CarrPeeDiem

You say good-bye...

2007-10-16T16:54:00.000-07:00

...and I say hello.

This blog is a'movin'. We're shifting to Wordpress, because it's prettier and we can do more with it.

The link is NOW: http://carrpeediem.wordpress.com/

Update your links, ye foolish mortals!

(please?)

If everyone really hates it to death, we can always move back.

Your father's ghost.

2007-10-16T08:35:00.000-07:00

This is for Lori, because she's working with Hamlet right now and needs any attempt at work ethic destroyed.

But since I am an enormous fan of old text adventure games (have you played Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? No? For shame.) I thought I would share it with the world.

Here you go. The Hamlet Text Adventure Game.

(even better, did you ever play Starship Titanic? You must. It may be old, but it's stunning. It's not like having a conversation with Douglas Adams or Terry Jones, but it's like having long discussions with characters only they could come up with. I spent so much time just talking to robots and not even furthering the story.)

Why I am ever a writer

2007-10-16T08:12:00.000-07:00

This morning, on his blog, Neil Gaiman talked about why he loves being a writer...and of course, he's right on all points. Those are the same reasons which make me delight and thrill in writing. Because even though there are the bad days, where you strongly suspect that everything you write is just cleverly worded crap which everyone is going to see through, there's the other days when the whole thing is taut and singing. I think of it as an orchestra: Some days, it's tuning, some days the whole bulk of instruments is playing Night on Bald Mountain or something, and you know it's good.

But there's another part of writing which I really enjoy.

I am working on my next novel The Nondescript, although since I'm racing with several people (you know: almost the entire reading audience of this blog), I'm not actually writing anything for it. I'm not even making notes or outlining, because I just don't outline very well. The only work I've done, and will do, beforehand was I sat down with a piece of paper and worked out my timeline. It's a historical novel, after all: everything needs to line up. Since I wasn't alive in the first half of the 20th Century, I have to do some research.

But regardless of writing things down, I'm putting things together in my head. It's what I do. I know quite a large portion of my cast of characters and what they want (and what they'll get) and I know how my beginning goes and everything.

(An aside: That's why I'm doomed in this race. Every other time I've raced and won by a huge margin, I was in the middle of the book. The beginning has been figured out, the ending is not yet arrived, so all I have to do is find my rhythm and sprint. But here, I'm starting page one, word one, at the very start. Doomed, doomed.)

Last night, lying in bed and thinking about Chapter One, I suddenly realized that I knew the story of what I think will be Chapter Eight, and it arrived whole and vivid and delightful and I was really thrilled to have it turn up.

I don't know that it'll be a popular chapter. Chapter Eight is titled Nigger-Town and concerns a hanging and a kiss, and it's a dark chapter in a book which is primarily a road-trip story and a love story. But I can't wait to write it.

That's what I love about writing, the bits that turn up later which I know what to do with. They inform the earlier bits (this tells me that the other chapters have titles, and I think all the titles are names or descriptions of towns; it also tells me about one of the characters who will appear previous to Chapter Eight). It will also inform the mood of the story thereafter. I also think that maybe, that's where the violence starts.

I'm really looking forward to this novel.

I'm in frantic Rome Novel Finishing Mode. I really want to have the first draft done by October 31st. I know everything in detail from now to the ending, the trick is just sitting down and putting all the remaining words in cunning order, as Douglas Adams once said. Coming up next is a big battle scene which is a logistical and combative nightmare, for reasons I can't research. So I have to write slow, think fast, and hope I turn it into something worth reading.

Okay, I'll go write now. No, I'm going. See?

Is "Nano" a Verb? And Is "Nanoing" a Word At All?

2007-10-15T17:58:00.000-07:00

Who cares. I'm throwing caution to the wind and singlehandedly destroying the English language by my careless usage! MUWAHAHAHAHAHA!!

*puts down the crack pipe*

Like Pete, my circumstances have changed drastically from where I was last year. Last year, I didn't have time to do Nano. This year, I have all the same stuff going on I had last year, plus a full time job. So what do I do?

I decide to Nano.

What the hell was I thinking?!

