. I just do not find a single thing in it funny. I find William Brinkley laugh-out-loud hysterical (literally; let's just say reading The Fun House in Starbucks was not my brightest idea), but the people I've attempted to force it on lend it to have found it dated and flat.

What do you find funny that nobody else does?

At least we'll always have cats.
Wait WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

Iron and Leather Ladies

Margaret Thatcher isn't the only iron lady around here. Did you know that in medieval Europe, girls sometimes learned their father's trades, and widows were often accepted into artisan guilds in order to carry on their late husband's businesses? In this way, quite a few women worked as farriers (aka blacksmiths, essentially) and saddle makers.

This came about at a time when the merchant class was still evolving out of the peasant class. Peasants had no time for graceful divisions of labor. If you wanted to eat, you worked. At a time when life was often short, brutish, and nasty (thanks Hobbes), it was in some ways easier to bend the rules on things like gender restrictions than in later, more outwardly civil times.

In fact, a lot less things were divided simply because there was no easy way to do so. For instance, most medieval women rode astride rather than sidesaddle, because the only sidesaddles available were precarious to sit in and required a person to lead the horse forward on foot. This was frequently impractical even for the nobility. It wasn't until the 16th century that a sidesaddle with a pommel was invented, which made it a lot easier to control the horse while remaining seated.

An illustration from the Manesse Codex, circa 1340

Surviving the (Romantic) Suspense #6: The Path of Most Resistance

As a romantic suspense author, I spend a lot of time writing about ladies in peril. And by that token, I have to get them back out of it. So I'm going to use one day a week to talk about self defense and protecting yourself in various ways.


One way of thinking about assault is to divide it into two groups: people we know, and strangers. I think by this point everybody is pretty familiar with the fact that in the majority of cases, people are sexually assaulted by people they already know. Other crimes, like mugging, tend to be inflicted upon unfortunate strangers at the wrong place in the wrong time. Today we're talking about what to do when strangers attempt to assault you, for whatever reasons they might have.

The thing to keep in mind is to make it difficult. Your average scumbag who wants to attack you for whatever reason is not the best and brightest that society has to offer. It's someone who's likely lazy and almost certainly has very little forethought, and they're looking for an easy target. If they've telegraphed their intentions (unfortunately, in many cases the fight is over before the victim was even aware of a threat), that's a gift of time you can use.

In some cases, simply screaming and running away will be enough to make the criminal leave you alone. But look around for ways to make things even more difficult. If there's a hill, run up the hill. If there's a creek, run through the creek. If there's lights, run toward them (though I doubt I have to tell you that). 

The harder you make a criminal work to catch you, the less interested they're going to be. There's a reason most muggings don't occur in broad daylight in the middle of police stations. The kind of people that are going to try to mug you or assault you don't want a fight, they want an easy victim. If you make it so they have to work to attack you, they may decide it's not worth the effort.

Poetry and Coffee for a Rainy Day

She Escapes the Film Noir

I slip out the door,
wearing a raincoat as disguise.
It might have wrinkles, indicating a recent tryst.
Also, I may wear a fedora.
I will certainly have a lot of hair
falling over the brim of my eyelashes, either because
I’m too busy to cut it
or I don’t want anyone looking me in the eyes.
Ominous footsteps echo in an unseen room,
along with distant thunder.
We are unsure of the dialogue in this script.

You watch me lean into the wet, shining street
and peer, nervous, into shadows.
Am I looking for you?
Or the man with a gun?
Either way, I’m holding tickets to Paris.
Care to join me?
I would light a cigarette
except for the damn rain. My lipstick
in this lighting is darker than blood,
and my hands won’t stop shaking.

-Jeannine Hall Gailey, from her book Becoming The Villainess

Selma Ruins The Hobbit

A certain movie about dwarves and hobbits (and a surprisingly large number of elves and men) came out on DVD this week. Spoilers, obviously.

"I cannot remember a single one of your names."

The movie starts and heyyyyyyy is this the Lord of the Rings? Oh no, wait, Ancient Bilbo is here to exposit at us some. That's cool because there's lots of dwarf backstory and HEYYYYYY Thorin Oakenbaby is here to class up the joint.

A dragon! There's a dragon! It's awesome but it doesn't talk so we can't tell that it's Benedict Cumberbatch. This dragon is here to wreck yo castle and solve mysteries AND WE'RE ALL OUT OF MYSTERIES.

Elves are jerks, Thorin is bitter, this is getting to be a downer and why is that elf riding a giant elk?

It's the Shire! I can't tell if my nostalgia is for the book version or for the Lord of the Rings movies that came out these many 12 years ago, but either way, eeeee!

Gandalf shows up and vagues at Bilbo awhile, and Martin Freeman wonders if there's any actual reason he's getting drawn into this adventure... or... no? Well okay then. Dwarven unauthorized home entry! And nobody comments? I'm just saying, the Shire seems like the kind of place that would have a Neighborhood Watch.

The dwarves steal a lifetime's worth of hoarded food and eat it in front of Bilbo. These guys need some serious Charm School. Then they start singing and OMG IT IS MY CHILDHOOD and it's nothing, really, there's just something in my eye.

Bilbo: "... Can you please leave now?"
Thorin: "I have a map."
Bilbo: "OOH SHINY."

