Moneygami

18 December 2011 | 3 Comments

Origami is such an intricate art. I remember learning a bit as a kid, and being amazed at the way an ordinary piece of paper could become so many things.

And now there is moneygami. Go take a look at the slideshow, it’s a lot of fun. I like it particularly for the clever uses of the illustrations on the bills. I could no more look at a bill and see these outcomes than I could fly to the moon. But other people can. So many ways to use our brains…

Enjoy your day.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog

Let there be light

17 December 2011 | 5 Comments

All of you who are members of the HandyPeople Tribe, here is your opportunity to beam fondly upon one who is only slowly discovering your secrets…

We have two sets of overhead lights in our main room: a three-way switch/dimmer, and a separate single switch dimmer in the dining area. For the last year or so, we’ve had an occasional glitch in the dining room dimmer — it took a lot of jiggling (along with incantations, curses, and the occasional round of impact maintenance) to turn the light off. We’d flip the toggle to off, and the lights would turn off and then flick back on All By Themselves. On and off, on and off. Spooky!

Then the other day, we turned off the living room lights and they Just. Stayed. On. No amount of fussing would turn them off. Finally we had to kill the circuit in the breaker box and go to bed.

Normally this would be the time to cue the entrance of the Electrician. But we just spent a chunk of money getting our roof and driveway/sidewalks maintained, and every once in a while I get stubborn… And so I decided that before we called a guy (and although we know a woman master electrician, she sadly has moved away, and everyone else seems to be a guy), I would see if I could replace the switch myself.

Here is where all you HandyPeople can smile indulgently. I know in my head that I cannot blow up my house by wiring a switch wrong. But yeeps, the first time is scary!

I open up the wall and peered at the switch (with a flashlight because there is no sun in Seattle these days, and the circuit was off, so it was, you know, dark!).

I went to the store and bought two switches, one for each dimmer.

I came home and realized I had bought the wrong switches. My old switches were pre-wired. I bought switches with no wires.

I cursed.

I briefly contemplated going whole hog and stripping the existing wires myself, and wiring the new switch in.

I realized this was a bad idea and went back to the store. I bought two pre-wired switches.

I returned home. The new switches had different colored wires than the old! I went to the internet and learned.

I installed the first switch. It worked! Chortle!

I installed the second switch. I got it all the way into the wall before I discovered the dimming mechanism was broken.

I sighed.

I went back to the store. By now, the Returns person and I are on a first-name basis. I bought a new switch.

And installed it.

I know, really, all this white space and wordcount for a non-story. A grown woman did a home repair project all by herself. But GAZE UPON MY TRIUMPH!

My dad is an engineer. He is going to be so proud. (*waves at father through the internet*)

Enjoy your day. Go do something that makes you feel like the master of your own destiny!

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog

Beyond Binary

13 December 2011 | 2 Comments

I’m delighted to announce that my novella “Eye of the Storm” will be included in the anthology Beyond Binary: Genderqueer and Sexually Fluid Speculative Fiction, from Lethe Press in May 2012. Many thanks to editor Brit Mandelo for including “Storm”: it’s one of my favorite stories and I will be happy to see it swing-dance with other genderqueer fiction. It’s in extremely good company, and I’m very pleased indeed.

Edited to add: Just to be clear, this is a reprint anthology, so those who have read Dangerous Space will have read this story. But in that case, buy the antho for all the other great stories!

Table of Contents:

“Sea of Cortez” by Sandra McDonald
“Eye of the Storm” by Kelley Eskridge
“Fisherman” by Nalo Hopkinson
“Pirate Solutions” by Katie Sparrow
“A Wild and Wicked Youth” by Ellen Kushner
“Prosperine When it Sizzles” by Tansy Roberts
“The Fairy Cony-Catcher” by Delia Sherman
“Palimpsest” by Catherynne M. Valente
“Another Coming” by Sonya Taaffe
“Bleaker Collegiate Presents an All-Female Production of Waiting for Godot” by Claire Humphrey
“The Ghost Party” by Richard Larson
“Bonehouse” by Keffy R. M. Kehrli
“Sex with Ghosts” by Sarah Kanning
“Spoiling Veena” by Keyan Bowes
“The Metamorphosis Bud” by Liu Wen Zhuang
“Schrodinger’s Pussy” by Terra LeMay

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, writing

Thanks every day

12 December 2011 | 2 Comments

We were talking last night over a celebratory bottle of Spanish wine about our urge to live more of a city life, to have more urban energy around us. As we drove to the restaurant last night, the city spread out in the night all lit up for the holidays, full of people, and we thought how lovely it would be to have known places nearby once again, the way we used to when our favorite restaurant was just down the street, when the dry cleaner and the wine shop and the market and the bakery and the pub were all right there, full of familiar strangers. It can be very good to belong in a place like that.

