Category Archives: Home Life

How Writing Made Me Get In Shape

A bunch of things came together in April of 2011, the end result of which is that I’m now 30 pounds lighter and calling myself a writer.

So how’d that happen?

It was in April that I decided that I was going to make costumes for our local Renaissance Festival so that my husband and I could to a renewal of vows in August in period-appropriate garb. So I started doing a little research. This included buying a bunch of books and some period movies. At about this same time, I started working on this 25-day writing challenge to describe a character of a book. This is when Trey of Herongarde was born. Trey was based upon James Purefoy’s character Marshal in the movie Ironclad (which I watched while doing my research).

It got my mind going in a way it hadn’t gone in a while. I pondered to myself, what would happen if I (me, Penny, paleontologist) was suddenly dropped into the middle of the 14th century? The first thing I realized is that I’d be in big trouble on several fronts: 1) As a 21st century woman, I’m a little independent and probably a lot cheeky. I’d get into trouble. 2) As a highly educated woman, on top of being cheeky, I’d probably be labeled a witch and burned right away. 3) I don’t have any skills that would be really useful in the 14th century. I’d starve! 4) I was in really, really bad shape, comparatively. I was a little jiggly in the middle and definitely not as strong as I used to be.

Thus was born the beginnings of the Herongarde Trilogy, which I’m still working on. I had to come up with a scenario in which I (me, Penny, paleontologist) wouldn’t wind up very dead if I blipped into the 14th century. The first book is written. Let me know if you want to read it and learn how I dodged burning at the stake.

The books involve a lot of swordplay and the ‘me’ character, Hanna, has to learn to wield a sword. I looked in the mirror and realized that I couldn’t even begin to do that. I did field work that May and was winded by all the hiking. What had happened to me? I used to be able to run eight miles!

So I started losing weight. First it was just portion control (I’m a comfort eater). That took 15 pounds off me over the summer. Then in September, I started a fitness program (various things through Beachbody). It was painful, but I started to feel better. I could move again. The aches and pains started to go away.

Come November, I was feeling pretty good. It was then I learned about National Novel Writing Month, and started putting the Herongarde novels down on paper. I started thinking a lot about swordplay, and wanted to try it out. I wanted to see what it would feel like to swing a sword and hit someone. Or be hit. But I wasn’t ready yet.

I went through a couple more of the various fitness programs offered by Beachbody and was starting to feel pretty fit. I thought I was ready to try some swordplay and began to seek lessons. Read about that here. I did figure out pretty quickly that I still was not quite as fit as I needed to be, but I was much closer.

Today, I think I’m in better shape than I was 20 years ago. I can’t go out and run eight miles still. But I can run circles around my students. I can curl 15 pounds. And I can eat a horse (geez, my metabolism has kicked up!). And, I’m learning about swordplay and know what it’s like to hit and be hit.

I’m in great shape now. Not perfect, but comfortable. I feel good. And all because I started to write a little book.

A New Flag

We recently had an election in the United States, which most of the world is quite aware of. During such elections a lot of things wind up on the ballots, not just who will be our next President, but other governmental items that are left to the people to decide. One such item appeared on the ballots of Puerto Rico this year. For many years, Puerto Rico has been a territory of the United States, but not a formal state. This year (as has happened many years in the past, Puerto Ricans were asked if they wanted to become a State within the United States, or continue to be a territory. This year, Puerto Rico decided that they wanted to change their current status, and that statehood was what they would like.

Thus, if everything happens as it should, soon we will have a 51st state in our union.

Fifty-one states.

Well that means we need to change our flag.

My entire life, we’ve been a union of 50 states, and have had 50 stars on our flag. Suddenly, we need to consider how to put 51 stars in a balanced and appealing way onto our flag.

I, of course, thought nothing of this, but others are already been pondering this for a while. (Google 51 star flag. You’ll see.) One of the people pondering this is my husband. He was so excited about his design that he had to show me and asked me to draft it up for him. So here it is:

Bill’s 51-star flag design

Enjoy!

Welcome, Puerto Rico, as the newest member of the United States.