Actually, I was thinking quite a bit. Writing has, understandably, fallen by the wayside. I have all these ideas, and no time to do anything with them. So I figure that now is as good a time as any to "force" myself into writing something. I'm excited about my story, and I think it'll pan out very well. I've stolen the title from another WIP I had a brief idea for. Hey, it was my title, I'll reassign it if I want to. So there. Besides, I'm in love with the title. (But not so much that I wouldn't change it for a big fat advance. LOL) I'm really excited to get to work on Jericho Road. So excited that I've even been making notes here and there. I wouldn't go so far as to say I've been working on an... outline... *shudder* but I'm firming up some ideas.

I'm not sure I'll get anywhere near 50,000 words, but even if I only get to 10K, that's a damn good start, and it's a lot more than I'll have if I don't get my butt in the chair and do it, right? At this point, I'm hoping to reach the 50,000, but I promised myself I wouldn't get disappointed if I didn't make it. There's a shitload going on in my life, and things just don't work out the way I want them to sometimes. Lots of times.... Okay, most times.

So I will try my best, but I'm not beating myself up if I don't hit the target. Anyway. I'm carrieinpa over at the Nano website if you want to look me up!

NaNo(o Nanoo)

2007-10-14T19:37:00.000-07:00

I haven't talked about my next novel very much here, mostly because my head's all full-up with my Rome novel right now. But my next novel is on my mind for a couple of reasons: First, because I'm doing research for it tonight (the TV was too loud, I couldn't work on Rome) and second, because the day I begin it is fast approaching.

I decided that I was going to give the whole National Novel Writing Month thing a shot. Why not? I'm a stay-at-home dad this year, I'm a full-time writer, I love writing in the public eye and racing deadlines. The deadline here is two fold, though. It means that I have to finish my Rome novel by October 31st, that way I can start on November 1st on my next project.

(That's why I put the Rome Novel word counters on the side of the blog: it's public accountability. I don't exactly think anyone's going to berate me if I don't turn in a reasonable word count, but it's public, and I know it's there. It's useful.)

My next novel is titled The Nondescript and it takes place in the 1940s, very heavily influenced by the works of John Steinbeck and Mark Twain, but also some Jack London (I'm discovering). It is, perhaps for properly the first time in my life, completely devoid of any science fiction or fantasy elements. It's a love story, a road trip story, a wartime story, and a murder mystery.

I'm planning, in November, to manage 100,000 words of it. That might be the whole length of the novel.

The interesting thing is that historical fiction seems to be my bent for the past while. Rome novel has some twists, but it's a historical novel at its core. This novel is unabashedly a historical novel, perhaps it even falls under mainstream. Very interesting.

(The research is a delight. I had to match up my dates tonight, to make sure what history in my head was remembered correctly and worked with the history of the world that year. They matched up better than I could have dreamed).

I think I'll post more about this novel during November. This is just a quiet mention because I'm doing research, and I'm thinking about the way my writing is shifting of late (as evidenced by my Winds of Change post, further down the page). So that's it.

Rome novel is potentially going to be hampered by the fact that I can feel a head cold laying bricks in my head. We'll see how much longer I remain an upright and viable member of the human race.

Speaking of which, I'm going to go lie down for a bit. Take care.

A crisis averted

2007-10-14T06:05:00.001-07:00

(A note: I really hated titles like the one I've given this blog. I see them turn up all the time, for some reason, on fantasy novels and romance novels. A battle joined, a heart unloved, a man unmarried, a darkness rising. Sigh. They're just boring.)

The situation around here was getting pretty desperate for this past week. Tensions were really mounting, I was coming unhinged and uncertain how I would continue writing, let alone living a life and being an asset to my family. The problem was inescapable and it was swallowing my life.

I'd run out of tea.

It just happened that way. We're too busy for a trip to the Twin Cities, and frankly we're too poor to hit up the one store that sells any sort of loose leaf tea here in town (Byerly's).

So, bit by bit, the tea in the house had dwindled down to the desperate situation I was in yesterday morning: I had some African rooibos, another kind of rooibos that my wife owned and, because my sister was out of town, I could have a pot of her expensive white tea, mostly because she wasn't there to stop me. I was jonesin'! I was even reduced to making pots of tea using b-...ba-...No, I can do this....bags. I was in a real bad place.

