The price of a double life

I think I've mentioned in my non-anonymous life, I'm a writer. Since I'm about to send out a storm of query letters, I decided I needed to get my writerly website's ass in gear. These days, it's not uncommon for an agent or editor to google your name to see what kind of information is out there about you, so it's good to have a web presence.

 

In May, I bid on and won web graphics, and the woman who designed two mock-ups did such an awesome job I couldn't decide which one to settle on. So I paid for both, and now they're installed on my website. Of course, if I link to it here, I lose my snarky anonymity (such as it is - somehow folks keep figuring out who I am). I'm not so fond of the idea that my two online lives - this here blog and the community it's a part of plus my "real" life - might join up. It's hard being a liberal Pagan milspouse, and I also have to account for an audience I might alienate with my Jekyll/Hyde personality (minus the trampling of little girls in the streets, natch, since I'm not generally into that kind of Hyde-like behavior…nor am I attempting to suppress homosexuality in a Victorian age which then births the Hyde personality… um, anyway). I think my personality is obvious no matter where I am online, but the snarkage here isn't totally kosher. Hence the anonymity (such as it is).

 

But sometimes I want to defy that anonymity, too. I don't mind people knowing who I am so long as it doesn't adversely affect my husband. His career? Pfffft. I'm not concerned with elongating it past retirement in five blessed years. But I don't need to make his work life more difficult, and I know how the screeching neocons he sometimes has to deal with are. They're few, and the vocal ones are thankfully far between in the Navy, but they're out there. And he's shouldering enough just being a liberal service member with a penchant for logical thought in socio-political discussions.

 

Here's the price of a double life. I'm denied the ability to share things that would out my husband as that snarky bitch's miserable schlob. And you're denied the beauty of my sparkly new website. Though I promise when it's time to fold up this blog and tuck it away, I'll link then to the sparkly goodness. And then you can go buy my backlist. Or, if you're a screeching neocon, feel free to organize a massive book burning event in your town, buy every copy of my novels you can find, and burn baby burn (though I'd appreciate if you'd find a greener way to show your disgust kthx).

Yeah, my bitches!

MSRRA passed and now awaits signing from yon President. Wutwut!! I can officially be free of this mother-effing state of California for GOOD. Arkansas, here we come! Beer-na-neer-neer-neer-neer-neer-neer-neer.

 

Nothing could make me more blissfully happy right now. Well, okay, freedom from the flu, being done with this term paper, having all revisions done on my thesis, and being free of the Navy…but otherwise, yeah. This hits it.

Cake Pr0n

I realized tonight, the last night of the third Wilton's course, that my dumb ass forgot to post pics of my cakewreck attempts.

So...here you go! Enjoy. :)



The final cake in the first course - all buttercream, baby!




The final (only) cake in the second course. In the background you can see the option Wilton's gave us to complete - a cake that looks like the Easter Bunny hopped by, saw a cake, and took a shit on it. Full of springtime bliss, they are!! I couldn't handle it, so I went for a more seasonal design. ;)



The first cake in the third course and my first time playing with fondant. Wutwut.




My final cake for the third course. Again, the options from Wilton were very June and specifically wedding. Again, I opted to make mine more seasonal. The awesome instructor offered the idea of putting a pretty, seasonal bow on the lower cake. It helped the situation a lot, but I'd much prefer to have the cakes stacked rather than columned. :D You can't tell in the photo, but the base color of each cake matches the border of the other. Oh, and this is fondant.

One of my classmates compared our cakes tonight. Her cakes are loverly but not my style, and my cakes are definitely not her style. :) She said, "I'm Martha Stewart and you're Ace of Cakes." I'll take that as a compliment.

OMG Those Goddamn Neighbors!

So apparently the situation in the home in which we previously resided has gone down the shitter. I know I complained numerous times about the gauche activities (such as removing a window screen, propping it against the house, and sticking an antenna out the window…or parking a shopping cart in the front yard) and noise here.

 

But now, according to our renters (who understandably want out - and if we could afford to let them out, we would, but they're as screwed as we are now) there's weed smoking, drug dealing, attempted murder with a vehicle after the would-be murder victim bashed in the windshield with a bat, parties with 50+ people in the streets well after midnight, and MORE!

