I think I may have mentioned in the past that I have a friend of Romani descent...if not here, then certainly on Twitter. I incorrectly remembered that she is not of half Romani descent, but is indeed a pureblood. (Who lives in a house with three Outsider roommates, in case anyone wonders.)

Anyway, I thought it might be interesting to get Aunt Tana's response on Willa's living situation, Uncle Shadrack and a few other things. So I present you with an excerpt from a recent email (with minimal corrections), translations provided where necessary. (She's taught me a few words in the time I've known her, so that's why some aren't translated.)

 

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Sa se Rrom (I am Romani), if what you were asking is were both my parents, yes. Va de fa Calderon. (We are of Calderon/Kalderash descent.)

It's perfectly possible for Romgeri[/Romani] to live in brick-and-mortar houses, they don't all travel all the time. As for living in the trailer, yes Willa does [live in it by herself], but [Walter and Leo have] control of it. There's nothing that effectively keeps them out of it if they want to go into it. There is, as you said, a pitiful lack of chaperoning and what passes for it is all male and [Willa is] single. I cannot believe that [her] family would allow that. We know she might be fooling around with Timo, but dammit there should be an attempt to keep her innocent until she's married, and CERTAINLY an attempt to make sure that if she's NOT, it's ONLY Timo and [that there's no one else they can accuse her of fooling around with]. There's a lot about the appearance of impropriety. And [Walter and Leo] are doing nothing to protect her, and living alone in a trailer owned by a couple of single guys...NOT a [good] way to do that.

And yes, if Shadrack was [as] stupid as he appears to be and that far against the will of the clan, the women would have him out so fast his head would spin! Yes he's in charge, but there has to be SOME amount of goodwill there. He's not a god, and he's not a total dictator where whatever he says goes no matter what. And all it takes is for one of the oldest of the dukkerin [fortune tellers/divination experts] to make noises about how the spirits say he's BAD FOR THE CLAN. The men may be in charge, but the women can put them there. After all, the women make the babies that increase [clan membership]--you don't want to upset [those responsible for] the next generation.

Are there [betrothals] that piss people off? Sure. Are there matches specifically made to end disputes and all? Yes. But most of the time the people going into those are fully aware of that, and steps are taken to make it okay [among all parties]. You try to find a pair that will [agree to the betrothal] without being pushed too hard. And if the match is SO bad that one side is trying so hard to run away that they're [willing to involve] the gadjee [Outsider] police...someone with power [in the clan will intervene]. [Traditionally speaking], there [should be] LIMITS to [Shadrack's power]. Actions like, that pushing Willa THAT far, pushing Timo THAT far, endanger the entire clan and all it's allies.

Hello, hello, hello!

I have a new Twitter follower who is actually having conversations with me (yay!) and has been reading my blog, so I thought I'd write a new post to update on everything...just as soon as I reviewed my most recent entries.

(Sidenote: My new follower's name is Mari and for about thirty seconds I thought my mother had joined Twitter, since she spells her forename the same way. But only thirty, because my mom would never join Twitter [it was enough of a hair-pull to get her to join Facebook!] and even if she did, she'd have a handle like "HikerLady" or "StorytellerLady".)

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Re-reading my statement of support for the SAG-AFTRA merger, I'm still incredibly glad I wrote it--especially since the merger went through. I don't know about the National Writers Union (maybe sometime in the next few years), but I'm already pretty excited to join the United Utility Workers of America and I know that if I ever teach psychology one day, I'll join the professors' union in a heartbeat.

Book Notes: Broken Road is in development hell and I haven't gotten Breathless off the back burner since finishing League of Lost Souls. (More writing updates shortly.)

The Top Nine Women I Think are More Beautiful than Julia Roberts kind of started the ball rolling on my crush. I mean, it was already rolling to some extent, but I think that kept my mind on the subject. (And it only took two months after Eric's first appearance on The Finder for me to sit up and take notice! *headdesk* (Oh, yeah...and I tweeted Maddie that she's on my list, so she probably thinks I'm a psycho, now. xD )

On Words with My Words: It worked out. I wrote a crappy song and then trashed it. Then I tried not to write poetry and came up with I wish...Despite "breaking up" with Eric (more on that in a minute, too), I'm keeping the poem and it will appear in my upcoming poetry collection Barefoot on the Couch.