(Rooibos tea is delicious and I love it no end, but it's non-caffeinated and, like green tea, is cleansing and calming and relaxing tea. So it mostly makes me sleepy. I'm trying to finish my Rome novel by October 31st! I don't need sleepy and cleansed! Plus, one can only drink so much Rooibos.)

Perhaps you doubt those were the only teas I had? All right, you've got me: I have a tin of Irish Breakfast, and Yorkshire Gold. Both of which produce such a thick, harsh, bitter tea that I find it undrinkable, despite my best efforts. Milk hasn't helped. Neither have a bit of honey. They taste nearly like coffee. They don't count.

Also, I knew that Lori Basiewicz was sending me tea. This was for a bet we had, racing to see how much of our respective novels we could finish in a given amount of time. I was in mortal terror, picturing her as this great machine, rolling and churning and steaming and sending out a constant stream of thousands of words a day. So I kicked into high gear, in terror every time I stopped, and turned out well over twenty thousand words in the week we raced. She, to my chargrine, was apparently a bit busy and wound up writing less and editing what she had.

So she owed me tea and she'd just now mailed it out. So I knew that, on Wednesday of this coming week, I can expect a package with Indian tea in it. I'm delighted, because I've never had Indian tea and have no idea what to expect. But Wednesday is a lifetime away!

Yesterday, a god smiled down upon me and had mercy. I think it was Bacchus.

First, my sister got home from visiting my parents, who live in Washington D.C. right now.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! I chortled in my joy. She had brought me tea from a really nice tea store down there. Orange spice. I've had a pot last night and it tastes like love. Which is such a stupid description, but there you go. It's delicious, it's got the sharp undercurrent of spice, a taste of orange which appears on the back of your throat (and as the tea cools) and the whole thing tastes warm and filling and invigorating. Magnificent stuff.

Several hours later, my wife and I went grocery shopping, which was a logical progression from the realization that we had no food. We shopped for the better part of an hour. I had mentioned earlier that I wanted to stop by the tea aisle and buy a box of Constant Comment tea bags, as an emergency supply for the next time I ran out of proper tea.

We nearly forgot. We were almost done and back up to the front of the store. It's an easy aisle to forget: three-fourths of it is full of baby stuff, the last bit is mostly coffee with tea wedged in as an afterthought.

I went down the tea bit, I picked up my box of Constant Comment, and then I looked to my left...

...and discovered that my grocery store all of a sudden sold loose leaf tea.

Not just that! They sell it in the large pouring containers that are common in most grocery stores with coffee beans: you put the bag over the nozzle and tilt the handle and coffee pours out. They have it for tea now! Not the highest quality, I think (I've never heard of the brand) but loose leaf no less and fairly cheap.

They had two rows, perhaps sixteen or twenty varities. So in giggly delight, I got some Earl Gray, because life is better with that, and I got a couple ounces of China Gunpowder tea, because I've never had it and always wanted to try it. They also had Black Currant tea and English Breakfast tea, the other two that immediately jumped out at me. My wife bought some fruity teas which are sometimes not too bad.

If there is a god of tea, he has rewarded my faith well unto this life. I am a saved soul! Or, in the passive sentence theme I started with my blog title, I am A Soul Saved, or A Soul that was to be saved, if we want to get wildly passive.

I can't talk anymore. I have to go drink tea!

Things Sane People Don't Do

2007-10-13T12:52:00.000-07:00

As anyone who talks to me on a regular basis -- in a situation where I'm prone to musing -- can attest to, I spend a fair amount of time thinking about fairly insane things which I would love to do and then write an article about them. Vague? Yeah. I have a big series of long articles which would be physically grueling (and a bit dangerous) that I would love to try to do. I don't want to go into detail on that one because I still do hope, someday, to carry it out. My wife, who is sane and patient and has a more normal view of danger than I do, thinks that it's an awful idea and doesn't want me to do it (which is why I'm not, right now). I am ever hopeful.

Anyway. One idea which has just crossed my mind at the moment, which I could feasibly try without too much difficulty -- because it doesn't involve leaving the house -- would be along article chronicling going several days and nights without any sleep at all.

