Sonja Denise's Notebook

The day before the election, I saw a photoshopped image of the Obamas that said "President Barack Obama and the First Family," and I'll admit, I got a little thrill seeing that. I stayed up last night until I knew who won, and got up this morning and a watched a few minutes of people celebrating.

But I just can't ride a buzz from this, knowing it appears Prop 8 is going to pass in California, along with discriminatory measures in other states (bans on same-sex marriage and bans on gays adopting). I just thought, this is probably the essence of an Obama presidency. No, Obama didn't vote on these measures, but people who voted for him did, and I expect the same feeling of disappointment for his entire term.

Like I always say, I'd be glad if he proved me wrong, but I really doubt it. I expect Obama to be someone for America to point to and claim progress, to cover up for our assbackwardness in, oh, everything.

Well. I thought that was going to take a bit longer.

Not that I'm complaining! (Except, what am I going to do for the rest of the night? Sleep, I guess...)

Idle Spirits is up and running!

I'm keeping it simple this time around. Also, this is the first time in about five years I used a WYSIWYG editor to build a website. I used a free program, KompoZer, but after using DreamWeaver in one of my classes, I'm so tempted to actually buy it.

Er, tangent! XD

NaNoWriMo starts at midnight! If I lose this year, I'm just an asshole, because the planets have aligned perfectly - NaNoWriMo begins on a Saturday, I have a three-day weekend, and one of those days has 25 hours. I'll be talking about my NaNo novel on my other journal, since it's fanfic.

National Novel Writing Month begins this Saturday!

I've yet to beat the challenge, but last year was the closest I came, at 33,000 words. This year, I discovered the program Scrivener, which is my dream writing program and the best $35 I ever spent, and outlining my novel has never been easier. I'm excited to start writing and I have a good feeling I'll hit the big 50,000 finally.

Idle Spirits is coming this Friday! Yes, on Halloween! At long last! How many exclamation points can I use!?

( Some rambling about inking, and pretty pictures. )

Does this give you warm fuzzies?

Or this?

Gee, you think martial law's going to be declared? Congress is getting threatened with it if they vote "wrong," and in the face of an economic crisis, Bush suddenly decides that this is the kind of thing he could use to potentially (read: will) declare martial law.

Oh, this is comforting. Not.

Come on, now.

(EDIT: Here's that video of the random arrests of random people at a park during the Republican convention. I dare someone to justify that shit.)

"Palin just seems like someone you can relate to. Hillary doesn't seem like you could sit down and have a cup of coffee with her."
- Some Dumbass

(Don't get it? Replace "Palin" with "Bush," "coffee" with "beer," and "Hillary" with either "Gore" or "Kerry.")

I know, more politics. But it's important.

I've been saying Sarah Palin is the new George Bush, and Naomi Wolf wrote a blog entry about that with details I was unaware of. (And don't get me started on the creepy shit happening to Wolf.)

As much as I enjoy Wolf's writing, I don't agree with everything she says. And I think she's a bit slow in her reactions - she didn't put out The End of America until last year, didn't think impeachment was a good idea until last year, and her new book has been released only a month prior to Election Day. And now she's insinuating that, somehow, voting for Barack Obama will help put the country back on track.

First off, we're probably going to experience the same funny math in counting votes as we have in elections since 2000, so it's not going to matter a whole lot who anyone votes for. (Let me take this moment to say, please vote anyway.)

Second, Obama, for all intents and purposes, is for the police state. He caved so fast on FISA, just to list a particularly blatant offense. He supported the PATRIOT Act. At the end of the day, it essentially makes no difference who gets in office, because both candidates want to fuck us over.

Okay, perhaps Obama doesn't want to fuck us over and isn't making a power grab. The alternatives are no better. He could be, like most idiots giving the Bush regime a pass, believe that these laws will not affect him. (He's wrong.) Or worse, he's being watched; maybe he's being coerced, or he's already afraid to speak about real issues. He's the same as the majority of Democrats; the reason he's not our savior is the same reason writing to your representatives doesn't do jack shit. (An aside - let my plug this video, because it's awesome.)

