Teresa's Light Touch, and Journals That Are Live

Weekend Assignment #57: Share some of your favorite Journals, Blogs and Web sites not on AOL Journals. Come on, we know you go off the school grounds from time to time. Tell us where you go. 'Cause we want to go, too. Even just one pick is fine (no more than five, though. Pick the best to share). Also, just in case this was a temptation, my site off AOL should not be one of your selections.

Extra credit: Find a link you think your mother might like. What is it?

As I mentioned just last night, I haven't anywhere near enough time these days to read more than a fraction of the interesting blogs out there, let alone other web sites.  But I do try to look in on the following:

1. Making Light.  I've mentioned this before--in this journal, in my other blogs, and on NPR's Talk of the Nation.  Science fiction and fantasy fans, aspiring writers, scientists and the politically astute (read: non-Republicans) hang out on this tremendously interesting blog, run by Tor editor Teresa Nielsen Hayden.  Topics range from Tolkien to topography, from knitting to narcolepsy, but the emphasis is on writing and language.  It's sharp and astute and often very funny.  Reading Teresa's postings and then the many comments that inevitably follow is a bit like sitting at the Algonquin Round Table in Dorothy Parker's day--if Parker and Benchley and the rest had been science fiction writers.

The other journals I'll feature tonight are all on my "What My Friends Are Writing" page in LiveJournal, because they're all hosted by LJ. 

2. Within the Qelenhn is a LiveJournal by my friend Sara.  She writes about how her writing is coming along, and about her cats, and rpgs.  But mostly, lately, she's posting a fun, interactive serial.  Every week, a thief named Louie or a guard named Gus or a king whose name I've forgotten has more wacky adventures, and we get to vote on what happens next.  It's wild and funny and imaginative, and I like it a lot.



3. Apple Bonkers' Journal is a LiveJournal by my other friend Sarah.  (Note the spelling.)  She just posted the following:

Ten Things That Might Be True About Karen
(I figured I better write this before the HG movie came out, because she wanted me to say something about it in it. I'm asking her to predict the future in the case of that item, which I realize isn't entirely fair. But I'm going to do it anyway)

1. Karen will see the HG movie more than once, even if she hates it.

2. Karen had a blue bicycle with a banana seat as a child.

3. Karen is a coffee person (as opposed to a tea person).

4. Karen once learned how to play "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" on guitar.

5. Karen has had, over her lifetime, a total of six dogs.

6. Karen has had a letter to the editor published in a newspaper.

7. Karen can go to a movie without getting soda and popcorn.

8. Karen has built at least one snow non-man in her lifetime (in other words, a snow animal, a snow alien, a snow vacuum cleaner, etc.)

9. Karen and John seldom eat dinner together on a weekday, but do so almost all the time on weekends.

10. Karen has a cactus plant in a pot in her home or her office.

I think I probably got quite a bit of this completely wrong. I'm sure on did worse on Karen than she did on me. It was fun anyway, though.

My responses:

1. In the theater?  Not if I hate it, no.  If I like it, probably.  And I'll buy it on DVD regardless.  The producer(?) of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie was on NPR's Talk of the Nation today, and I'm currently feeling quite hopeful that the movie will be good. 

Incidentally, I met both Sara and Sarah on the HG message boards on Prodigy in the early 1990s, when they were quite young and I was, um, less old.  Sara was called Cricket Ball, and Sarah was Lordy the Cat.  Other people called themselves Arthur Dent and the Dolphins and the Voice of the Book and Zaphod Beeblebrox and Prostechnic Vogon Jeltz and...well, you get the idea, unless of course you've never read the work of Douglas Adams, in which case I pity you.  I changed my "handle" with every posting on the HG boards in order to remain, like the Universe, bizarrely inexplicable.

2.  Nope.  It was a pink Ross one-speed with 26" balloon tires and a bicycle seat-shaped seat.  When I was seven (1964), the only banana seat bikes I knew about were Schwinn Stingrays, which were ridden mostly by young boys.

3.  Completely wrong.  I hate coffee.  Hate, hate, hate.  I won't even eat or drink coffee-flavored or mocha-flavored anything.  That said, I'm not really big on tea, either.  I'll drink Constant Comment, or something fruity, or cinnamon tea or mint tea, but I prefer diet soda, preferably a non-cola variety.

4.  Nope.  The big songs I learned on the guitar were Blowin' in the Wind (source of Frankie and Benji Mouse's fake Ultimate Question) and Geordie, the latter of which I sang in a talent show once. No, it wasn't about the engineer on the Enterprise D.

5.  Three dogs:  Jenny, Noodle and Tuffy.  Oh, wait.  Four:  Wafer (Wayfarer), a lab puppy, was in residence at my tiny apartment for about a month in 1979.  I got a late start on dog ownership because my dad is very allergic.  I'm a little allergic myself, but determined to have dogs anyway.

6.  At least one.  I think I got some patriotic pap published in the Syracuse Herald Journal circa 1967.  I may have had another one published in high school, but I don't remember.

7.  I think I've gone without soda at a movie theater about once.  John would be very angry these days if I bought popcorn when we went to a movie together (which is almost every time I see a movie in a theater at all).  So yes, I'm capable of doing without--but I don't like it.

8.  I don't recall a case of this, unless you count the igloo attempt in 1966.  There haven't been opportunities to make snow anythings in AZ.

9.  We eat dinner together when we go out to eat, which  happens more often on weekends.  Other times, we may eat the same food, but not necessarily, and maybe not in the same room at the same time.  I hate to cook, and John's not fond of doing it, either.

10.  John thinks we have one somewhere, "a little barrel cactus."  It's probably outside.  If we ever get this yard landscaped, we may put in some kind of cactus somewhere, most likely prickly pear.  But I'll leave that up to John.

I've done the "10 Things" challenge at least once already, but I'll do it again if anyone wants to volunteer to be speculated about.

Sarah needs to post more often.  She writes about acting and music and animals and British humor and politics and travel, and it's all interesting stuff.  But, you know, she has a Life, and doesn't always have time to blog.

I could easily write about and recommend two other LJs that appear on my Friends page, but I'll just mention them--Shelly's Write Stuff and Julie's Oh My! She's At It Again!  Just take a look--they're two more of my writerly online friends, both with interesting things to say.

Extra Credit:  If my mom were still alive and still capable of navigating online, she'd probably be interested in the Alzheimer's Association web site and other health-related sites.  That was her primary interest online, other than senior and political chat rooms.  Although my mom's memory loss was most likely due to strokes and depression, she was quite worried that Alzheimer's was also in the mix. As a retired psychologist, she probably would have cared about the subject even if she were unaffected herself.  Me, I'm hoping desperately that the current research will bear fruit by the time I hit my 60s, and that I'll start taking better care of myself in time to lower my risk of serious memory loss.

Karen

P.S. Helpful hint:  Ihave links to nearly a dozen other great non-AOL blogs on my sidebar--not  counting my own.

Tags: Weekend Assignment, Blogs, H2G2