November, how I dislike thee…

I think November is my least favorite month, and this year is proving to be no exception. One of the things I like least about November is that I am forced to accept that the warm weather is over. Things are getting cold. My garden is dead. It makes me sad. It’s also the start of those gray days that last until April.

The days get short, too, and I lose all productivity. I’m one of those people whose wakefulness is directly tied to whether or not the sun is up. When it’s dark, I’m unconscious. That’s how it works. Confound that with the endless overcast, and I’m worthless 24-7.

November marks the beginning of the holiday season, which to me is more like the guilt season. The holidays are a troubling time for me, not that I don’t enjoy spending them with my family, but that I often wind up spending them with my husband’s family, some of whom (well, one in particular) I really don’t enjoy being around. But each year, I am obligated to spend time with these people, with whom I would not associate except for that they’re family. Then there’s the other holiday obligations: office parties, gift giving, card sending, all those things I don’t have time to do (in part because I can’t stay awake past 6pm).

Put this on top of the fact that November has got to be the busiest month of my year. I’m teaching introductory geology and this is the time of semester when my students start to realize that they might not be getting the grades they want, and start invading my office and my inbox more often. Plus, students are registering for next semester and my inbox has all those e-mails too.
I usually have a professional meeting somewhere in October or November, which takes me out of the office for a week, putting me in full-blown catch-up mode for weeks after. But it’s always a great meeting, and I wouldn’t miss it for anything.

And just when life seems complex enough, November is also National Novel Writing Month, and I am in the habit of participating in that madness (write a 50k word novel in a month!) each year. And for novelty, this year I’m also participating in National Blog Posting Month, which means a blog post every day.

These last two things I could drop, sure. But they’re fun, so I do them. (My husband doesn’t think so much of them, since I keep disappearing to go write, but whatever, right?) Even without NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo, November would still be miserable.

December will be here soon enough, and will be slightly less awful (classes end before Christmas, so I at least get a bit of a break). I find January to be a renewing and I come back to life sometime in March. So I’ve got some difficult months before me, but I’ll survive. Winter hasn’t killed me yet!

Election Day Coverage

Here it is. Election Day in the United States. I’ll be so glad tomorrow. Relieved. Who ever wins, I’ll be glad it’s done.

There’s only so much mud-slinging I can take. It seems that all the candidates are concerned about is the character of their opponent. That’s all I see in the ads anyway. You have to dig to find out what their stances are. I’m tired of it.

I’m tired of the endless barrage of candidate names. I’m tired of seeing “So-and-so likes Barack Obama” or “So-and-so likes Mitt Romney” on Facebook. Even though most of my friends on Facebook and Twitter are silent about politics, I am still sick of hearing about it.

I don’t broadcast my political views. I have friends of all creeds and preferences. I don’t want to step on their toes. Any person who spends a moment following my Twitter-feed or reading my blog can probably figure out how I stand, anyway. Well, maybe. I’m a scientist. That should say everything.

Elections are so polarizing. That’s the problem with a two-party system. One side’s gotta win. I hate it. Why can’t we all just get along? What’s a greater problem is that we’re not actually a two-party system. There are multiple parties, just no-one knows about the others until they get their ballot and say “Who the hell are these guys?”

Luckily, this morning’s ballot was pretty simple. No big issues to vote on. Just people. I try when I can to vote for my candidate of choice where he or she is running as the candidate for a party other than the Democrats or Republicans. That way, I still get my candidate, and maybe there’s hope that another party can enter the big scene and participate in the debates and raise money and what ever.

Tomorrow, the sun will rise and it’ll be another day. Maybe we’ll have a new president, maybe we won’t. I just hope there are no hanging chads or similar issues this year. The disruption from Hurricane Sandy is sure to cause someone to cry “liar!” if the election is even remotely close in stricken areas.

In the meantime, I’ll keep my TV off and try to ignore any political or newsy tweets and Facebook posts for the rest of the day. No spoilers, please. I voted. Now leave me out of it. I’ll find out tomorrow.

Daylight Savings

So this morning we set our clocks back an hour. Well, OK. My phone automatically set itself back, as did all my computers. All these other clocks in the house are now officially one hour off. I suppose I’ll get around to changing them eventually.

