Egregious Means Rises Above the Flock

Or at least that's what one online resource tells me.  Supposedly the word came to be used in the 1530's and slowly took on a negative connotation, as in standing out from the norm in a bad way. I’m afraid my Muse just isn’t feeling the topic, even though I do like the way the word rolls off the tongue. I can’t even find a good quote to add, which is my usual fallback, other than one about gardening:

“There is no gardening without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder.” Alfred Austin

I'm now going to egregiously ignore this week's topic entirely to share some exciting news. Thursday evening I found out that my novel DANCER OF THE NILE is a Finalist for the 2014 Golden Quill Award for Best Paranormal Romance of 2014! I was SO excited and honored, really a thrill. You can find more info on DANCER on my blog if you're so inclined.

But returning to egregious, here’s a quote from the Muppet Show:

Waldorf: People sure seem to like the word "egregious". 
Statler: That's because it describes them! 
Both: Do-ho-ho-ho-hoh!

For your viewing pleasure, Waldorf and Statler doing seven minutes of egregiously bad jokes, none of which contain the word egregious:

Egregious Memory

Oh. Right. It's Friday. My day to post, isn't it? If I recall rightly, egregious was even one of my words (one of my favs). How could I have forgotten to post?

Well...see, this shiny new computer showed up and I am *still* fighting with Outlook to get my email straightened out. Apparently, gone are the days when you could configure your email accounts to all come into one single in-box. Hey. It's a feature. :P One might even say it's an egregious feature. Granted. I'm probably one of the last few living people dinosaurs on the planet still downloading email. Or using email at all. But there you have it. You know I worked for MS once upon a time, right? At the time, there was a saying at the company about the group programming the email solutions (Outlook and Exchange): "Exchange: the most loathed and feared group at Microsoft." I haven't been at the company for lo these many years, but I'm guessing it's still true - just not limited to the company anymore. If ever it was.

Also? New operating system. O_o Egregious. Sometimes, it means good. Sometimes, like the fact that I've lost this post thrice in one morning already because of the vagaries of the new OS? It doesn't mean good. At all.

On the other hand. It's been 80 degrees and gloriously sunny for the past two days. I'm sunburned. Earliest time in the year EVER in Seattle. It's possible that my memory has been seared away by the solar radiation to which I so gleefully exposed my egregiously pallid epidermis. There it is. My weak excuses for having forgotten which day of the week it is and that I might ought to - oh, I don't know - WORK. :D

Because it's not like the very first piece of software I installed on the new machine was a MMOPG or anything egregiously irresponsible or anything.

Egregious Spine

by Allison Pang

A bit of a rant to come.

If the body is a temple, mine is surely inhabited by meth-addicted rent-boy elves, tapdancing along my spine with shoes made of nails and razor blades.

How else to explain why...WHY now - six months after my double fusion where my back was fixed and things were good...that my arms/hands/fingers are now going numb and burning all the time?

Egregious spine, indeed.

Oh, wait, here's the answer.

Yeah, not one, but TWO herniated discs shoving their sticky little innards where they don't belong. (Namely, into my spinal column.)

I had the MRI done on Monday because over the last few months I've been having periods of numbness and tingling in my hands and fingers - and finally on this last week it's been 3 days of the left hand being numb...and then that stopped and it's been 4 days of the right hand being numb.

It moves. Exciting.

Two nerves are being hit, which is why both the left and right side are going off (but more on the right than the left, so my right side is worse.)

The only good news about this is that the bulging is centrally located - there's a little more breathing room there - if they were on the right or left side only, I'd be in an extreme world of hurt. As it is, it's just dreadfully annoying more than anything else. Sort of feels like my hands are constantly asleep, with some mild wrist/elbow pain. (And sometimes the fingers burn bad enough I have to put band-aids on them because I can't bear to touch anything, though that tends to come and go.)

*ahem*

At the moment, I'm not sure what the plan of action is. There's a chance an injection of steroids or two will bring down the inflammation enough to give me some relief, but that's a short-term fix. The evidence in the picture says this has been going on for quite some time - there are bone spurs along the vertebrae signifying where the body has attempted to heal itself and failed. Most likely there's another double-fusion in my future (probably in the next six months or so.) I'm waiting on my surgeon to text me back as I type this.

Yay, me.

Standing Out From the Herd: Egregious

Guys, guys, guys, I had to hunt for a video for this week.  Let this be a demonstration of how much I love you, dear darling readers.  I found two -- two -- videos for you this week. Both by artists who possibly need a little help Standing Out from the Herd... or so their names imply.

First up, Frat Boy Punk Band -- EGREGIOUS

And because it's a gorgeous spring day here in the midwest, I give you D Level Horror Flick -- EGREGIOUS:

Don't worry, you can thank me after you've put down the brain bleach.

Egregious Word Choices

A surprise arrived for me yesterday - a big box of finished copies of THE MARK OF THE TALA! I thought the ARCs were beautiful, but the finished books...wow. The cover is smokier, mistier - and kind of velvety in texture. The map is bigger and more grayscale, very similar to my original pencil drawing.

I love it so hard!

I'm struggling through writing Ursula's book - the third in the trilogy - so the arrival of these made a fine incentive. Also, readers have started telling me how much they like it, how they're excited to read book 2 in November and asking about Ursula's book. Makes me feel like part of a team.

I don't quite recall in which book I first read our word of the week - egregious - but I remember the moment clearly. A woman in the book was described as having an egregious bosom. I had no idea what that meant, so I looked it up. And was only further confused that it turned out to mean remarkable or extraordinary. (Interestingly, the online dictionaries offer a negative connotation as the first meaning and I wonder if this is a more recent migration.)

Being something like 10-12, I didn't understand how a woman's breasts could be described this way. But it bothered me, leaving me feeling both embarrassed and vaguely ashamed, the way the joking male leers can do.

I suppose in some way this was my introduction to the male gaze. I'm almost positive the book was by Piers Anthony. As sister Word Whore Allison Pang has talked about, I stumbled into reading a whole bunch of Anthony's books, largely because I read most any fantasy novel I could lay my hands on. The well meaning librarians back then may have had no idea what lurked behind those colorful, almost cartoonish covers. It took me a long time to understand that he wasn't writing for adolescent girls combing the shelves for fantasy. His fantasies were of another sort entirely - and quite sexist.

That said, I'm glad they weren't censored, that the librarians didn't deny me access. In many ways, those books heavily influenced what I write today. The Xanth books in particular remain bright in my mind, with their tricks and riddles.

And now, here is a big box of my fantasy novel. Chock full of my gaze and my sort of princesses. An amazing review from RT Magazine said:

Andi isn’t your ordinary must-have-a-prince-to-save-me type of princess. She makes wise choices, all to save her people from the harsh realities of battle, and even when faced with horrible options, her course is one of truth, loyalty and love.

and

They are a remarkable pair, one who celebrate individuality with a partnership that will last for a lifetime.”

If living well is the best revenge, then writing fantasy my way surely must be the best answer I can give.