laceblade | Being home is weird.

I was very sad to receive my First Speeding Ticket yesterday afternoon on my drive from Madison to my parents' house. The cop was sitting up on top of an overpass gunning cars like a jerk. I mean, yes, I was speeding, but still. I went no more than 5mph over the speed limit the whole rest of the way home, and was passed by at least 80% of the cars I encountered. I do intend to show up at court and contest the ticket. Most people never do this, but you can generally get the fine lowered, and less points taken off your license. Read my friend Gordon's extremely length post if you don't believe me.

What the hell, I have so many new LiveJournal friends reading my blog/LJ (same posts in two places) that I can't refer to people like that! People new to the blog can feel free to check out a list of people in my life and what they're like, although I'll point out that it hasn't been updated in two years. My boyfriend, Antoine, isn't even on that list at all. At some point, I will update it. Really. I promise.

Speaking of new LiveJournal friends: I've made a lot of new friends and joined some new communities after going to Wiscon, and I'm having trouble keeping up with everything, so I've been taking some people of my LJ friends list. It doesn't mean that I hate you, and if you still have me on your list, I'll probably still check on your journal anyway. It's just been...really hard to keep up, and I like to leave comments, and yeah.

So, the ticket made me sad, but life otherwise has been pretty good. I felt sad walking around Wiscon realizing that I had never read anything by any of the authors who were there, so I've made an effort to rectify this. Some of their books are really cheap at Half-Price Books! I bought Walk to the End of the World by Suzy McKee Charnas and Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner while picking up presents for Fathers' Day, Mothers' Day, Olivia's Birthday, and my brother-in-law Kevin's birthday.

Last night, Kristy, Chad, and I watched "The Queen" over at Kristy's aunt's house (she and Chad are house-sitting while the family is away). The movie was very well-done, and good. Kristy's aunt/uncle owned a dog that was missing one of its front legs. Apparently, it had been shot in the leg and left to die in a forest when the Humane Society (or something?) found it, and Kristy's aunt adopted it. WTF, how can people be so mean to animals? It's such a friendly and good-tempered dog, and it gets around just fine.

Familial Birthday Loot:
Otherland, Volume 1: City of Golden Shadow - Tad Williams
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie DVD
Dead Poets Society DVD (I've never seen this; hopefully it's good? It sounds like something that would make the King sisters cry.)
mp3 player
George Foreman grill!
$20 from my aunt/uncle, which I think I told my mom I'd be some Horatio Hornblower DVDs with, but am strongly considering getting a Revolutionary Girl Utena boxed set.

That's right, I got an mp3 player! Not an iPod, because I am not a brand name whore. It holds two gigs, and is cute. It also has a radio, so I think that with this device my brother-in-law is giving to me, I can make it play in my car. Also, I hadn't needed one that played video files, but this one does. I think it's too small to read any anime subtitles, but I could probably put BSG or something on it anyway. Yay, music! Still, a random question: WTF, how do people go jogging and make the ear buds stay in their ears?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The thing about the Charnas Holdfast novels (of which the one you've got is the 1st of 4) is that you can tell she took 30 years to finish the series; you can see the evolution of feminist thought in the books, & I really like how her characters have to puzzle out the question of what to do after the revolution, when you've won: how do you treat your former oppressors so you don't end up becoming an oppressor yourself, or does it even matter? I would've thought those books would've been discussed on the WisCon revolution panel, but apparently not.

P.S. Ew, did I just spoil you for the Holdfast books? I almost think it's obvious what's going to happen, but... maybe I am just feeling guilty. :P Ugh. Sorry if I did--it's the sort of thing I wouldn't mind hearing about had I just picked up the first of the books, but others might disagree.

No, no, I don't think you said enough for the books to be ruined. Also, it's good to know that the book I got is the first one, and not the fourth!

Actually, Charnas' books were mentioned by L. Timmel Duchamp, and it was funny because Suzy McKee Charnas had just walked in the room. Duchamp was so flustered that she couldn't remember what she had been talking about.

Oh--I remember the Duchamp thing, now that you mention it. Hehehehe.

Charnas also did this YA urban fantasy trilogy that takes place in NYC that I love.

Walk to the End of the World contains one of the few villains that I actually like--I realized a year or so ago that I am one of those soppy people that almost never identifies w/or likes the villains. Hahahaha.

GASP! You would consider buying something else instead of Horatio Hornblower? Blasphemy! ...I mean, do whatever you think is best ;)

Actually, as much as I love Hornblower, it is quite lonely-making. I can't even remember the last time I got somebody to watch any of it with me, much less stay awake during the whole thing. Sigh.

Oh, wow! Last summer I got my friends Ryan and Jennifer to watch it with me, and it was great. My dad also watched some of it with me, too.

Speeding tickets suck, but by all means go to court. Especially if it's your first. The cop might not show up, so that's instant getting off (but he probably will since it was a designated trap). If the cop shows up you can plead guilty with an explanation and perhaps get it commuted a bit. Make sure you mention how you've never gotten a ticket before and you know the mistake you made and stuff like that. You will most likely get it reduced.

I regret not talking to you more at con, because now that I see your ideas, I think we could have had some great conversations. You are going next year of course, right? ;)

Yeah, I guess I'll have to figure out whether to plead guilty or not guilty and all that jazz, but it'll depend on whether or not he shows up. Maybe I'll have to write up two plans of attack and bring them both, lol. Buuuuut, yeah. At this point I'm leaning towards being all apologetic and wide-eyed and telling them it was my first one, I was excited to get home because I haven't seen my family in a long time (true), etc.

Yay! I'm actually much more verbose (and articulate) when writing than when speaking. In person, it's sometimes more difficult for me to start up conversations with people I don't know. Like, I'm not awkward when I do it, but just more likely to not say anything in the first place. But yes! I'm pretty sure I'll be going next year. I'll be graduating from college, though (UW-Madison), and I'm fairly certain I'll be staying in Madison, although who knows. So, unless there are intense moving plans, I'll probably be there.

I think we're coming up on differences of terminology here. In my state (Maryland) if you actually did it but you want mercy you say "guilty with an explanation". It may be in your state you have to say "not-guilty" if you want mercy. I'd check on that. I read your friend's blog and he said not-guilty because he was passing someone, and that makes sense to me. But you should ask around. In Pennsylvania, I was able to negotiate directly with the police officer before the trial, and he asked the judge to remove my points. In Maryland, no such thing was possible, it was all the judge, who looked at my record and saw nothing, and therefore got rid of my points without really listening to what I actually said :). Also, in Maryland we have something called PBJ (probation before judgment) for a first offense, in which the points are removed (if it's a 2 pt offense or lower) and you can't get in any trouble within a year otherwise you get saddled with *both* violations all at once. In Pennsylvania, they can remove the points and it's as if the incident never happened. So it would behoove you to get some state-specific information.

I found the difference in terminology interesting from the way you put things to the way I would explain them, when you said points off your license. We say points *on* your license. Like they put points on it, whereas before it had none :).

That's probably more than you wanted to know.

Yay for probably going to Wiscon next year!

Being home is weird.

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