In one of my most paranoid states, I'm convinced I've got Alzheimers, especially when I forget important stuff like people's names or whether or if I fed the dogs while I was talking to a friend on the phone.  My husband claims I say things I don't remember saying, which may be true or may be a clever way to get me to do things.  But those worries go completely out the window when I recall various useless factoids when I visit Liquid Planet and get a double stamp on my frequent buyercard.

You see, I've been hired as a technical reviewer for a course.  I have to admit that going through the course is a lot more interesting and fun than I thought it would be.  You see, for the first time a bunch of useless information that has been rattling inside my brain is actually useful, and the fact that I can recall it and then look up the references on the web or in my books is kind of cool.  Take Yersinia pestis, or, Bubonic Plague.  The disease is simply fascinating, though I wouldn't want to contract it.  Here are some factoids I know about it:

--  The Black Plague during the Middle Ages wiped out somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 the population in areas, causing widespread labor shortages.

--  The labor shortages caused by the plague eventually ended feudalim and gave rise to democracy due to the rise of a middle class who earned wages and demanded higher payments.  When you have a class of freemen with money and land, they start demanding more rights and greater equality.

--  The plague years peaked from 1348 to 1350, doing the worst damage, however, there have been about 100 other outbreaks of plague that were less widespread.

--  Dogs and other canines are resistant to plague; cats are not.

--  Some of the population has immunity to AIDS and smallpox and it has been theorized that the Black Death may have somehow naturally selected individuals because of a genetic variant. 

-- Some have theorized that Black Death may not have been bubonic plague or may have been a combination of bubonic plague and other diseases such as anthrax. 

--  Plague shows up routinely in praire dog colonies in Colorado.

-- Plague is transmitted through flea bites of the black rat.

--  It was called the "blue death" in Medieval times.

--  People didn't know what caused the plague during the "Black Death" and thought it had to do with bad air or vapors. 

--  There are three forms of plague: the bulboe plague, the pneumatic plague and the septicemic plague.  All will kill you in horrifying ways and your likeliness of survival without treatment is slim to none.

--  The Roman Catholic pope was sequestered with smoke and incense to ward off the bad vapors.

-- The flagellates were people who believed that god was punishing the world for sins, so they took to beating themselves with whips in the hopes to purify themselves.

See?  This is all very interesting, and yet, worthless. 

Unless you're doing reviews of material that mentions the Bubonic Plague

Finding that author J.D. Salinger is “likely to succeed on the merits of its copyright case," a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction barring the publication of what Salinger’s attorneys called an unauthorized sequel to The Catcher in the Rye.

• 23:47 Ninja Camp and BBQ networkedblogs.com/p6726454 #

Today I went to a one day ninja camp, BBQ and seminar for those of us who practice ninjitsu here in Montana.  Basically, it was a cookout/video/roll around in the grass training for those of us in class and a few people who knew us.  I brought bison and potato salad.  Some other folks brought bison hamburgers and elk roast.  There were bratwursts, chips and beer.  Which of course, begs the question: do ninja eat brats and drink beer?

A good portion of the day was spent watching videos of a seminar some of the other ninja had been to.  It was very interesting because it dealt with the tessen (fan), the sword, and the bo.  It was interesting to see the difference in a ninja seminar versus one of one of the other martial arts.  People wore all sorts of clothing, from gi (black, white or otherwise) to street clothes -- and nobody got called out for it.  What's more, the sensei worked with everyone from black belts to white belts.  They were all very serious and were there to learn.  The video has a lot of good stuff in it and I think I need to see it several times to really get everything the sensei was doing. 

Afterwards, we had the cookout, where we sat on the porch and ate steaks, brats and hamburgers and chatted about training, life and whatnot.  When we were all done, we went out into the field and practiced different tessen techniques and kind of made up our own stuff.  At one point, sensei's two sons, ages 7 and 10 accosted me with bo staffs.  It was pretty amusing, but it got me working with two opponents, which was actually really good training.  By the end, I could say I could probably beat just about any 10 year old with a staff.  Impressive, huh?

One thing I have noticed is that Montana is a very dog-friendly place.  At any party you can expect at least three dogs and not all owned by the person hosting the party.  In this case, the three dogs were 1. the owner's  2.  one of the other ninja and 3.  The neighbor's, who was not there, but his dog was.

I'm tired, but it was a good time and I learned some very interesting things.

We had gotten there at around 10 am and left at 6 pm, making it an eight hour day of ninja fun and frivolity. 

