Guess the 100 most common words in English.

5 minute time limit. Harder than it looks! I only got 43, and that’s more than other people I know who tried this. I’m sure someone else can do better, though.

For those who’ve been worried about me–

While I’m still learning to cope with assorted medical conditions (collect the whole set!), I can finally say that I feel about 95% recovered. It’s mostly happened since early July–just in this last month. I’ve still got restrictions, but now they’re more manageable.

Guess how I know I’m better: I’m furious at how much time I lost this spring. GODDAMMIT. I could have written so many stories in this time! RRRRRR. RAGE. HUGE TEMPER TANTRUM.

There. Now I’ll go channel that rage into KILLING CHARACTERS.

doom doom doom

“Galatea” is now available as a podcast from Podcastle. It’s really weird to hear my work read by someone else! But neat, though. It’s like discovering a fresh side of the story for me.

If you’ve never tried a podcast, it’s pretty easy. You can either download it or just play it from your browser. It’s about 30 minutes long, so you can take a popcorn break partway through if you want.

The response to Transcriptase has been overwhelmingly supportive. I’m happy about that; readers will find our stories there for years to come.

In other news, William Sanders has responded to Transcriptase here and here.

Is there anyone out there who both:

1) has extremely long hair (I can almost sit on mine)
2) exercises daily?

I need to increase my activity levels. I’m doing my best to stick to this, but I’m having trouble with my hair feeling sweaty and gross. I only wash it three times a week, and it feels icky on the days where I haven’t washed it. I was trying to figure this out, and then I realized I don’t know anyone who exercises daily and has long hair. So I’m wondering if these are strongly connected. I would hate to cut my hair off, but it’s discouraging me from exercising.

Anyone? Is there a hair product or shampoo that would help here? Do I just need to cut my hair? Or suck up and deal with being sweaty? (If I wash my hair more often, it dries out and breaks off.)

Edited to add: These are great comments and I’ll respond more soon! But here’s more detail about my hair. It is very very long, and thick–but the individual hairs are very fine and there’s definitely breakage all the way down. It is very slightly wavy, but near-straight. The bottom three inches are pretty rough and splintered and need a trim. I have to trim it regularly or the ends look awful. So the bottom of the hair is dry, and the top is oily; if I go more than 4 days without washing it, it sticks together in that nasty way (even if I’ve been sedentary).

The exercise at this point is walking; I am wearing a sun-hat to protect myself, and that’s part of the trouble because it collects the sweat and keeps my head a little warmer. I do tie my hair back with non-tear Scunci brand elastics; it still breaks and tears no matter how careful I am. I often do braids instead of ponytails for that reason. Even so, short hairs escape and get everywhere. I’ve had my hair chin-length and never been happy with it. A while ago I cut off 18 inches for Locks of Love; I grew it all back and swore I didn’t want to cut it again. Now I am rethinking that.

We went live with Transcriptase 24 hours ago, and we’re still getting Helix authors asking to have their work posted. If you drop by sometime today, you’ll see new stories and new poetry.

One thing I should say is that this one of the best team projects I’ve ever worked on. Many people participated in the creation of this site; the communication among us was fantastic. After thoughtful discussion, once we decided to build this site — Transcriptase went up in 13 days. That’s incredible to me.

I’m proud to be part of this.

A new site called Transcriptase now exists for reprints of stories from Helix Magazine. You can read our stories and poems, see author statements about the incident, and join a discussion of the issues involved in the situation.

If you don’t know the background and why we chose to build this site, start here.

Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus!

Green Man Review had this to say about “The Girl Next Door”:

“The Girl Next Door,” written by Vylar Kaftan, is disturbing but well-crafted story about an elderly recluse who becomes obsessed with a beautiful new neighbour and finds himself tempted by abilities he disowned in his youth as his desire for the young woman strains reasonable boundaries. Eventually it all leads up to an unsurprising climax with a very surprising conclusion.

…I can’t tell if she liked it. I think so? Anyway, I like being described as “disturbing but well-crafted,” much like anatomically correct knitting.

The 26th is proving quite pleasant. Getting enough sleep really helped.

(Sorry if I worried anyone! While yesterday sucked rocks, it was also partly my short-term rage and lack of sleep.)