Mehitobel Wilson: writer, reader, chronic curmudgeon.

Tomboy bombshell cowgirl; lover of funk, attracted to roadsides.

Besotted with spots.

Friend to sleaze.

Admirer of filthy films, fleshy steaks, Hong Kong rap, new felt and pocket-knocking 8-balls; prefers 10 gallons of hat and 4 fingers of Jack.

Procrastination here breeds urgency there. Urgency begets sharper fiction. The dream: hone it to a splinter, and sink it deep.

So I'm here.

Fuck you, Bellsouth

1. Ever since they launched DSL, their dialup service has sucked, and their customer service for dialup users has been PITIFUL.

DSL is too rich for my blood... and not available at my address. How 'bout that.

2. They sell addresses. I had to break down and BUY spamblocking software, the fucks.

3. Fuck them.

4. Today, my account's fucked up, and their website says, in the dialup area, "To Chat with a Technician, click here!" I figured it was safer for me, mad as I am, to chat, rather than call. "To Chat," turns out, I had to first download a 4mb program. Wait wait wait (dialup, see.) Techs pop on and off: "You are now speaking with a Bellsouth eAgent. Your conversation is being directed to a different eAgent." Five times. Finally, a human: can't spell worth shit. I sum up my issue. Their final response: "You don't even have DSL, do you. This chat is DSL only. Call this number for dialup help tomorrow." No, not tomorrow, you cockwad. NOW. I want you to fix this NOW. And don't fucking condescend to me, and YOUR website's Dialup Help sent me here.

5. Fuck them.

6. And yes, I do have to call tomorrow, and I'm furious. Nosebleed furious.

7. Why sign up again? Because my motherfucking email address is pretty crucial, and I have about a thousand fancyass shiny red business cards with it printed on there, goddammit. Fuckers. Not worth the $75 to get the cards redone. Cunts.

8. Tonight, I'd made special dogsitting arrangements so I could go to bed at 10pm, catch up on sleep. The Murder Junkies played tonight and I was going to be all adult and go to goddamn bed early, because I've been a goddamn zombie for weeks. Just wanted a couple extra hours. But lo, no, this computer shit came up.

Granted, I coulda walked away and dealt with it tomorrow. But I'm allergic to the very concept. FIX NOW. FIX NOW. I'm wired that way. Fuck.

And now I have no CHOICE but wait, and that is a horrible feeling. I'm itching inside.

I have a bad feeling that the call tomorrow isn't going to go very well, either.

And I missed out on sleep, and didn't even get any nasty punk rock or free beer or anything to show for it.

Fuck you, Bellsouth.

I'm going to seriously investigate cell phones and cable modems, business cards or no business cards. I'm sick of paying them anything. Do you know how many times they've randomly shut off my service? Once, after six years of service, they shut it off (I was away at a convention) because "No such street address existed." The fuck? My house got demolished while I was in Seattle? No, they are just idiots.

Fuck them.

Oh, and on an unrelated note (no, really), the S&W M28, formerly a house gun, is solely mine now, merry Xmas to me. HOT GODDAMN, let me into the woods, quick.
posted by Mehitobel Wilson at 12:23 AM

Dogs Of Reality

I dig certain incarnations of reality tv. Tonight, I slept through "The Simple Life," and when I checked some boards to see what I missed, I was suprised to find huge, long, stereotype-ridden discussions. Anti-Southern discussions. Anti-rural-anywhere discussions.

Sigh.

Thing is, the townies in "The Simple Life" aren't even very rural. They're just normal people, and they still managed to inspire threads about how we all have our dogs running wild, are obese, rely on Walmart (this is true), etc.

And, of course, I read these threads just after reading a Survivor thread in which Darrah, our Mississippi player this season, is (speculatively) transcribed thusly: "Jawn an' Layl an' ah won an evenin' at a raysort. Way flew onna pline an' sawr awr sheltah down baylow. Ah think ah sawr Sunder glarin' at me with one ah-bawl ayven from whar ah was sittin'. It was lahk a baym of grayn laht, grayn fer jellossay. Iss nawt ayzee bein' grayn. Ah felt fer her.

At the trahbil counter we vawted out Chris'mas. She an' Sunder trahd tuh vawt out Burger, an' it didn' wark 'cause Jawn's dayd gran' momma has been bein' swarn awl over." (Courtesy of FORT, near and dear.)

I did laugh my ass off at this, yes. But I wish someone would take the piss out of Northerners now and then.