 

I'm disgusted by the barbarians in our neighborhood. What a bunch of motherfucking fucks. I'm not sure what I can do as an absentee owner, but I contacted the property management company that takes $120 from us every month to keep the animals penned and the lawns mowed. We'll see how they respond….

 

If only we could get out of that house. If only it weren't $200,000 upside down right now. Gods, we'll lose our shirts if we can't get renters in there once the current ones have finally been released from their lease. Lose. Our. Shirts.

Happy Equinox!

From a snarky, bitchy, Navy-wife Pagan to you all - may you pass the days toward spring without hunger or pain and find the respite you deserve in this dark half of the year.

 

Many blessings.

What She Said

Hellcat Betty has an awesome list of things you should never say to a milspouse.

 

It nabs pretty much every WTF comment I've ever received, but for two. First:

 

"Oh, he's only gone for six months!" Sometimes followed with, "That's not bad."

When said by a fellow milspouse, it's not so obnoxious, mostly because I know s/he recognizes that there are way worse timelines to confront and because six months means he's probably just out to sea again and not on one of those godsforsaken IAs. But it still sucks because I get this mostly from non-Navy spouses who haven't been doing deployments and work-ups etc. for fifteen fucking years*. They only know the last [granted, quite hellish] eight years of Afghanistan and Iraq. It's not in their parlance, this regular deployment with schizophrenic underway schedule leading up to and falling away from each major deployment. So it's completely forgiveable but still a bit twitch-worthy. I especially hate it when I find myself responding with the lame-ass "Yeah, but this is his third deployment in two years." Wahh-wahh. Because then I feel like an asshole given how many 12- and 15-month deployments the other services have been called to make in the last eight years.

When said by a civilian, I find myself desirous of a ball gag to keep me from responding with a hearty "Fuck you, 'zatch!" Then I'm glad I don't have a ball gag handy since I'd use it on her.

 

Second, I've noticed nobody else has mentioned this, and I'm not sure if it's because I'm just really fucking weird. So please feel free to tell me I'm a freak. Or else tell me if this comment bothers you and why.

 

"Thank your husband for his service. And thank YOU, too, for your sacrifices."

Don't get me wrong. I appreciate that folks recognize the shit we endure thanks to the military, and I'm very glad that they show respect for the sacrifices military members and families make for the rest of the country. But what bugs me is this: where was this thanks twelve years ago when my husband was underway 300 of the first 365 days he was on that stupid fucking frigate? Where was this thanks when I saw him approximately three nights per week when they were in port? Where was it before we had a war or two, when our ships were out there patrolling the seas and letting potential aggressors know we wouldn't take their shit? Where was it when the Cole happened? Where was it when soldiers and sailors both were being hurt or killed practicing for a skirmish or war - and deploying??

 

What's worse is the sudden appearance of all this gratitude when the ol' "you're not a patriot if you don't support this war" drumbeat was going on. Rawr, sez I. And also, eat me. And also, thank you for paying your taxes so I can afford a pitcher of margaritas every time I hear the deployment clock ticking again.

 

*Oh, sweet plastic baby Jesus. I'm so fucking old. Fifteen years of my life sucked away by the Navy. *sob*

Score!

Went to church yesterday (the UU church down the street, where I've volunteered to teach Kids' Church once a month - gulp!). We were greeted by a woman who looked vaguely familiar to me, and my husband thought she looked very familiar. I figured we'd seen her at the church before. As we were filling out name tags, she asked my elder sprog what school he attends, and I told her the name of the home charter school. Then I mentioned (says husband, with quite a bit of venom) that he *had* been going to Former School of the Massive Suck (though I used the actual name of the school, ahem).

Later, husband told me that he figured out who she was, where he'd seen her before. He said she mentioned that she'd been a teacher for 20 years and now works in the district office.

She was the woman who came in to observe my son's very awful Kindergarten teacher.

SCORE! Either I offended her, or I narced out the school unintentionally (this time). I hope she wasn't offended - she was clearly there to evaluate and was spot-on with her criticism of the teacher. But either way, someone involved in the process at that school has heard from a parent.

We still have to go in to the office and pick up the refund check from his lunches. So we might end up with A Discussion yet....

In other news, the school year starts tomorrow. *gulp* and also *wheee!*