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Work

Tuesday, I went online and filled out approvals for my background check and my drug tests and received the paperwork for the latter the next day. There was a lot of stuff to sign or look over (mostly PDFs that I saved to read/skim later) and I was even able to submit a picture for my employee ID via email. (I never received a response, so I guess the resolution was alright.)

I had to do a urinalysis and a hair test and the company gave the poor nurse? Technician? about a billion things to package everything up with, chain of custody forms, you name it. And this is all for working in a call center! Funny, I don't remember it being a quarter of this level of complication the last time I had to do a drug test...but there's a huge difference between working for Walmart and working for Consumer's Energy, too.

 

Mari told me that she'd been reading my blog and that she was sorry that life seemed to be leading me away from my goals. It seems like that at the moment, doesn't it? I replied that all I knew was that I didn't want to end up like my father--he spent nearly thirty-five years at General Motors because he felt like he couldn't leave the pay/benefits/etc. that came with being an employee. (But he also dropped out of community college whereas I have a bachelor's degree and I'm pretty sure he never cherished an ambition to leave the state, much less the area.) (I can walk to where my dad grew up. It's a mile away or less. Does that tell you anything?)

But it's something I can't give up, either. I'm four months into my twenty-sixth year, I live with my dad (as I have been for the last seven and a half years), I don't own my car and I'll all but broke. Conversely, CE is offering me $12.27/hour (with merit raises every six months, plus shift premiums and extra money for overtime--and there is overtime right now), medical/dental/vision insurance, profit-sharing, 401k, tuition reimbursement and having me join my first union. I don't know about you, but that's what I call a "big girl job". And since I lost my first chance at a big girl job last year, I can't do it again. I don't know how I can convince myself that I have to stay on whenever it is that I decide that I hate it (and at the best jobs, I usually do), but I have no choice. I'm less than two years away from my ten year class reunion--I can't not have a big girl job.

To paraphrase my mother, I just have to "let go and let Goddess". It's a lot on my mind right now, but I know it's all part of the gods' plan for me...just like when I spent time in the hospital last year.

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Eric

I kind of went crazy over him.

Like "saving a few pictures to my computer and watching every music video he's ever been in (except that hard rock one)" crazy. (I was even going to clip out his lines from "Smack That" so I could watch/listen to it repeatedly. (Even though I've recently discovered that I have his voice memorized.)

But the other day, it finally crashed. And I let it crash publicly:

Now that the sad news is out, I don't mind shouting: HEY WORLD! I HAD THIS GIANT CRUSH ON ERICROBERTS AND I DON'T GIVE A FUCK IF ANYONE KNOWS! 'Cause the flame is fizzling...and just when I decided to ignore him and leave well enough alone, Fox announces that they canceled "The Finder". Great...that will make my recovery a whole lot easier!

(Unfortunately, Finder's cancellation left three separate cliffhangers; but on the other hand, I have the comfort of knowing that Shadrack will never succeed in forcing Willa to marry Timo!)

 

When we're younger, I don't think we take our crushes quite so seriously. If they're hot, then we latch on and swoon over them and so on and so forth. But I guess now that I'm an adult, my policy is "if I can't imagine dating him in real life, I don't want to have a crush on him".

Let's see...he's vegan, the quotes on his website are confusing (but that may just be the person who wrote them!) and we don't like the same actors or movies. (I don't think I've seen any of the movies he lists, to be honest.) We probably don't like the same music or television shows, either. (I know that he watches The Voice based on his tweets...I dropped out after the first half hours of auditions in season one.) Not to mention that he's crazy as hell for his wife. (Look around...Eliza is everywhere!)

I know whether or not they're married doesn't matter when you have a celebrity crush, but the rest of that stuff does--at least to me. I don't know...I guess just thinking about all that stuff (plus one other thing that I have no proof of validity for) is a turn off.

Oh and one last little nitpicky thing? He never said shit when Finder was canceled. I know he was only on two of the episodes, but come on! Show some respect! Nice to know that that was just a "gig" for you! (This may only be intuition talking, but I bet if Jamie was on Twitter or Facebook and a show he was on was canceled shortly after he was on [Numb3rs comes to mind], he'd say something!)

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Writing

Mondo revise on Breathless...that's probably why I'm procrastinating.

I went through what I'd written before and made a new outline (and I hate outlines!) with all the corrections/changes/additions and everything else I wanted to do to the manuscript...and then I started fresh.

But it's going to be better. I know it.