What I've read on the internet indicates that one can actually go a fair amount of time without sleep (one discussion claims thirteen days to a month). This is lunatic and not at all practical. What I wonder about, though, is three days, four nights. Something like that. And while I'm doing that, I would still go about my day to day stuff, see how that changes as I run down on sleep. I would also keep a running document going on the laptop and I add to it now and then, as things change.

I don't know that it would make a valuable article to anyone (for one thing, I bet it's been done), but it would make an interesting blog article. And it would be interesting to try.

Partly because there are shows like Survivorman as well as Morgan Spurlock's fascinating 30 Days series.

(I think that if I weren't a writer-with-family, I would be some sort of weirdo survivalist)

That's the sort of nutty things I come up with and go "Cool, how can I feasibly do that?"

(I'm not completely nuts: My second thought is always how can I do this safely?)

Icky Thud

2007-10-12T13:27:00.001-07:00

I just broke the blog layout. Never fear. I'll either repair it, or break it worse. What could go wrong?

Icky Thump

2007-10-12T09:13:00.000-07:00

Well, I did it. I shored up my courage and I...canceled God in the Machine.

I was nervous about doing it, I felt ashamed for it, as if I'd given in. In a way I have. These things don't work for a huge number of reasons. For me, the series worked all by itself, but *I* couldn't physically manage it. I talked about it a bit on the site.

Ten minutes after pulling the episodes and writing my apologetic newspost, I felt 1) Relieved at not having to turn out another episode and 2) Excited that I can now spend today, tomorrow, and ever-more time working on my Rome novel. Really excited about that.

I think those two feelings confirm that, shame aside, this was the right thing to do.

...

Yesterday, Rllgthunder mentioned in a comment section that I'd been blogging a lot more. The reason for that is, I have dramatically scaled back exactly what I'm doing on the computer. I have limited myself to E-mail, to posting on this blog, and to posting on Lori's blog. That's it. No IM, no AW, nothin'. If I want to kill time beyond that, I go off onto the internet and read interesting articles and learn things. Or I read...books. Mostly, because none of those things are immediate interactivity required (the things I'm limited to), it means I'm more easily willing to forget about the browser and just write away. I've done nine thousand words in the past two days. I don't know how much I'll get done today, but by Saturday night, I full intend to hit 80,000 words in my Rome novel.

I mapped it out. I was planning for two weeks until the end of October, with a few random days on the side for God in the Machine episodes. Now, I have over two weeks -- almost three? -- to finish writing Rome. I can absolutely do that. Then, for November, I will put Rome totally aside and write the first draft of The Nondescript for NaNo. Then, come December, I will return to Rome to edit and revise and start sending out query letters (don't make me write one. Please? I hate query letters) and trying to sell it.

I figure mid-December, early January, I'll start writing God in the Machine as a trilogy of books, which I can do without losing anything from the story.

So there's my day. I'm going to go have a celebratory drink of tea in honor of failing at the online game. (Smiley face goes here.)

Addendum: I have just realized, with no small amount of irony attached, that in a post made on this very blog in January of this year, I touched upon...well...mostly everything that I'm touching on right now. 1) Robots. 2) AW 3) Trying to get away from technology. Yessir, when it comes to consistently touching, I'm your guy. (Please don't send me to jail.)

I can has no technology plz?

2007-10-11T18:08:00.000-07:00

Slowly, slowly, I've been getting more and more disgruntled with technology, something which is fairly easy to do since I'm a technology junkie and have a house full of the stuff. I think a lot of this came about at the same time as my television interests changed, as well as all the mental alterations I talked about below (in Winds of Change, and now I'm whistling it again...)

So, the result is that I have a large volume of technology in the house, all of which I'm finding specific reasons not to have in my life. It's not healthy for me as a writer, and perhaps for me as a human being. Whether or not it's doing you any good either, dear reader, is up to you. This may be a problem only to me.

Let me list technologies and complain about them in turn.