I’ve never fully understood the point of the time change. I suppose I could research it, but I’m feeling lazy. It gives us more daylight in the morning, which I guess is nice, but then it gets dark so darn early that it’s impossible to accomplish anything in the evening. And in those darkest months of winter, it doesn’t make any difference at all, because it’s dark when I drive to work and it’s dark when I drive home. It’s just dark all the time.

I’m one of those people whose awake-ness is directly related to the amount of light outside. Actually, most of us are that way, it’s a natural way to be. Just some are better at fighting the natural urge to sleep once it’s dark than others. Once it’s dark, I just want to be in bed. Makes it hard when you’ve got class preparations to do for the next day. Winter is awful because of this. I can’t get anything accomplished. The time change doesn’t make any difference in this regard. It just gives me a temporary jet lag that lasts for a week.

The only nice thing is that one day a year we seem to get an extra hour to sleep. I took advantage of that this morning. I needed to. I’m feeling a little rough this morning. Of course, in the spring we lose that hour. That day sucks. I hate that day, and the whole week that follows.

That is my rant. Have a nice day.

On Learning Swordsmanship

I’ve been fascinated with swordplay for the better part of my life. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if as an embryo I was trying it out. Well, OK. Maybe not. I’ve also been intrigued by the martial arts, though not so much that I ever wanted to try them out.

In the last year or so (call it a mid-life crisis or maybe mid-life enlightenment!) I finally that maybe I should pursue this interest and see where it goes. I thought initially that maybe it was little more than a passing fancy. You know the sort: something grabs your attention and you get excited about it. And then you throw a lot of money at it to buy all the equipment. And then, a month later, the interest is gone, and you realize that you’ve wasted your money.

Well, I’m old enough to know that these things can happen (thankfully), so I let my interest simmer in my heart for a while, bought a bunch of books, and after a few months I realized it hadn’t gone away.

So I pondered. I was still interested in swordplay, but I was in bad shape. I knew there was no way I could actually handle a sword. I’d collapse in exhaustion in ten minutes. I started a workout program, and after a few months of that I realized I was in better condition than I had been twenty years earlier, and I was STILL interested in swordplay (and as a bonus, I was also 25 pounds lighter!)

OK, now what? I, of course, had spent a fair amount of time on line during this time idly reading about swordplay and swordsmanship to see what I could learn and came across the web page for the Higgins Armory Museum. Well, shoot! It’s even got my name on it! I found out that they had sword classes and I immediately wanted to participate. However, the museum is a six-hour, one-way drive from my house, so that wasn’t going to happen. They did, however, have a full day symposium called “The Sound and the Fiore” which focused on the knightly martial arts of 15th century fencing master, Fiore dei Liberi. It included a workshop in which participants would be allowed to work with long swords for a quick lesion. I went, naturally, and came home positively chomping at the bit to learn more. I was excited to have learned something about wielding a sword, but I was also excited at the realization that swordplay was part of the “Western Martial Arts.” That is to say, using a sword and being a ‘knight’ was properly a martial art just like karate! This is what I wanted.

Then the search began. I tell you, there is nothing-doing around Rochester in the form of Western martial arts. Someone finally suggested the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) as an organization where I might get to learn some swordplay. I’ve met up with the local group and have also gotten involved in what they call “Heavy Weapons,” which is the SCA equivalent to fighting with a broadsword. This has been fun, making armor and bashing on people with sticks. I figured out pretty quickly that despite all my training, I still didn’t have quite enough upper body strength to fight well, but at least I was fighting now!

Something was missing, alas. As much fun as the SCA is, it lacks all the martial aspects of proper martial arts. Plus, while it sort of looks like real swordplay, it isn’t. I renewed my search. This time, I had the benefit of Twitter, on which I seem to spend far too much time. But I do follow some swordsmen who participate in swordsmanship as the martial art that it is. A month or so ago, one of them pointed me toward an instructor nearby who could actually teach me what I want to know!

Today, I made the drive to Ithaca and took a lesson from Adam Crown, Maître d’Armes.  Let me tell you what. It was a great experience, and unlike what I learned at the Higgins Museum, nor anything like SCA heavy weapons practice.