Third, even if Obama is the second coming of Christ and gets elected, he's going to hold the most powerful office in the world - now on steroids, thanks to all the extra powers he's not supposed to have. He's going to use them. And even if he doesn't, he's not going to repeal them, and the next jackass will use them.

And don't even get me started on how we all damn well know if Obama's elected, there will be an assassination attempt.

So we have one party that's being used (yes, used; it's not Republicans themselves) to maintain power. The other party is rendered ineffectual. The third parties, and anyone in the major ones trying to get anything done, are ridiculed and/or kept out of the media so that they are never considered a viable option.

I think we're about to hit a tipping point. Wolf's ideas are great, but her suggestions for action are too little, too late. I really do think all that's left is direct confrontation between the People and the State, and I'm hoping the People will be up to it.

So, starting this Wednesday, an Army brigade is going to be stationed domestically. You know, never mind that's what the National Guard is for. And, oh, it's a brigade that's been stationed in Iraq for too goddamn long (35 months), so they're prime candidates for flipping their shit and killing - or at the very least, injuring - American citizens. And they're going to be used to deal with "civil unrest" and "crowd control" and they're being called the "Consequence Management Response Force."

If this shit isn't setting off some serious alarm bells, there is something deeply, deeply wrong with you.

Welcome to America, where Big Brother is always watching and we have always been at war with Iran Iraq!

Please don't watch those videos and get scared - that's what they want. Get mad. The government's been at war with the people, but using the Army is now making it official.

Shit is going to hit the fan between Election Day and Inauguration. I don't know what, exactly, that will entail, but something's going down.

Around 3 AM on September 13, I became an aunt.



=)

It's Friday, October 31st instead.

Shock and awe, I'm behind schedule. That's what I get for not taking commuting to school and homework into consideration. I are smart.

(Oh, and it's my birthday. I am 19. WTF.)

LOL, I finally figured out how to install phpBB. I now have a new project until I get an actual readership...

Forgive my frequent use of the word fuck...but that's what I said when I found out McCain chose Sarah Palin as his VP. God, this pisses me off on so many levels, I don't even know where to begin.

McCain picks a woman, to appeal to women (the group he's polling like crap with), and to stupid, disgruntled Hillary supporters (a small amount, but they're there). And on top of that, she's still anti-choice, and doesn't really go against Republican "values." People are already falling for this bull, unsurprisingly, because Americans Are Stupid.

She has even less experience than Obama, so she's obviously just a tool for the Republicans, and I so do not want to see the first female VP get the position that way. And it's bad enough McCain will be a total disaster as President, if he kicks off, she'll be a disaster, too. (And if that happens, everyone decides women = crap leaders.)

Being the good tool she is, Palin will be put forth to frame the abortion debate. If Obama's smart, he'll emphasize the difference between himself and McCain. But since he hasn't been doing that, he'll probably try even harder to be Republican Lite. (And 60%-lifetime-rating-from-NARAL Biden doesn't help matters.) The sexist commentary has already started up again, too. Hooray. And no matter what happens or who wins, women will be blamed.

What a shit year for women in politics.

So I'm a crusty old college student now. Apparently the incoming class is freakishly large even by Temple standards (and at the same time, they claim this was also their most selective year). Between that and being the last orientation, there were no English classes left, so I have to take one in the spring. But without English, I can't take any business classes for my minor >=(

But I managed to find five classes after about two hours of sweat and tears. Three are honors - Science in Context, Religion in the World, and Gender & History - and Cyperspace & Society and The Art of Acting. So it's all pretty fun stuff :D

And my schedule's pretty nice, too.

Monday 11:40-12:30
Tuesday 1:10-4:00
Wednesday 11:40-12:30, 4:40-7:10
Thursday 1:10-4:00, 5:10-7:40
Friday 11:40-12:30

Mondays and Fridays I'm barely there, Thursday's the most intensive day, and the two classes in Center City are late in the day so I have more than enough time to get to them. Even adding my one-hour commute, nothing is too early or too late in the day. Oh, and I can eat lunch a decent time every day. (Don't get me started on my hunger today...stupid ceremonies...)