 

I've been collecting my poetry for a couple of years now. Most of it has been culled from the web (I posted my poems on a few different sites from junior high until  halfway through high school), but there are quite a few new pieces that I've written since I started the collection. Anyway, it's called Barefoot on the Couch and I'm getting close to being...okay, halfway ready for publication.

My goal was fifty poems. I have forty written, seven more planned (about the different sabbats, to accompany the one I wrote last fall) and three more to come up with before I can publish. Not to mention deciding whether I want pages discussing/describing the poems, pictures or both. (And all the other self-publishy stuff.) And I'm also going to look into making the move from Lulu to CreateSpace. (I'm thinking of doing half and half--hard copies from Lulu and digital through CreateSpace. That way, at least one version of it is on Amazon.)

 

When I had "Words with My Words", I mentioned League of Lost Souls, but I never went into detail on what it was about!

LLS is the first fan fiction piece I've written in nearly two and a half years and it's in the Finder universe. Willa meets a "cousin" who tells her that she was able to escape having an arranged marriage because she was the heiress to her clan. Obviously, LLS strays from the normal realm of "finding" and goes off on a side course to find Shadrack's missing brother (and introduces his not-so-missing brother) and prevent Willa's marriage to Timo. I won't go into detail, because I hope y'all will eventually read it (http://www.fanfiction.net/~JamiesFanGirl is the address to get there), but someone dies and Willa's ending is bittersweet.

There are times where you have to choose between what you want and what you need. When faced with that decision last year, I chose wrongly and got neither.

 

I think it was about this time last year that I went to Jackson National Life to take some pre-employment testing. They turned me down at first, but a few months later, I got a call saying that they'd reconsidered and they would like to interview me. I was thisclose to getting a position in the call center (or so I think), but instead of accepting, I started crying (*headdesk of mortification*) because I hadn't heard back from Pepperdine on whether they were going to accept me into their psychology graduate program. So--of course--since I couldn't make a commitment, they turned me down.

This year, I made the cut at Consumer's Energy for a position at their call center (providing I pass the drug and background checks, of course). With starting pay at over thirteen dollars an hour, benefits and hours currently running into overtime (not to mention the possibility of being called in for any and all storms that pop up in the state of Michigan), this isn't a position to sneeze at. But it comes with a price.

I'm currently registered for three classes--Editing Legal Documents on Mondays and Wednesdays, Paralegal Career/Ethics on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Introduction to Forensic Science online. If I keep my classes, I'll have training eight hours a day, five days a week (for six weeks); class two hours a day, four days a week (for three-ish months); plus the online class and homework. Between getting up at five-thirty in the morning, coming home at eight and going to bed at ten(-ish), I'll be a mess. If I didn't cry (and/or have a panic attack) on the first day of trying to manage that combination, I'd be shocked. So I guess I'm going to drop out of school.

My mother was surprised that I was going to drop out of school, but that I could do what I want. Well, no...I can't do what I want. School won't pay my father back, school won't give me benefits, school won't let me (finally) buy my own car, school won't let me (finally) move out. But working for CE will do all that for me. I want to become a paralegal (since all my other career aspirations didn't work out), I want to move out to California, I want to have the life I've always dreamed of; but I can't. I won't have time to go to school (working ten to twelve hours a day will certainly put an axe on that), CE only serves Michigan...the only thing I'll still be able to do is write novels. If I even have the energy for that!

I never thought I'd see the day where I'd have to drop out of school because I can't go to work and go to school at the same time, but shit happens. Life happens.

Just in case you were wondering how to say "I Love You" in various languages...

(This post is dedicated to my good friend--and recently instated SAG-AFTRA member--Keely. )

 

P.S.: I know you could look these up yourself--especially when there are sites with lists longer than this--but you'd deprive me of the fun I get out of using Google Translate. xD (Although some I had to go outside of Google for.)

P.P.S.: Those with asterisks (*) may not be correct, as Google lists them as "alpha". Double asterisk (**) means I'm not sure the pronunciation is correct.