Here’s what was different. The Higgins Museum workshop most likely intentionally put swords in the participants hands knowing that was what participants were paying for. It wasn’t meant to be a lesson. It was a demonstration. It was to give a flavor for true swordsmanship to the participants, and so the most ‘romanticized’ of the weapons, the longsword, is the one that was pulled out and presented. The SCA practice is all about just jumping in and fighting. There isn’t any formal instruction, just short spurts of fighting with occasional stoppages to help explain the SCA rules and SCA fighting styles. And, in the end, it’s pretty basic. The SCA is not about reenactment or historical accuracy, at least in terms of fighting techniques. SCA heavy weapons fighting is not a martial art. I won’t say it’s not fun (because it is), but Western martial arts, it ain’t.

In the class I took today, everything that was done was calm and controlled. Much of it was about footwork and posture. It was a two-hour lesson and no-one even touched a sword until the second hour. I never even put on protective gear. I spent an hour learning how to properly draw a sword and salute my opponent, because you’ve got to get that right before you do anything else.

So what’s next for me? Well, I’ll be going back to Ithaca for lessons as often as I can make it. I’ll continue to meet up the the SCA heavy weapons group too. It’s a fun workout and enjoyable social event for me. However, if ever it comes to a point where the things I do for SCA style fighting interferes with what I’m trying to accomplish with the Western martial arts, well, the martial arts will win.

Penny’s new armor.

I’ve been doing a lot of writing of late, mostly on my Herongarde novel. I also have become involved with the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) – specifically with heavy weapons (aka swords and such). I have this character, Hanna, who is transported back into medieval times. She finds herself in situations where she must wield a sword. I want to write the story with some level of accuracy, but reading about medieval swordplay can only get you so far. And, let’s face it, what we see in movies most of the time is pretty bad swordsmanship. So, twice a week, I strap on some armor and learn first-hand what it’s all about.

I *really* enjoy it.

Yeah, it’s a hell of a workout. Armor is heavy. It’s hot. And since I’m borrowing armor, it’s also awkward and uncomfortable. Most of the bruises I get aren’t from sword blows, but from the armor itself. I need my own kit. I have to decide what I want my persona to be.

Armor includes many layers. One usually starts with a light shirt. Over that comes the gambeson, which is a padded shirt – so the armor doesn’t bit you as much. I’ve made myself a gambeson. It makes a huge difference. I need to make padded legs, too. I’ll get to that eventually.

Here I am, sporting my fancy gambeson.

What after that?

The SCA has its rules, so I’ll start there. You have to protect the knees and elbows from the front and from the sides. There are lots of ways to do this, but when I get my own kit, I want to go for metal knees and elbows.

Metal Elbow

Other necessities include protecting the Xiphoid process (the lower tip of the sternum or breastbone) on the chest, and to protect the kidneys and floating ribs on the back. A He-man style breastplate and a big ol’ weight lifting belt might do the job. My reaction: functional, but too Xena-esque. And, given my interest in medieval Europe, a better choice for me would be a bringandine or “coat of plates” which is basically metal plates riveted onto thick leather. This was the predecessor of plate armor.

A fine brigandine-maille combo modeled by my favorite human to watch: James Purefoy
Another image of the brigandine worn in Ironclad by James Purefoy

SCA rules insist that the neck be protected. The most common way to do this is with a gorget – basically a thick leather collar. I’ll probably go with that initially, since it will be relatively easy to make and can be made in any number of styles.

Obviously, I’ll also need a helmet. Hmm. Obviously, something like that, I’m not going to make myself. But I got people. And the Internet, if that fails…

Gloves are important, since the hand must be protected. For now, I’m using a sword and shield with cages over the hand for protection. Ultimately, I want to ditch the cages (making my equipment lighter), and get armored gauntlets. A good hockey glove does the trick, but is seriously NOT period. This will be a challenge to create.

Then there are the other bits that aren’t required by SCA rules, but I think might be foolish to do without if they were real swords, not just rattan rods with hilts.

My kit will include pauldrons, which sit on the shoulders like the pads that football players wear. (Clarify: American football, apologies to my non-US readers.) And they shall be shiny and metal.