Now, regarding dogs running wild: though the Eikedog likes to try this, we did graduate from Beginner's Obedience last night. She scored 157 out of 160 in our little trial and took 2nd in the class. She won a pig's ear and I was so proud of her that I almost broke in half.


posted by Mehitobel Wilson at 1:17 AM

All three of me

Bloodletting Books has both states of Dangerous Red and the hardcover of Skins of Youth discounted; you can find them on this page.

Admire, if you will, how they spelled my name differently in the heading for EACH book. I have to write more books to see how many other permutations they'll try. Finally, a compelling reason to write more.

On the home front
(really, bear with me: this is eventually about the Writing Mind and reading and goodness.)

In July, right, I got Eike. Since she's a growing GSD, I didn't want her taxing her bones/joints by romping up and down the slick hardwood stairs, so she's lived downstairs. Therefore, *I* have lived downstairs. The upstairs - my bedroom, and my useless, depressing, wholly uninspiring office (a desk in a walk-in closet) - was so miserable that I didn't want to go there anyway.

In September, Jennie moved out, Robert moved downstairs into her vacated room, and the upstairs changed: my bed went into Robert's old bedroom, and my old (humongous) bedroom was to become my office/study. But first, I needed a proper setup. For me, that's an 8' folding table, one of those chairs that you kneel on, shelves full of monsters, etc.

When I set up my closet office, I thought it would be great: no junk, no toys, just a peaceful fish tank, a nice little window, and nothing whatsoever to do other than write. BOY, did that fail. It had previously been converted into a recording studio, so it was totally soundproof, so I hallucinated a lot of weird noises. I felt like I was in a goddamn pod lost in space. I hated it. Turns out that I need crap, that "distractions" allow my mind to wander.

But for another three months, the office/study was just a book-jammed, trashed bedroom with a void the size of a queen bed (by "bed" I mean "pilfered mattresses held aloft by cinder blocks. yeah, I'm an adult, shut up.) This made it even MORE depressing up there.

I finally installed the proper desk; my kneely chair came back with me from Thanksgiving; and I spent nearly six hours cleaning everything I'd wrecked up there since July. (I hadn't even unpacked properly from Horrorfind.)

And, I hired chimneysweeps to inspect and clean our fireplaces, and last night I lit my first ever fireplace-fire. Ever, not just in this house. (Our only heat growing up was a woodburning stove, and I've lit my share of bonfires, barrel fires, pit fires, and camp fires, but this was my first hearth fire. I'm a flammable person surrounded by books, books, books. I was somewhat anxious, despite the fact that I'd ensured about nine feet of extremely safe clearance all around the damn fireplace. )

I discovered that: open hearth fires are BRIGHT. That it feels very strange to have a big fire indoors, like I've imported this dangerous alien and asked him to sit in a certain spot for a while. Hell, beyond being just indoors, having a big fire in my room is outright odd.

But: it does feel like My Room now. It never did, even before, when I also slept in it. It never felt correct. (Now, my bedroom feels a bit strange, because all that's in it is my bed, and I've got nothing else to add to it - but all I do in there involves being IN the bed, so really, who cares?)

Having proper physical space does outright wonders for my work mentality. It's been difficult for me to write fiction: I wrote "Land of Odds" in the back yard, and I wrote my DAMNED story with the laptop on my lap (yes) in the living room. A lot of writers can work anywhere, and in fact seem to prefer slotting themselves into different locations - coffeeshops, airplanes, hotels, libraries - but, unless the story has eaten my face (as did "Strays" and "Tools of the Trade"), it's a struggle for me to do so. I can do it (barely, and I'm never too happy with the results) but there's a world of difference between doing it with discomfort, and feeling like I'm in My Place, doing My Thing.

And now, finally, after a year and a half of not having figured out My Place, I've done it. (I say "figured out" because it's always an accident. My planned places never feel good.)

And the fire: once it was burning, I realized that my cushy recliner was pointed right at it. There had been nowhere else to put the cushy recliner, so I'd just put it by the table, as the Reading Chair, even though it's an awkward-looking spot for it... and lo, it looks upon the fire. (From about ten feet away, across an expanse of non-flammable, safe hardwood, of course.)

The first thing I thought was, Now I can read the M. John Harrison collection that China sent. Now, it is appropriate.

The second thing I thought was, Buy Cait's new novel, and read it here, too.

I am on edge in unfamiliar places. I like my home to be my den, my dominion. And since April of last year, my home has felt unfamiliar. I paced, I prowled, I felt off-center, and I certainly didn't feel quite right writing.

But it makes me very nervous, especially with a big fire going right behind me, to actually say, "Now, I feel good here." Last time I said that, I moved within a month (after FIVE years of trying to feel right.)


posted by Mehitobel Wilson at 10:28 PM