There's an article about me on the Nights and Weekends site--I'm their featured e-author this month! Come read it and learn who I cite as my influences and what scents I would capture and stick in a bottle if I could.

And since it mentions the occasional perfume giveaways on my blog, let's do one now to reward anyone who comes looking for one...

Today's double header:

Cafe Noir by Dawn Spencer Hurwitz - has notes of bergamot, black pepper, cinnamon bark, pimento berry, benzoin, Bulgarian rose otto, jasmin, labdanum, coffee absolute, tolu balsam and vanilla. A rich, luscious, peppery coffee scent. It is an eau de parfum.

Labdanum 18 by Le Labo - Le Labo Labdanum 18 eau de parfum features the soft, lingering scent of labdanum (cistus) with a slightly animalic base. This is a lovely, intriguing scent.

Both are sampled, but mostly full, 1 ml vials from The Perfumed Court, who provided the scent descriptions above. To enter to win the samples, comment on this post. I'll choose a winner by random number on Sunday. International entrants welcome. Non-LJers too, as always, though you'll have to leave me some way to contact you. Good luck!

I think I've linked to this before, but there are some new ones now, and the site still makes me snort with laughter.

Retitled Romance Novels:
Page 1 (by Longmire)
Page 2 (reader submissions)

Examples:

What with infant rearing and all, I'm not getting out to see the Half-Blood Prince film anytime soon. But! Fortunately the rest of you have, and have provided discussions and reviews, and in at least one case, a really amusing parody version! Thank you, killer_cola, for raising many a giggle in this weary mom.

Some excerpts I particularly liked:

DUMBLEDORE: I'd get used to the bleak colourlessness: that's here to stay.
YATES: What can I say? Hanging around Helena Bonham Carter brings out the Burton in me.
SLUGHORN: Dumbledore! Come in, come in! I've been on the lam for a year, carrying only photographs of teenagers I was fond of.
HARRY: ...
DUMBLEDORE: Relax, Harry, Horace isn't a paedophile. He just acts like one in more or less every way.
HARRY: Well, sir, it was you I was intending to keep my eye on. You've got notably camper since Rowling outed you.
DUMBLEDORE: (swatting him with a women's magazine) Oh, you bitchy thing you. Take my hand.

FRED & GEORGE'S JOKE SHOP/SINGLES BAR
HALF OF HOGWARTS shows up to flirt at one another over love potions. Which is kind of creepy, if you think about it, since they're all thinking, "I'm gonna roofie *that* one."

HARRY: Don't worry Hermione, you'll get together in the end. There are too many Ron/Hermione shippers to allow it to be any other way.
HARMONY SHIPPERS: We know, we know. But can you at least hold her hand so we can kid ourselves?
HERMIONE: (snuggling against HARRY) I know you feel the same way, Harry. I've seen how awkwardly you look at Ginny.
HARRY: (cradling HERMIONE) She is a vision of mousy perfection.
HARMONY SHIPPERS: We love and hate this scene all at once.

HARRY: Ron, you for once don't look as though you've just puked into your mouth. Is something wrong?

DRACO: (in a darkened bathroom, sobbing against his own reflection) I am the new icon for emos everywhere!
HARRY: You're showing your descent to the dark side with a side fringe and eyeliner? What is this, Spider-Man 3?

(And if, like me, you can't even remember the details of the book, I once parodied that for everyone's reference.)

As a follow-up to the Buffy v. Twilight discussion of a week ago, this is a great video remix introducing the two (Buffy and Edward) to one another, with predictable consequences:

http://blip.tv/file/2261825/

Really well mixed, and oddly satisfying. ;)

In other news, Happy Father's Day!

In still other news, yes, I continue to be pregnant. And yes, I'm ready for that to stop.

If, like me, you occasionally find yourself standing at the fridge with your newly bought bell pepper and wondering whether it really should go in there, or whether it might be happier living on the counter, dither no more!

This site has a rundown of where to store your fresh produce, and includes a handy chart you can print and stick to the fridge.

I have learned that I've been doing some fruits and veggies wrong. For instance, all fresh herbs except basil go in the fridge--ah ha, no wonder the basil kept turning black in there. Also, I tried her suggested way of keeping herbs fresh: snipping their ends and putting them in a glass of water, like flowers in a vase, then slipping a plastic bag over the top and refrigerating them. The cilantro I bought has stayed fresh for over a week now with this method--much longer than it does when trapped in its original plastic bag in the produce drawer.