 

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Afrikaans: Ek is Lief vir Jou

Albanian: Unë Të Dua

Arabic: Ana Behibek (to female), Ana Behibak (to male)

*Armenian: Yes k’yez sirum yem

Asturian: Quiérote

Basque: Maite Zaitut

Belarusian: Ja ciabie kachaju

Bengali: Āmi Tōmāẏa Bhālōbāsi

Bulgarian: Obicham Te

Catalan: Et Vull, T'estimo

Chinese (Mandarin): Wǒ Ài Nǐ (as it reads**)

Croatian: Volim Te

Czech: Miluji Tě

Danish: Jeg Elsker Dig (Ye el-skir dee**)

Dutch: Ik hou van jou

Estonian: Ma Armastan Sind

Filipino: Mahal Kita

Finnish: Minä Rakastan Sinua (Mih-neh Rock-a-stah Sin-you-ah**)

French: Je T'aime (Jeh tehm--the j should have a sort of z sound)

Galician: Quérote

*Georgian: Me Shen Miqvarkhar

German: Ich Liebe Dich (Eek lee-bah deek**)

Greek: Se Agapó̱

*Gujarati: Manē Tamē Prēma

*Haitian Creole: Mwen Renmen Ou

Hindi: Maiṁ āpasē pyāra karatī hūm̐

Hungarian: Szeretlek

Indonesian: Aku Cinta Kamu

Irish: Is tú mo ghrá (Iss to m'graw--the g sound is really soft. It should sound like you're saying "raw", but with a hint of g on the front.)

Italian: Ti Amo (Tee ah-mo**)

Japanese: Aishiteimasu (Aye-ish-ee-tee-mus)

*Kannada: Ai Lav Yu

Korean: dangsin-eul salanghabnida

Latin: Te Amo

Latvian: Es Mīlu Tevi

Macedonian: Te Sakam

Norwegian: same as Danish

Polish: Kocham Cię (Cock-um chell**)

Portuguese: Eu Te Amo

Romanian: Te Iubesc

Russian: Ya Tebya Lyublyu

Slovak: Milujem ťa

Spanish: Te Amo [to your partner/lover/spouse/etc.] (Tay Ah-mo); Te Quiero [to everyone else] (Tay Key-air-oh)

Swedish: Jag älskar dig (Yo Al-scar Day**)

*Tamil: Nāṉ ai lav yū

Telugu: same as Kannada

Thai: C̄hạn Rạk Khuṇ

Turkish: Seni Seviyorum

Ukrainian: Ya Tebe Lyublyu

 

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Notes

 

• Afrikaans is the language spoken in South Africa.
• Catalan is spoken in one of the northern regions of Spain, Cataluña. (Like Cataluña, Basque is also a language of northern Spain. So when you hear talk of "Basque separatists", they mean rebels who want to be independent from the Kingdom of Spain.) Galician is another language of Spain--that's why it looks so similar to actual Spanish. Asturian is also a language of Spain. (Remember that Prince of Asturias is the Spanish equivalent of the Prince of Wales [i.e. "Crown Prince", so Asturian is important!)
  
• Just a reminder that Georgia is also a country. Don't try saying that to your southern relatives...they'll look at you like you're from outer space!
• Unless I'm greatly mistaken, Gujarati is a language of India.
• Hindi and Kannada are languages of India.
  
• "Beloved" in Irish is "Mo Chroí" (mo kree). It shares a commonality with Spanish, in that "mo chroí" also means "my heart". (The Spanish equivalent is "mi corazón" [sweetheart/my heart].)

 

For more languages than you could ever dream of, I recommend: http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/iloveyou.htm

Dear Words,

You have some explaining to do. In fact, I'd like some answers right now.

You know I've developed an infatuation (however temporary...hence the term "temporary insanity") with Eric Roberts.

Now, I don't mind the fact that you went AWOL last year when I developed that infatuation with Jeremy Irons. I didn't want to write poetry about him, anyway. (Or stories, either, apparently.) But you know I want to put words on paper about Eric, because you've been supplying me since the eighteenth so I can write League of Lost Souls.

So what gives?

I know we haven't been the best of friends in regards to Jamie. I mean, you've supplied me with tons for my novels and fan fiction (I'm starting to think all the novels for the rest of my life will have young women marrying men old enough to be their father), but when it comes to poetry, you've slacked off. I swear that I've written about three times as many poems about Val than I ever have about Jamie. I give you the fact that I was crazy for Val for an entire decade before I gave up on him, but come on! What is wrong with you? I actually love Jamie, for fuck's sake! Can't I have a little more poetry about him? Just for my collection, if not actually for him?

And what's with this?

New man, new method of expression?

Get with the times!

 

You know what, Words? Maybe you're right.

Maybe I don't want your help.

Goddess forbid there's anything left to read when this little crush is said and done.

Guess that means we're still friends.

 

 

Love,

Daya