1) iPod - The iPod was a big deal for me. I do not have a driver's license, I never have, as I've mentioned previously on this blog. This is because I had no interest in driving when I was a teenager, so I never bothered to get one. The iPod was big deal because I walk everywhere, which affords me plenty of time to listen to music. HOWEVER... the problem was, I realized that I was going for walks with headphones on and plugging myself into all sorts of noise. This was just an escalation of the problem that presented itself when I got my current cell-phone, a Motorola SLVR, which has a built in MP3 player of sorts. Noise! Noise! Noise! So I stopped bringing the iPod on walks several months back and watched as ideas formed in my head better. Less noise.

2) DVR Cable box - This might be TiVo to you, but we have a local sort of box from our cable company. You know the deal: I can record TV shows, I can pause, fast forward, re-wind live television, all that yaz, right? Right. HOWEVER... several nights ago, when we discovered that we had three television shows set to record at the same time, we knew that the box could only record two shows at once. That meant if we wanted to see the third program, we had to watch it on a different television. So my wife and I went to the bedroom and watched it on the small TV there. THAT cable box has no special features. What we realized was that during the commercial breaks, which we could not skip, we talked more. We got up and did things. In short, we didn't sit there and vegetable in front of the TV all the way through the program. The DVR box is another noise problem. It means I have all the content I want without any pauses, any moments of free thought. That's bad.

3) Napster - Napter is more of the same. The joy and the curse of Napster is that I instantly have a huge library of music right at my fingertips. I don't even download the songs most of the time, I can just add them to my Now Playing box and instantly have tons of things to listen to. HOWEVER... I very quickly realized that I was spending time building playlists and choosing really exciting and fun music at any given moment. That meant that I wasted time choosing music, and when chosen, the music was what I was interested in right that moment and was, therefore, distracting. I have therefore set up a big bulky stereo on a book shelf just next to where I work. It's big and loud enough to fill the house, when I want it to. It's permenantly tuned to my local Public Radio station which plays really enjoyable classical music. That's what I get in my day, when I want music. I can enjoy it, I can work around it. It's not noise, it's an enjoyable background sound.

4) Instant Messaging Programs - This is a fairly small and simple problem, although it was proving to be problematic. I get very tied to the program when I'm talking to someone. Whatever I do around the house, I do it within vicinity of the computer so I can see when a new message comes in. Plus, if it's a good conversation, I wind up spending the day enjoying that instead of writing.

5) Message Boards (forums) - Again, this is a pretty specific problem. I only visit one message board. Absolute Write. I tend to come and go from there in spurts, for reason which I will keep mostly to myself (perhaps you can guess; I wouldn't be surprised). Every now and then, I get too enamored in some conversation, usually an irrelevant one and again, I wind up paying too much attention there. The problem is that, as with all this other stuff, it just becomes noise and I wind up not thinking and not writing.

My head isn't anywhere where I can work with all this stuff. So I wind up losing hours out of my day, miserable and depressed. This in turn affects my relationship with Zach. I have noticed that today, which I spent almost entirely internet and technology free, Zach and I had the first day where we were peaceful. He was never crying, I was never angry and yelling. That's a big step for us. I think they're related.

It's too much noise. Society, if you'll pardon thirty seconds of preachy crap, is just full of noise and instant gratification and noise. We live in the contradictory age where we are absolutely inundated and obsessed with ways to communicate with each other...and yet we are almost incapable of communicating with each other and we avoid thinking.

Mostly, I wind up reading about authors of the past and admiring people like Rudyard Kipling, with his technology-free life, his beautiful estates where he walked, his large desk where he wrote by hand.

I write on computer mostly out of necessity, and this is one piece of the technology addiction I cannot escape: I am painfully aware that it takes me far, far longer to write a thousand words on paper than on computer and I don't always have that luxury. Or I don't have the patience for it. I still write by hand a great deal. Never all. Never enough.

I adore my fountain pen. I like that I go through ink cartridges because it gives the sense of producing something, just like going through sheafs of paper does.

When I had it, as I stated in the comments section of a previous post, I really adored the hell out of my typewriter. Man-o-man.

So there. My technology rant. I'll try not to rant anymore, but I think I've got one more coming. But that one, I think I'll turn into an article and sell for some cashy-money. Yes.

What bits of technology are you aware are an impediment (or beginning to think of as one) in your life and want to get rid of? And are you going to?

No, NOW I'm going to write...