I feel very comfortable at college already, even though this is just temporary until I get to SCAD. (I managed to finally meet some people on the third day of orientation!) I'm not pining for high school at all, and haven't once since graduation. High school...is best forgotten.

I'm not opposed to wearing my hair straight from time to time, but I when I went natural, I knew I wasn't going to risk heat damage on my hair, so I assumed I'd just never wear it straight again.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. It can be done by air drying on giant rollers, and it looks very good.

I can't try it out yet, though. I'm twisting my hair for the week (I don't want to deal with my hair this week, since I have orientation for four days and an hour-long commute...) and I'm lacking in the giant rollers and bobby pins department. I'd definitely like to do this at the end of the year, when my hair is back to the length it was immediately before the big chop.

:D

( Much joy and bragging. )

Seriously, just fuck you Obama. You and the Democratic party. The 2008 Election should be no contest, but only the Democrats can screw up this badly. Way back in the primaries with Florida and Michigan is when they screwed themselves over, and their problems have been compounding ever since.

The only reason I could take into consideration for voting for him in the fall is the economy, because I know McCain will screw that up. But Obama's been acting like a closet Republican, which makes me doubt he can do even that much right.

I think shit's going to hit the fan this year, anyway. A revolution is coming, and it's not just fringe wackos saying it. Just regular people, casually bringing it up. I don't think it's going to matter who gets elected, because either way, people are going to flip out. I hope so. Because things are just going to get worse if we do anything less.

But I'm certainly not going to not vote.

I'll probably be one of the assholes voting for a third-part candidate. (Hello, Cynthia McKinney!) Feel free to blame me if McCain gets into office, but if you don't like it, march into the capital on inauguration day and do something about it. (Remember Bush's inauguration? Mmm, rioting! Freedom at it's best.)

Mustek Scan Express A3 1200 Pro USB Large Format Scanner

I think this is the one I'm going to get. It's huge, not too pricey, and it seems to be popular with comic artists. I am a little skittish about how it'll work on my computer, since a few reviewers said they had problems with it on their Macs, but others said it worked fine as long as you install the TWAIN driver (which is included with it) and use a TWAIN-enabled program (which GIMP is, and I have). And I like to think myself computer-savvy enough to force it to work :P

OMG. A DICK BLICK IS OPENING IN PHILADELPHIA.

AND I GET 40% OFF MY PURCHASE.

THE GODS ARE SMILING UPON ME. THIS IS SUCH PERFECT TIMING.

LOL, I was trying to find a replacement for Corel Photo-Paint, but then I realized Preview does everything I need (crop, resize, resample). So I can get back to posting new Kindred Spirits pages. Still need a new scanner, though. (And printer - turns out the 3-in-1 I have doesn't have drivers that work with OS X. Huh.)

But I suppose I should start talking more about the main story, Idle Spirits. As soon as I get a new scanner, I'll post something on the site besides "coming soon."

In the world of Idle Spirits exists a group of people known as "spirit guides," who, essentially, guide spirits to the afterlife, and also have some special abilities. This is a duty that passes from mother to child. 18 year-old Derica Zo learns in the first chapter from Shiri and Karmina Lerato that her mother, Adelle, was a spirit guide - and thus she herself. That explains everything except why she saw Shiri in her dreams before even knowing she existed...

Idle Spirits is an embarrassingly long story that I've broken up into eight series. Series 1 happens to be 16 chapters long. (But Series 5 is only 6 chapters, for example.) I'm not sure if it will show, but I was particularly inspired by Shoujo Kakumei Utena, Nana, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Torchwood, and television in general while developing the series from scattered notes over the last year.

So, spoilers?

( List of characters and descriptions of characters in Series 1 )

I have to say, writing Idle Spirits so far has been incredible. I never put so much thought into themes, and plot points are dovetailing effortlessly. I adore all of the characters and all their wonderful flaws. I hope I'm able to complete the entire story eventually, because I love the ending.