Ok, rdansky, a friend of mine has posted something about the secret to good writing.  I'll let you read it and think a bit about it.  I looked at it and started laughing.  Maybe I just haven't had enough sleep to contemplate such a blog. 

I'm not anti-sleep.  Au contraire.  I am a bit of a sleep hog, even though I tend to stay up late.  But anyone who knows me, knows I occasionally don't get enough sleep.  Even so, I've produced a fair amount of books.

My thoughts are that it takes more than sleep to become a good writer.  At the very basic level, you need good sleep, exercise and decent food, but that won't produce a novel.  I've been known to have stayed up and written some pretty decent stuff while sleep-deprived.  I don't recommend it, but there you go.  Even with enough sleep, you're not going to hit your peak as a writer until you push yourself to write each day and write enough each day.  The only way to make yourself a better writer is to write.  And if you choose sleep over writing, you'll never get there.

That being said, you can write a lot of crap when tired.  I know.  When I'm too tired, I go to bed.  But if the writing is flowing late at night, I still write.  Writing is important, just like sleep, so when you're on a roll, don't stop.  Just realize that this isn't normal.  Unless it really is.

Which reminds me, I'm tired.  Time for bed. 

• 13:14 Back to the grindstone writing. #

Some folks must think I'm their shrink, or at least their bartender.  I think part of it is that when people talk to me, I actually pay attention or at least try to look somewhat interested.  I'm probably the only person in the universe that does that, because the rest of the world seems to ignore these folks.  Lord knows, no one looks interested when I have something important to say.  I get the feeling that some day I'm going to run out into the street shrieking like Cassandra about the Yellowstone Supervolcano erupting and people will walk by with their cell phones glued to their ears, trying to ignore me.

Anyway, case and point is that I was at the local grocery store and sure enough, the bagger offers to push my cart to my car and unload the bags.  Now, I am far from infirm, but seeing as the guy practically hijacked the cart and started outside, and seeing it was a lovely day, I figured what the hell, give this guy a little sunshine.  The whole conversation started off where the guy was getting off work soon, so this was sort of a nice way for him to burn time.  Ok, I can deal with that.

The guy tells me he's saving up his vacation because he's getting married next year and going to this giant waterpark with his wife for their honeymoon about an hour away in Couer d' Alene.  Then, his face lights up and he says "They've got a Red Lobster and Olive Garden there!"  At this point, he's telling me how the TV news announced we were getting a Red Lobster and an Olive Garden, but they decided to not open one here in Missoula because of the airport (I have no clue -- this is just what he said).  And he was dreadfully disappointed in that we wouldn't get one any time soon.  "It's like, when they said they were going to open a Toys R Us in the mall, and that didn't happen."

There was more to this, and I didn't have nearly as much groceries as you think I would have for him to tell me all about his expectations and disappointments.  I suppose if I was one of those "normal" folks with a cell phone attached to my ear, I wouldn't have listened, but I did listen.  I listened because I'm a writer and because it's my job to listen and get ideas.  This guy, bless his heart, gave me a bunch of ideas as he was talking.  I'm not sure if he would've talked quite as much if he knew I was interested because I'm a writer.

It's not just people talking to me either that gives me idea.  More than once, I've sat down and listened to other peoples' conversations.  Much of it is inane crap, but occasionally, you take away gems.  Some things I've overheard have just been priceless and I've wondered how on earth I'm going to put them in a book.  Maybe the fact that I look interested is why people will talk to me.  Maybe it's because I listen, and most people don't.  Maybe they too feel like Cassandra, shrieking in the wind.  Or maybe I just look like my life is so uninteresting that they have to tell me about theirs.

You never know.  Maybe the Yellowstone supervolcano isn't really that important.

• 20:52 Eaten alive by mosquitoes while practicing with the hand and a half. Too bad you can't cleave mosquitoes. #
• 20:57 It's a bad year for mosquitoes. I'm slathering benadryl on my hands and feet #
• 21:16 cool #
• 22:43 Why am I so hooked on this hatchlings thing? #
• 00:05 Right now, just working on the novel. #
• 01:37 damn. My shoulder still hurts #
• 01:38 Swords, Ninja, Cats, Mosquitoes and Writing networkedblogs.com/p6573494 #

• 23:06 Join me on @Dropbox and get 2GB plus 250MB of bonus space! www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTEzODI0Mjc5 #

• 02:04 Two kittehs; one lap. I think Sam and Hailey are becoming buds. #
• 02:05 Of course, now I can't move. #