2007-10-11T09:50:00.000-07:00

I was just heading offline when I saw, via Yahoo! News that Doris Lessing has won a Nobel prize.

That just makes me happy. I haven't read her most well-known work The Golden Notebook, but I have enjoyed the bits of her material I have read.

So I went off and found an interview with her, from 1999, and I enjoyed that even more. What a wonderful woman. I should love to sit down and talk to her.

Also, Harold Bloom didn't want her to win. So that makes me happy. Because if I haven't mentioned it here before, Harold Bloom is a stuck-up asshole of cataclysmic proportions. He's as snobbish as Nabokov. I am embarrassed by the both of them.

So now, made happier and prouder to be a writer after reading her interview, I'm going to go do some writing myself.

Addendum: And her reaction to winning the prize is charm itself. I hope I'm so charming at eighty-eight years old, but fear that when someone comes round to tell me I've won a prize, I'll be yelling at them to bugger off my lawn while throwing rocks at squirrels, or something. (When you read this article, watch the little video clip available on the left side of the article. She's fun to listen to. What a nice person.)

Brain Games

2007-10-11T09:13:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking, off and on all week, that I should discontinue God in the Machine before it gets rolling too far along and I wind up disappointing both readers who enjoy it.

The reasoning is easy: It's not making money. I am a stay-at-home parent and full-time writer, which therefore means I need to Make Money, Damn It. Time spent writing robots is time not spent finishing my Roman novel and getting it out there, or preparing notes for my next novel (which I'm going to talk about a little further in an upcoming post).

On the other hand, I like having a serial, most of the time. The weekly schedule was a horrible idea, because I burned out badly on it (and I quietly think you can tell when you read Voice, Echo, Silence, Part 2; and the difference is huge compared to Voice, Echo, Silence, Part 3, which was written in a much less burnt-out state). But it's kind of fun.

So mostly, I've been indecisive about keeping it, just as I was indecisive about starting it in the first place. I just keep writing. It's the easiest option.

Then, yesterday, as I'm lying in bed wondering why I thought a biiig mug of caffeinated tea was such a super idea before bedtime, the story of God in the Machine arrives in my head, neat and tidy and entirely capable of being told in novel form. A long novel, but a single novel nonetheless.

That was one of the reasons I made it a serial in the first place: Because the story was just too long and too complex to be told in anything less than several novels. Maybe you can get a hint of that through the episodic format, maybe not. Regardless, that was a mighty tempting revelation. I like to think it'd make a pretty good novel.

Which is not to say I'm ending the series or anything. I'm just stewing.

...

I spent three happy hours yesterday writing my Rome novel (have I told you the title of it yet? No? It has one, finally. I'm very pleased). This chapter, oddly enough, is structured like a stand-alone episode, as if the Roman novel were a serial. I'm wondering if the remaining chapters will structure themselves like that. I really wouldn't mind. I wonder if they would have done it anyway, or if this is the result of my other major project being a serial.

If so, that's a good reason to keep doing a serial. I write best in that format (I don't know if you can tell. The robot stories come faster and easier and more confidently. I know when I've written something good. I know when it sings and when it rasps. I can play a serial like a musical instrument. With novels, I'm like a man in an iron lung with a tuba).

...

I am technically Not On The Internet Thank You. This is because I realized, yesterday, that I had gone beyond moderation and was spending all my time online. I don't have good middle gears, so when something like this happens, I just cut myself off the internet almost entirely and go do other things until I can approach the internet with some sensibility. So I am answering my e-mail in the morning and in the evenings (when my wife is home and I am therefore less likely to spend much time online). The only reason I'm posting this is, I'm eating lunch.

I'm still on the computer too much, I just flick the switch that turns off the wireless internet. I wish I had an old electric typewriter, I think I'd do some articles and short stories on that and be a happy camper. Of course, living in an apartment makes this impractical. My neighbors would think I'm firing off guns at 100-shots-per-minute. Then again, if they came and complained, I could dispatch them much easier with a heavy typewriter than with a small laptop. It's the difference between hitting someone with a baseball bat and a loofah.

And now I'm blithering. So I'll head back offline, thank you so much.