Others I've been wrongly refrigerating when they should be on the counter: peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes. (Until you slice them up at least, presumably.) Meanwhile, plums and cherries should go in the fridge, when here I'd been storing them in the fruit bowl. They did seem to rot awfully fast that way, come to think of it.

Furthermore, keep those darn apples and pears and bananas away from other produce: they emit ethylene, which ripens other fruits and vegetables at an accelerated rate. However, you can use that to your advantage if you want to, say, ripen an avocado quickly for your guacamole.

Anyway, only a chef or a Food Sciences major could keep all this straight, so print the chart and enjoy your happy produce.

(And happy Memorial Day!)

1. A pretty darn impressive bunch of Photoshop jobs melding Star Wars themes/characters into classical art. Weirdly good, and probably even more so if I knew a bit more about art. Thanks to naill_renfro for finding those.

2. Heard on NPR's "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me," when Carrie Fisher was a guest and in a mood to share gossip: "Alec Guinness once gave Mark Hamill 20 pounds to go away." She added that Mark was a movie buff and kept pestering Guinness with questions. And yes, he apparently took the money and went away.

Here in Seattle we're lucky to have one of the best radio stations in the known universe, KEXP, 90.3 FM. Lately they ran a poll asking listeners to submit their ten favorite albums of all time, and from the results they compiled the best 903 albums of all time. (And played a song from each one, in a big countdown over the course of several days.)

It's an interesting list, even if you don't agree with all the choices. For example, I'd be inclined to grumble, "Enough with the freaking Radiohead" myself, given that Radiohead scored four of the top twenty albums, tying with the Beatles. I mean, they're a good band, but equal to the Beatles? Hardly. At least, not to me.

Still, the Gothly groupie in me was pleased to see six Cure albums making the overall list. The Smiths scored five, with Morrissey getting another three. David Bowie made the list eight times; REM ten; the Beatles six. Blur got three albums on the list; Oasis only one. Haha. Guess the worthy victor won that feud.

What's this? No Monkees?? Ah, well. Browsing the list still makes me want to go CD shopping.

Since the election season is, justifiably, making most of us cranky, I must share this essential sanity-saving link:

PunditKitchen takes news photos, mostly politics, and gives them the LOLcat treatment. I have LOL'd many a time now in browsing them. Many thanks to wandererrob for finding that.

For posterity, and to demonstrate the twisted nature of my sense of humor, the first (but by no means the only) post to make me laugh out loud:

Oppression: The Musical

I've just finished proofing the (electronic) galleys for The Ghost Downstairs (yes, I'll tell you once I have my release dates), so it's time for some lightweight material. What better for the occasion than this long, but hilarious, thread on the phrases in romance novels that drive readers crazy?

Considering it goes on for 700 comments and still running, I haven't read them all. But some of my favorites are:

"man-root"
"burning sword of his manhood"
a character having violet eyes (A peeve of mine for sure. I have never seen anyone with violet eyes.)
bodies turning to "molten lava" during sex
"laving" of nipples
"going blind" during sex (one reader writes, "all I can do is hope she isn't actually suffering a retinal detachment")
"releasing his boiling tribute into her"

Yikes. I better stop there before this post becomes unsuitable for minors.

The Radio Lab podcast once discussed earworms, which are those songs you cannot for the life of you get out of your head. People called in to sing bits of their own personal earworm tunes, and in a follow-up episode called "Earworms", the hosts pointed out that, interestingly, people were often perfectly on pitch when singing these songs. It seems that perfect pitch, at least for the song in question, often accompanies the nagging experience of being unable to stop humming that tune.

I tested it myself just now with a song that's lately in my head; namely, Coldplay's "Viva La Vida." I've never had perfect pitch in my life, to my knowledge, so I figured I'd be off by at least a couple notes.

I was exactly on pitch.

My tempo was a little too fast, but I nailed the key. Crazy.

Try it yourself! Tell me what happens.

By the way, it's sometimes hard to remember what notes you were singing, because when you start playing the real song, the legitimate notes wipe clean your memory, at least for most of us. Thus it's difficult to know whether you've matched the pitch or not. I did it by singing a few bars into the computer microphone and saving the file, then playing it back and comparing it to Coldplay's version. I'd overlay them in Sound Studio to demonstrate my moment of accurate pitch, but there's no reason you should have to hear me sing "da da da-da-da-da". (I couldn't remember the lyrics...)

