Give til it...moos?

With the holiday season almost upon us, In the Weird would like to suggest an alternative form of gift-giving. If your father has enough cologne to freshen up a football league and your mother, like mine, wants nothing more than the family to get together, without fighting, may we suggest a gift that makes the world a better place?

Heifer International is a group that facilitates the donation of life-saving livestock to impoverished people around the world. While your great-aunt probably doesn't need another quilted bathroom, the gift of a single goat could mean the difference between life and death to a family in Africa. This organization has been successfully helping families, individuals, and communities since 1944.

Avoid the drama llama!

Depending on your circumstances, you can donate a single animal, a group of animals, or a share in an animal. Cows, goats, sheep, llamas, chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs, water buffaloes, pigs, honeybees, and trees are all available if you want to make a difference. Your gift includes training for the family that receives it, so they can learn how to take care of their animals, get lessons in sustainable agriculture, microbusiness, and community development. If your gift is fruitful and multiplies, the new baby animals are donated again, so the entire community benefits.

Your own family members receive holiday cards describing the gifts that have been given in their honor. You receive the sense of well-being that comes from eschewing conspicuous consumption and doing something that benefits others.



Want to know more? Check out Meaningful Gifts from Heifer International.

Interview with Nova Ren Suma

Nova Ren Suma is the author of Dani Noir, a classic tale of lies, deception, and betrayal, transformed into black and white through the eyes of thirteen-year-old protagonist Danielle Callanzano. Dani is always the hero of her own story, and the story she tells herself is that she has been wronged. In the movies, virtue is always clear cut, lies are always revealed, and retribution always carries the end of the picture, but Dani knows that real life is nothing like that. In real life, people, her father, for example, lie and get away with it. She knows the rules are different, and they don't make any sense:

It's complicated, people tell me, like I can't understand the huge messes grown-ups makes of relationships.

But I do understand.

I understand how--in the movie--you walk away at the end knowing who the bad guy is. It's not like in real life when you walk around all confused, wondering if you're the bad one for hating them.

Dani refuses to be party to deception. In fact, she is determined to expose all lies. No man will betray a woman again on her watch, especially not the fly-by-night film projectionist who's dating her former babysitter, so Dani sets foot upon her own path of intrigue. Armed with the knowledge of the greatest femmes fatales ever to grace the silver screen, and her own interpretation of right and wrong, how can she fail?

The difference between cinema and reality is vast, and yet, sometimes, the flickering lights on the screen have more of an effect on our decisions than we like to admit. It is the compelling heroines who are unafraid to expose their own faults in the end, rather than disappear into the night. Dani Noir is a thought-provoking journey into the mysteries of modern adolescent life. Suma skillfully navigates a course through the most turbulent waters--divorce, infidelity, abandonment, and hypocrisy--in a story that opens a window into the mind of a finally honest teen.

Nova Ren Suma allowed me to open a window into her mind, in this wonderful interview.

Judgment Day

We came out of Costco to find a note on my boyfriend's windshield, which read, "Next time, save this parking spot for someone who is actually disabled." Apparently, the note-writer failed to notice the handicap tag in the windshield, or the fact that my boyfriend ambled into the store by leaning most of his weight on a shopping cart.

Fact: We are young, good-looking people! This doesn't mean it's easy or painless to get around all the time. We don't use the handicapped spaces on days when we feel good.

Fact: My boyfriend is a disabled veteran. His knee is full of metal pins. They hurt. I have fibromyalgia. I hurt. We are both "actually disabled."

Fact: If you are a medical doctor, you are well-aware that many people have invisible disabilities, problems that are not apparent to the untrained eye. If you are not a medical doctor, you are not really qualified to determined who is "actually disabled."

Fact: Anonymous notes are cowardly. If you want to confront us, confront us. We'll educate you.

Supposition: The author of this note is young, idealistic, and self-righteous. He or she is ready to set the world on fire, gunning down the enemies of equality, tolerance, and justice, without regard for who might be standing in the way. Without regard for whether he or she is right or wrong.

Suggestion: Does this kind of communication seem like a good idea to you? Your best bet is to shut up for the next five or ten years. Keep your eyes and ears open, keep your mouth closed, and try reading something that isn't the Internet. At the end of that time period, you might be qualified to express yourself intelligently.

Or conversely, you could go around falsely accusing people so you can walk around with a smug sense of self-righteousness. Good thing you live in America, where everyone has the right to be an ignorant, judgmental asshole.

Who's in charge here, anyway?

In the last two and a half years, InTheWeird.com has become the destination of choice for up-to-the-minute information on el chupacabra, along with the occasional book or art review, plus all the anti-conservative ranting you can stomach. All things considered, an average thousand hits a week is not bad for an irregularly updated website with no cohesive mission statement.

We used to have a cohesive mission statement. I think it was something like, "hype Woodeye Glass"." But Woodeye is too busy making Woodeye Glass to do a lot of hyping. So that's cool. Buy Woodeye Glass"!!!

But what about Dragon? What can I hype?

Of course, there's Dragon's Library, a site that is updated far more often than In the Weird. It's still totally random, though. And weird. Don't forget weird.

And if you really want to see weird, there's Raincoat Flashers, where you can read some of my short-short fiction. Along with some other short-short fiction from the site's previous incarnation as a writing contest. But mostly just my short-short fiction, because when you inherit a website it's yours to do what you want with, right?

Speaking of which, anyone interested in a website where you can post outrageous names for imaginary bands? It's up for grabs.

And how about a little hype for Nova Ren Suma, the author of Dani Noir? We've got some original content coming your way in the form of an interview with the author. Like the real chupacabra, this site is hardy, adapted to succeed in a sparse environment, and difficult to pin down. And just because you haven't heard from us in a while doesn't mean we're not here.