So Gandalf wants Bilbo on the Dwarven Revenge Squad, but Thorin is stealing all of Benedict Cumberbatch's disdain for this movie, and also Bilbo is scared. And... has no reason to leave? I'll be honest, this is one of the parts that fell pretty flat compared to the book. I understand they have time constraints when they make a movie and they can't put in everything, but the book just worked better here because we got to see the other hobbits in The Shire compared to Bilbo, and we understood that Bilbo really didn't quite fit in. This version is more like... Bilbo: "I don't want to go!" Dwarves: "And we don't want to take him!" Gandalf: "YEAH WELL TOO BAD."

But of course, the plot takes hold and Bilbo rushes after them all because idk, maybe Gandalf magicked him or something. And then they wander merrily damply along the Balin Will Explain To You What The Hell Thorin's Damage Is Trail.

Meanwhile, some character we don't know and don't care about has bird poop in his hair.

Back at the ranch... somewhat literally...

Kili: "Hey Bilbo! Ponies are missing! Go check it out, yeah?" *wink*
Bilbo: "Why are you so weirdly attractive?"
Kili: "Look, it worked for Lord of the Rings, okay? If we are going to have a grand total of ONE female character in this movie then we sure as hell better bring the pretty. And I sure as hell bring the pretty."
Bilbo: "Fair point, well made."

So Bilbo moseys off and nearly gets everyone eaten by trolls because the Peter Principle is at full effect in Dwarven adventuring groups. Good going, Bilbo.

Thorin: "Hey Gandalf, it's almost like THIS WAS A REALLY BAD IDEA."
Gandalf: "If it wasn't for the halfling, you'd have all lost your heads and not just in the metaphorical sense! All that panicking you were doing and you were upstaged by a hobbit. Ha! My ideas are the best ideas."
Thorin: "If it wasn't for the halfling, someone competent would've gone to get the ponies."
Gandalf: "HEY LOOK SOME ORCS."

Running running, Bird Poop McGee shows up again on a weirdly creepy rabbit sled and draws off the attackers. Gotta say, these dwarves are not impressing me. Which in the book made sense, but here with Muscles leading things, it seems a little weird.

And then they misread a sign or two and end up taking the Ironic Route of escape which leads to Elrond's place!

Thorin: "I hate everybody."
Gandalf: "Shut up my elf girlfriend is here okay do you even know what the long distance and the whole marriage thing does to our relationship. Besides, elves are cool! I love elves! QUICK, EVERYBODY LIE TO ELROND."
Elrond: "Sup?"
Everybody: *lies*

Finally one of those mythical ladyfolks appears in the movie, and someone seems to have accidentally put her in rollerblades, or on one of those revolving platforms. Er, set designers? I do not think this is as dignified as you thought it would be.

Gandalf: "Bad stuff is happening for realz guys."
Saruman: "Oh Gandy, you worry too much."
Galadriel: ~meaningful staaaaaaaaaaaring~

Just when the audience has had it up to here with Gandalf being like "look bad stuff's happening" and Saruman being like "NO U", the dwarves escape into... a scene from the Neverending Story? There are rock giants and it's supposed to be super tense because everybody almost dies but instead, the audience just sits there in confusion trying to figure out what scene in the book this is supposed to be. (Answer: NONE OF THEM.)

And then Bilbo almost dies but Thorin saves him and at the apex of Martin Freeman's crush on the tall, dark, cranky detective dwarf, Thorin goes all I WISH THE GOBLINS WOULD COME AND TAKE YOU AWAY! RIGHT NOW!

Bilbo: "Is this like when Edward said he hated Bella for her own good?"
Thorin: "NO. THIS IS LIKE WHEN I SAID I HATED YOU BECAUSE I HATE YOU."
Bilbo: *lip quiver*

So then Bilbo decides to run away, and has a solid hobbit-to-dwarf brotalk with one of the dwarves in stupid hats, look, if the movie can't be bothered to remind us of their names then I have no freaking clue.

But just as Bilbo's about to hug his copy of He's Just Not That Into You tight to his chest and walk away, Jareth sends all of his goblins up from the Labyrinth, because Thorin knew the magic words. And then there's a lot of falling in caves, and Jabba the Hut Goblin can talk because the plot says so, and Bilbo gets his big scene with Gollum. Which is admittedly awesome.

Then everyone escapes and - wait, they only NOW realize that Bilbo isn't here? I call some bull on this one, you guys had to know he wasn't around!

Thorin: "It's all for the better that he ran away or died or whatevs, I never liked that guy anyway."
Bilbo: "Howdy."
Thorin: "...Well this is awkward."

Then the huge white orc of Hope You Guys Can Tell This One Apart Because He's Thematically Important to Stretching This Franchise Over Three Movies attacks! And it totally sucks because the tree scene is nothing like the ones in the books, which is my absolute favorite part. Booooo. Thorin is an idiot and almost gets Warged, but Bilbo jumps down from a tree to save him because... um... he's into guys that don't treat him right?

Everyone's getting their butts handed to them when EAGLES! EAGLES FOR EVERYONE! An eagle for you, and for you, and you...

And then the movie ends with a heartfelt (but not too heartfelt because of chomping) "I was wrong-ish" hug between Thorin and Bilbo.

The End... until the next two movies.