Narnia fans' must-read link of the day:

naill_renfro has supplied us with another great Narnia film parody: Prince Caspian, complete with Fangorn Forest and witches encased in carbonite. I haven't seen this movie yet (nor read the book in decades), but now I sort of want to, just to enjoy the giggles more...

All right, fess up. Who put me up on a big long list of sexy geeks of 2007? (Scroll down a bit.) With a photo from over five years ago, I might add.

It's likely someone asked if they could nominate me, and I said, "Sure, go ahead!" and then promptly forgot about it. So just jog my memory.

Regardless, it was a pleasant surprise. Dude, I'm listed on the same page as Captain Jack!

The Perfumed Court, the subject of my last enthusiastic entry, has lived up to my gushing hopes. Less than a week after my order, all the little sample decants are in my hands. And they came with candy! Just one Hershey's Kiss or coffee-flavored hard candy per package, but still, a lovely customer service touch.

As for the scents, what can I do but swoon?

Cannabis Santal blends beautifully on me, still rather manly but in a sweet, earthy, delicious way. I notice the patchouli more this time around, but it's not at all overpowering as it can be in some blends. The various notes just sink into my skin and get comfortable, sending out a tendril of vanilla and fresh tobacco every so often when I move. Smells fabulous under my leather jacket. Ahhh.

I have sampled Creed's unisex Millesime Imperial as well, which according to rumor is worn by royalty and celebrities all round the world, including Harrison Ford. It's a clean, fresh, expensive scent, but (thankfully, given the expense) isn't for me. I want to love lemony aquatic fragrances, but they don't want to love my chemistry. Unlike scents that blend well for me, scents that don't blend well--like this one--seem to just sit on top of my skin, gradually growing thin and stale and not doing anything interesting. I'm pleased to know what Harrison Ford smells like, but am sort of bummed, too. I hoped he'd smell like a smoky leather jacket. Oh well; he probably does when he's in his Indy costume.

I've sampled a bit of Donna Karan's Black Cashmere too, and definitely must try it by itself, full throttle, tomorrow. The bit I dabbed on my hands is fascinating me. It smells like at least three different scents that have enchanted me in nature: rockrose (labdanum), Russian olive trees in bloom, and the juniper/sage/pine campfire-like incense of the American Southwest. Cinnamon is definitely in there too. Dry, yet saved from desiccation by just that hint of blossoming desert trees and their exotic fruits. Totally unusual. Definitely not for everyone. Got to try some more to see if it really works for me, or if it's too good to be true. Am knocking on a chunk of aromatic wood.

Seriously, someday I might just plunge into the aromatherapy and perfumery worlds, and abandon this writing thing. Except when it comes time to write scent descriptions, of course.

To the certain destruction of much of my free time and pocket change, I have discovered The Perfumed Court. They sell sample-size decants of nearly every fragrance under the sun, including some very hard-to-find and even discontinued ones. Most of the smallest vials are $3 each, which is an affordable price for getting to try the perfume for a few days or a week to see if you really like it.

Also, some of the larger sample vials are big enough for a hundred sprays, enough to last a month or two. Seems a good option when you've already sampled a scent and you know you like it, but can't quite bring yourself to spring for a big, expensive bottle.

Such is the case with me and Fresh's Cannabis Santal, which I've tested and retested over the past year and finally have to admit I covet. No, it doesn't smell like pot smoke, thank goodness. Not on me, anyway. I get a relaxing, spicy, somewhat masculine blend of chocolate, vanilla, vetiver, and resinous shrubs--rockrose ("labdanum" in the fragrance world) and sandalwood come to mind, though they aren't included in the official list of notes. How they made that all work together, I do not know, but I really like it.

So then along with the larger spray vial of Cannabis Santal, I ended up ordering four small samples of other scents from hither and yon. Hard to restrict myself to just four. It would be hard to restrict myself to just a hundred, actually. This site has not seen the last of me, oh no indeed.

I've been duly informed that several of you are never, ever, ever, no, not EVER going to read a book on an electronic screen. This post is not for you.

DailyLit looks like a cool site. In their own words, "DailyLit sends books in installments via e-mail or RSS feed. We currently offer over 750 classic and contemporary books available entirely for free or on a Pay-Per-Read basis (with sample installments available for free). ... Installments arrive in your Inbox according to the schedule you set (e.g. 7:00am every weekday). You can read each installment in under 5 minutes ... and, if you have more time to read, you can receive additional installments immediately on demand."