James Purefoy (on the right) sporting a nice brigandine with pauldrons. Hey, check out his gauntlets, too. The Rory Kinnear (on the left) is wearing plate armor.

I need something over the thighs, hopefully wrapping completely around the thigh. Those wrap shots to the back of the leg really smart! These can be leather and simple, basically something to hang the knees off of.

Similarly, the elbows need to connect somehow to the shoulder, probably to points (or ties) under the pauldrons. Might as well protect the upper arm as well.

So far I’m glad I have the gambeson made. All these straps are gonna leave marks.

Ultimately, I dunno if I’ll put anything on the lower leg (greaves) or on the lower arm (bracers), but these can be independent of the knees and elbows, and that may just be how it goes.

Over top of all this, typically goes a tabard. This is a simple covering usually bearing the colors of the fighters nation. I made a really basic one with the colors of Herongarde. By wearing a tabard, the gaps in the armor are hidden (if there are any). A tabard can also be asthetically pleasing. For now, the tabard I’ve made will do. Later, I’ll make one with the proper materials (linen instead of cotton).

What about that chain mail? You ask. Well, mail (or maille) would be worn over the gambeson and under the brigandine. I have a maille shirt. It weighs 25 pounds. Not planning to wear it for any SCA practices, since it would be overkill, but in real action. I don’t think I’d leave it behind. I need to fit the shirt I have to my body a little better, though. The sleeves are too big. I might just discard them altogether. And the leather trim might get tossed too. We’ll see.

Me, ready to act wearing my maille shirt and the colors of Herongarde.

Of course, no one does the maille-brigandine-tabard quite as well as James Purefoy.

James Purefoy: Maille, brigandine, and tabard. Le *sigh*

Poultry, death, and life-lessons for the autistic

Yesterday morning, I went out to check on our chicks and let the adult hens out for their daily forage. This is part of the usual morning routine. I let the hens out of their coop, but they didn’t race out as they often do, and I didn’t hear the usual cheeping of the chicks coming from the chick’s run, so I peeked in. To my horror, I saw ten piles of feathers. I got closer and realized that I was looking at ten dead chicks, spread throughout the run. I’m not sure what sounds I made at that moment, but they were loud and distressed. I went back into the house and told the husband and son, trying not to completely freak out. They were both initially confused, then upset.

On one level, it seems kind of silly to be distraught about chickens. I mean, they’re just birds, right? People eat them. But, for one, we have been raising them for the last few months from hatchlings. They’re cute as hell, and many of them have developed recognizable personalities and some even had names. We’ve been completely responsible for their health and welfare. That they died – were killed – makes me feel like the ultimate in horrible parents.

Another reason to be distressed is that at least one of them ‘belonged’ to the boy. I don’t know if there were others that the boy was fond of but Ben, our only cockerel (soon to be a fabulous rooster), was selected by the boy and they had bonded as much as any person can bond with a non-mammalian species.

Still, this might not seem like much, but consider that my son has ‘high functioning’ autism. Because of his autism, the boy doesn’t express emotion very well. He can’t verbalize very well how he feels, so it’s a challenge to know what he’s thinking. I know he’s taking the chicks’ deaths hard, because he’s dwelling on it. It’s the major topic of conversation with him. He’s now very concerned about predators (we’re pretty sure an opossum got to the chicks). We have to be active to help him assign words to feelings, then teach him appropriate responses. We have to be sure we don’t over-react. We have to ensure that we respond appropriately. So what can we do?

Last night, the husband took the boy to a nearby farm to purchase some more chicks to show him the necessity of moving on. I took it on myself to dig a grave for the dead chicks. When they got home, we had a short but solemn ceremony to bury the chicks, in order to teach to boy how to respectfully mourn such a loss and get ‘closure’ (if there is such a thing). Hopefully all this will help him. At least, I think it helped my husband and I know it helped me.

Now we’ve got six new chicks that we are going to raise. Hopefully, there will be no hideous disasters like this again. Hopefully, the boy will grow from this. Hopefully, you all can gain a positive lesson from this as well.

Thanks for listening.

