Arrant Nonsense

I looked up "hysterical paralysis" today.

...

I AM A HORRIBLE PERSON. YES I AM.

In other news, I'd kind of like to write a short story casefic starring Ben and his boss-lady Pamela, in which Ben does not get his ass roundly kicked and refrains from being kidnapped even once. That'd be peachy.

I'm not sure I'm actually capable of actually writing something like that, but it'd be peachy.

Does anyone know how much cerebrospinal fluid you can lose before you die from it? Either my search terms are inadequate, or, more likely (me being me), I can't find it because dwelling on stuff like this for any extended length of time makes me woozy and faint, so I have to keep cutting away from the page before I can find what I'm looking for.

Yes, I realize the irony of that, considering what I write. This is me, headdesking mightily.

But at least I've done words today. Lots of them, in fact... Well. Lots for me. I have a light at the end of my tunnel if I can just find out this one piece of info I need for my plot.

I found out today that the human body has less than 2/3 of a cup of cerebrospinal fluid. That doesn't seem like much.

The things we research for our writing.

Before the internet?

I just found out that the University of Texas at Austin, while it does not have a School of Medicine, does have a Center for Cellular and Molecular Toxicology, and an Institute for Neuroscience. This makes it a great setting for the science-y part of my Zombies! story.

Twenty years ago, to find this out, I would have had to take a trip to the library and then made an hour-long long-distance phone call. Assuming anyone's even on campus right now. Right now, all I have to do is type a few words and click my mouse a couple of times.

How much do I love this:

The INS administers the neuroscience graduate program and is home to more than 70 diverse neuroscience related faculty that represent all major disciplines and techniques in neuroscience including molecular, physiology, cellular and systems research, cognition, behavior, and the neurobiology of disease.

Zombie research, anyone?

I was poking around the interwebs, as I do, doing some desultory research. Plugged "exit wound 9mm" into the Google Image Search engine.

Oh, hey. That's me, right there on the very first page (Warning: There's some fairly horrific stuff there, click at your own risk, because I don't use SafeSearch, like, at all). Apparently my "wank" tag has the entry in which I'm looking for (you guessed it) 9mm exit wounds. Which it turned out I didn't actually need.

I don't think I've ever turned myself up in a random search like that before. Wild.

and in the interests of what we loosely call "research" around here, I've looked up such diverse subjects tonight as "Stockholm Syndrome" and "shock collars."

No, I'm not going to tell you why. But I did find out that shock collars work exactly the way I need them to for my plot, and that opens the way for things to go disastrously wrong for my (putative) villain (who is no longer as villainous as she seemed at first blush)--and thus for Ben.

Stockholm Syndrome can apparently manifest in as little as three or four days. INTERESTING.

In the not!kkbb/im novelthing, not!Perry morphed from being a woman played by Camryn Manheim to being a woman played by Queen Latifah and voiced by Wanda Sykes. (Yeah, I don't know either.)

This, naturally, necessitated not!Harmony swapping races as well (as not!Harmony is not!Perry's daughter), and I didn't really have an actress in mind for who plays her anymore--

Until I watched the latest episode of Numb3rs and went "Hey! That's her!" (Only, not!Harmony is shorter. Like, five foot nothing.)

NOW. The question for my all-knowing flist is: How long does it take her to get her hair to look like that?

So, I was poking through previous entries, and the whole "should not!Harry be allowed to carry a gun because of the whole PTSD thing" issue continued to bug.

So, I looked again. And this time, Google was my Very Good Friend. Because it led me to this:

California Firearms Laws.

And, on page 30, I found what I was looking for. Specifically:

No person who is receiving inpatient treatment because he or she is a danger to self or others may have in his or her possession or under his or her custody, or control, nor may he or she purchase or receive, or attempt to purchase or receive, any firearm. This applies even though the person has consented to the treatment. (Welfare and Institutions Code § 8100.)

No person who communicates to a licensed psychotherapist a serious threat of physical violence against a victim may purchase, possess, control, or have custody of any firearms for a period of six months after the threat is reported to a local law enforcement agency. Attempts to purchase, possess, or control firearms are also prohibited. Persons prohibited under this section may petition a court for restoration of firearms privileges. (Welfare and Institutions Code § 8100(b).)

No person adjudicated by a court of any state to be (a) a danger to others as a result of mental disorder or mental illness, or (b) a mentally disordered sex offender shall have in his or her possession, custody, or control any firearm. (Welfare and Institutions Code § 8103(a).)

So, I bolded the parts I think are relevant to not!Harry's particular case, and I think he's all right, legally speaking. It's entirely possible that he's communicated to a licensed psychotherapist that he's a danger to himself, sometime, but it's interesting that that part of the statute doesn't say anything about someone being a danger to himself--it's only if a person is receiving inpatient care because he's a danger to himself that the law applies.

Little details, man... Because if you get the little things like firearms laws right, then your readers will trust you with big things like, say...nanotech that creates werewolves.

In celebration of my last post, wherein you all were a bunch of Filthy Enablers, I bring you a Buffy/True Blood/Twilight crossover. Buffy, Sookie, and Bella go on a talk show and discuss their various boyfriends. And then, in the followup, we get Spike, Bill, and Edward.

Also, if that release party is Friday night, I might be able to go. I'm not sure if it's the Walmart or the Borders that's going to have cake, but...cake!

Speaking of vampires and other creatures of the night, the latest editing pass continues apace. Have I mentioned lately how much I love not!Harry? Because I do.

Far be it from him to make someone relive a personal trauma.

Oh, god. ♥

I had a thought nibbling at me the other day. As *cough* unstable as not!Harry is, I'm not sure that him running around armed would be tolerated, legality-wise, in the State of California--which State is pretty intolerant of guns in general and people who are arguably crazy carrying them in particular. I wonder who I'd even call to find out, and what the permit process is like there, if he's working for a private detective agency.

Of course, he might carry illegally. I wonder if his boss would get in trouble if he got caught doing that.

ETA: Huh. This is interesting. The operative term here is, I believe, "adjudicated," which means that someone's gone to actual court and proven that the person is a danger to himself or others. Not!Harry has (clearly) had a diagnosis of PTSD, but no one's taken him to court over it. Although, as events prove out, he is a danger to himself if he doesn't think he has anything left to live for--and believes (whether legitimately or not) that he was responsible in part for the death of someone he loved.

You know, I haven't posted a snippet in awhile...

So, I decided to find out how much not!Harry should weigh, based on his "shorter than average" height, "slender build," and the fact that he's "muscled like a whippet." (Leave it to me to have a dog reference in there before he even turns into a wolf. To be fair, the person who thought that is a werewolf herself, so...yeah.)

Yeah, a hundred and fifty pounds is too much. I'm going to need to edit that sentence.

Fortunately, it's the only one where I actually specify, and it's not!Tony, in dialogue, in a moment of real stress. I think I'll just remove the weight reference altogether.

*does so*

*squints*

Yeah, that's better.

Maybe I should have done that before I sent it off to my (published) Mom for a beta. Heh.

Speaking of weight, the scale was my bitch this morning, which it damn well should be after three days of salad. I haven't quite lost my Con weight, but I'm only 2/10 off, so I will consider this a Win and do the Dance of Joy and wear my Skinny Jeans. Especially since my stupid period started two days ago. 126.4 looks good on me. 122.4 will look even better...