So, if you always meant to read Dracula but never got around to picking up a copy, well, here's a chance to do so in manageable pieces on a daily basis.

I ought to figure out how to get my work on there.

If you've not seen it yet, FreeRice is a cool site where you can quiz yourself on vocab, and for every word you get right, the UN donates 10 grains of rice to Hungry People somewhere or other. It also automatically adjusts its difficulty level based on the words you get right, so it should get more challenging as you go.

This may be the first time my lexical abilities have ever directly put food in anyone's mouth--and is likely to be the only time. Fun to play, though.

Linkage of love:

I haven't yet seen the film version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but thankfully naill_renfro has, and has parodied it for us.

HARRY [teaching Dumbledore's Army]: (Is a good teacher, or at least better than most Hogwarts teachers – of course, the average Hogwarts teacher seems to be Dead, Sadistically Addicted to Seeing Students Fail, Drunk, Possessed by Lord Voldemort, or some combination thereof, so that may not be surprising)

Hee!

Note One: One or two alcoholic drinks a day might lower risk of heart attacks, but definitely raises risk of a bazillion kinds of cancer. Hm, heart attack or cancer? I'll take heart attack, thanks. I'm sticking to my "dark chocolate with every meal but alcohol only a couple times a week" diet.

Note Two: I finally saw An Officer and a Gentleman. I liked it--you get a good eyeful of our Puget Sound scenery. Also, I now finally see what Hot Shots! was parodying, aside from Top Gun. Hee.

Note Three: Still time to sign up for Operation Ichabod. Read a line, be spooky, be awesome.

(Welcome, all those whom I dragged over here from mollyringwraith! Here's some of the promised discussion...)

I'm finally done watching every episode of Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Firefly, so aside from the comic books and upcoming projects, I can no longer be spoiled on anything Joss Whedon has done. And I am most definitely a devoted Buffyverse fangirl who will, one of these months, go back and acquire it all on DVD and watch it all again.

Which is not to say that the last moments of Angel didn't irritate me at first. I mean, ( spoilers )

So, a couple good essays by writer Jennifer Crusie here:
Dating Death, detailing why romance writers love watching BtVS, particularly the Spike/Buffy dynamic
The Assassination of Cordelia Chase, on how the show's writers screwed up with Cordy's character.
Major spoilers for both of those, which I can now read! Hoorah.

And a funny cartoon about the end of "Buffy", again with spoilers: http://archive.gamespy.com/comics/dorktower/images/comics/dorktower256.jpg

So. Dang. Guess I'll decompress with some movies for a week or so, then launch into the new "Dr Who" and see how I like it.

In the meantime...one of those new Buffy comics, I hear, features a nice dream sequence picture of ( oh, spoilers I guess ) I don't suppose anyone has scanned that so I can stare at it lasciviously? Or do I have to wait till I get my own copy?

:)

I've been so quiet lately because I've been spending most of my computer time writing, or visiting TheNextBigWriter to engage in writing workshop behavior, of a limited online sort. At first I didn't like the site, because it was time-consuming to find and review work by other people, which you have to do in order to post your own stuff; and then the reviews I got were sometimes not very useful--stuff like "This is really good writing; I don't see anything that needs fixing." Yes, it's nice to hear that, but I know it couldn't be true at the professional level, or I'd already have an agent, so I really craved people telling me what to fix.

Luckily, I soon got other reviewers who did just that, and by the time they had followed me through to the middle of the book they were even saying, "Hey! I liked this character until just now. What the hell did she do that for? She wouldn't act that way. It doesn't make sense." And they were right. So that was awesome, and was worth the price of registration right there. (Which is only $40/year.) I've even found some stories I genuinely like, and have gotten slightly worked up trying to explain to the writer why I think a certain change would do wonders for the work. Again, that's a very good sign. Being obsessed with writing is where I want to be.

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of time for that, and if I make time for it, I have to shave time off other activities. Which is why you haven't heard from me too much. But I haven't forgotten about you guys, and in any case I (for some reason) have a permanent account here, so I imagine I'll have heavy LJ phases again before long.

In the meantime, if you want to get writing reviewed and/or find me over at TheNextBigWriter, my username there is the same as it is here.

Yah. Have a good rainy Sunday! (Our rain is back in Seattle. I am happy.)