John Carter – An Incredible Success

The truth is, I’m not a movie aficionado. In fact, I don’t watch movies that often at all. It’s not because I don’t enjoy watching movies, but rather that I’m usually busy trying to keep my life in order. I use up my time among keeping my job, raising my autistic son, and trying to carve out a little ‘me’ time to exercise and occasionally get some sleep.

With that, you should understand that it is a big deal when I decide that there is a movie out there worth seeing that I’m actually willing to pay to see at the theater. It’s an even bigger deal when I decide that the whole family should come. It’s a big event in our household.

I had seen a few previews of John Carter and decided that it was a movie I wanted to see in the theater and that it was a movie that the whole family would enjoy. So we made our plans and off we went.

We did all enjoy the movie. It was excellent. Sure, it’s not Schindler’s List, but it was a really great romp on a foreign planet based upon a classic book. It wasn’t the same-old fare – a replicate of Avatar, or whatever. It certainly wasn’t a flop like Water World. It didn’t follow the usual formula. It kept me guessing and wondering where the plot was going to go. I was engaged.

The things I particularly enjoyed include:

1) The four-armed critters were actually pretty convincing. As a vertebrate paleontologist, I’m always disappointed when the alien species depicted really couldn’t function.

2) The characters seemed genuine, especially John Carter himself. I could totally get why he was so jaded with life.

3) It didn’t feel like a totally CG movie, though I realize that there was a lot of CG in it. Oftentimes, I find too much CG a great distraction, but I wasn’t troubled by it in John Carter. Was it because the technology has improved? Maybe. Equally likely, the movie was conceived in such a way that it’s success wasn’t entirely dependent upon CG. The new Star Wars movies overused CG so much that I can barely watch them.

4) The landscapes and backdrops were home to me. This is a double-edged sword, of course, since I recognized some of the vistas as places I have been. But, seriously, Shiprock is awesome, and the perfect place to stand in as Mars. It was in the Southwest where I learned my trade (geology and paleontology), and love to see my old stomping grounds.

5) And naturally, James Purefoy, who is one of my favorite actors to watch and who seems to have stolen every scene he was in. (Sigh.)

When I heard that John Carter is being described as the “Biggest Flop Ever,” I was dismayed. It’s a perfectly good movie. How could it flop? The fact of it is that Disney seems to have not bothered to advertise the movie in the US. When I think about it, the only reason why I knew about it was that I enjoy cyber-stalking Mr. Purefoy (I’m an adult, I can do that) and I found out about the movie from one of his fan websites. My husband, who watches considerably more television than I do, knew absolutely nothing about the movie. He hadn’t even heard of it. What’s up with that, Disney?

I’m disappointed – seriously – because there’s one other reason why I really liked John Carter.

WHY I LOVE JOHN CARTER:

I mentioned my autistic son earlier. He’s not horribly autistic, some would call him ‘high functioning.’ In the medical parlance, his diagnosis is PDD-NOS, which puts him on the autism spectrum, but not the type of autistic that you might have seen in Rain Man. Nevertheless, to get the boy to a theater and get him to sit through a movie is difficult. It’s something new, something different, so he fights. He could start peeping and acting out during the film. As we were going into the theater he was screaming about how he didn’t want to go and that he would cover his ears and shut his eyes the whole time. We’ve had some poor movie experiences because of his autism, and I was a bit apprehensive. But I was convinced that he would like the film.

The boy sat still and quiet through the whole movie, start to finish. Amazing. And as we left he said, “I guess that was a pretty good movie after all.”

Success.

How can John Carter be a ‘flop’? My boy liked it. It was incredible!

Creating one’s personal brand…

We were on a long ride today, and for some reason, I was thinking about this concept.  I mean, do I have a personal brand? What is it? What do I want it to be? Do I even want one?

Let’s see what components of my brand that I think most people would agree about:

  • One who laughs a lot.
  • Maker of bad puns.
  • Tweaker of unruly mass spectrometers.
  • Purveyor of paleontological geochemistry to the masses.
  • Educator.
  • Parental-type person.
  • Athletic (-ish)
  • Artist (as in drawing, mostly).
  • Occasional writer.
  • Possessor of far too many hobbies.

So then, does that make a brand? If so, what?