And it’s also good to belong where we do, and to be who we are right now. Last night we celebrated 22 years of living together. The nice people at the restaurant gave us a dessert (gooey chocolate cake, espresso flan, profiterole!). We talked about small moments and big ideas. We remembered, and we looked ahead… It was a lovely evening. And it reminded me that I am both a creature of yearning and big dreams, and one who prizes the beauty and joy of the small daily moments. I’m grateful for those things, and although there is much about me I would change, I am grateful to be what I am.

And since I am currently in a mood to eschew the authority of the calendar (Hah! to your structure I say, hah!), today is my thanksgiving day; and because I am so goddamn busy, I’ll let other people talk about the yearning and the big dreams and the everyday beauty and joy. They say it so well.

Here’s John Scalzi talking about right here, right now.

And here are many of your sister and brother humans talking about their lives at The Rumpus.

Whoever we are, whatever may have come to us in life, we have this day. I’m thankful to spend part of mine with you. I hope you enjoy yours.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under being human, blog, life

Be Bold With Bananas

2 December 2011 | 4 Comments

It has been a while since I laughed so hard that I cried. Mileage varies, so maybe you won’t find yourself running for the nearest tissue as you read this post…

But oh my goodness, friends, the wackiness of the world is a thing of joy sometimes!

Enjoy your day. I hope it brings you something to laugh about.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog

It’s not just the world that is beautiful…

30 November 2011 | 3 Comments

… it’s the whole universe.

Go look at a gallery of heartstopping images from the Hubble telescope. We’re a part of all this beauty, my friends. How cool is that?

Enjoy your day.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog

Flash mob Mumbai

29 November 2011 | 8 Comments

If you’ve stopped by my corner of the internet over the years, you know I love flash mobs. This one is particularly great. I love the song, I love the dance, and I love that a group of people in Mumbai chose this way to honor those who died November 26, 2008 in terror attacks in the city.

The best way to celebrate the lives of others is to remember them in our moments of joy.

Enjoy your day. Dance if you have the chance.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under being human, blog

Thankful

24 November 2011 | 4 Comments

I am so very thankful for my life. And yours too, all of you who join me in these conversations. Today I am so full of joy and wonder that I simply cannot find the words. But I hope you have these moments too, when everything you are, all your experience, all the people who have ever touched you for better or worse, all the beauty of the world and the creatures in it, all of us living our lives — when it all rushes into you for an instant and there you go, the joy and the wonder of it all.

Thankful, me, for all of it.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under being human, blog

Look up

22 November 2011 | 5 Comments

I grew up in Florida, where the land is flat and the water is wide, and the sky is a great bowl of possibility arching overhead.

The possibility of weather passing through on its way to somewhere else; the possibility of going with it.

The possibility of lightning, how it speaks of power and passion and lets us see spontaneity writ large.

The hurricane that so easily persuades the stupid that death won’t spoil their party.

The blue of summer so hard it stings the eye, that makes us want to put our hands in it up to the wrists because it’s summer, summer!

The blue of winter that feels too high to touch, that teaches us in the most literal way why cold is a metaphor for distant. And that distance is what moves us to reach higher.

They say that everything we’ve ever seen stays with us. Stays in us. I hope that’s true. I enjoy thinking that I am full of sky.

Hdr skies from Tanguy Louvigny on Vimeo.

Enjoy your day. Look up!

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under being human, blog

Shame on them

21 November 2011 | 3 Comments

On Friday, a campus police officer at UC Davis decided that the only rational way to respond to a group of students sitting in silence on the sidewalk with arms linked was to pepper-spray them directly in their faces. You can find updates on the story here.

It’s fucking horrible to watch. But please do. Because after the officer dehumanizes himself by inflicting unnecessary pain, and by appearing to enjoy it just a leetle too much, the protesters rehumanize the event by ultimately forcing the police to leave.

The beginning of this video terrified me. The ending astonished me: the protesters giving the police permission to go. Watch it happen. Watch the consequences, and the power, of speaking your mind.