Winds of Change

2007-10-09T07:07:00.000-07:00

Unlike the song, "Winds of Change," I will not begin this article by whistling at you for a very long time.

What I'm talking about today started when I was eleven years old. I remember it very distinctly, it's been something I've thought about over the years.

One day, when I was in my room, I looked down at my action figures for whatever reason and I realized that I had gone days, perhaps weeks, without playing with them. Moreover, I realized this didn't particularly bother me any.

Prior to this, I played with them constantly. They were my first storytelling medium, before and during my discovery of things like pens and papers, and typewriters, and eventually computers. They were all individual characters with histories and personalities. The adventures and stories were long-running and as episodic and detailed as anything I've done so far with God in the Machine. I never really played with anyone else -- at least, not in this manner -- for probably the same reason I don't collaborate with other writers easily today: Because it's easier just to do it myself, since I already know how it all goes.

But anyway: When I looked at them and realized that I was going lengthy periods of time without being interested in them, I thought very clearly, I have grown out of this and into new things.

Two things came with that: First, the feeling of sadness, the idea that something once loved was now just a memory and a shell. Secondly, the confusion and fascination at actually being aware of this moment.

The first was transitory and passed easily. I remember after this thought occurred, that I sat down on the floor and I played with them...but there was no joy in it. There was no creation. I was just going through the motions of games and stories told years prior, and I knew it. My interests were in new things. I had new books, I was writing steadily (steadily, hell, I was writing prolifically; I wish I could still write as fast and easily as I did when I was eleven). My games were more outdoors. There had been places I'd lived prior where it wasn't really safe to travel around the town, but this wasn't one of those places. This was a pretty good place, despite having the built-in fault of being located in Nevada. I had begun to discover music, as well as television. I was still a few years away from discovering the internet and the delight of multiplayer gaming. I had discovered girls, of course, because boys discover girls thirty seconds after they are born, but girls were still a different planet than me. It would be another three years before I would meet a pretty, funny girl who would eventually become my wife.

The second feeling, the confusion and fascination, is the bit which sticks with me over the years. In hindsight, what has always struck me about it is the awareness of the moment, of realizing "Here, at this moment, I have outgrown this" and knowing deep down that it really was true (and it was. I never played with them again).

Something I talked about at length in a previous article on this blog, Bags, Bones & Heartstrings, was the gifty-curse of self-awareness that writers have: that is to say that you could be crying your heart out and, somewhere in the back of your head, be thinking coldly so this is what it's like...

I think of my moment realization as being part of that same thing. It's the same cold piece saying "And this is where your interests shifted away entirely. You know this."
What got me thinking about this moment actively -- and discussing it here, in turn -- was the movie The Weather Man, with Nicholas Cage.

Bear with me here.

It was a terrific movie, I walked away from it feeling happy and thinking I would have liked to have written that. That was something of a new feeling toward that kind of movie.

This was in tandem with someone recommending that I check out a historical fiction sub-forum, over at AbsoluteWrite. I've been there for years and years and didn't even know it was there, so I happily went over. And while I was browsing, I realized that my current novel -- my Roman novel -- is not exactly historical fiction, but it's closer to that than anything else. And my next novel is set in the '20s and '30s and is very definitely a historical novel. In neither novel is there anything science-fictional, nothing fantasy, nothing really horror (except the mundane, grisly horrors that pop up in life out of certain situations; I mean there's nothing supernatural).

And I thought, very clearly, as if I were eleven again: I am not a science fiction writer.

I've been stewing on that for a couple of days now, and that meant I really thought about it. I've been getting enormous pleasure out of reading Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton, which is a space-opera sort of science fiction novel. Part of the enormous pleasure comes from the fact that I haven't read something like this with any enjoyment in a lot of years. So much of science fiction which I buy, perhaps out of habit, goes unread. Likewise, I don't particularly enjoy huge whallops of fantasy. Harry Potter was the last proper fantasy work I read.

There are still authors of the fantastic I read. Gene Wolfe is perhaps classified as science fiction, but I don't know that he really is entirely. Neil Gaiman writes fantasy, sure, I guess. I have no idea what genre you would put Stephen King into anymore (and don't care, I delight in him wherever he is).

The books I've taken bigger delight in reading, recently, have been things like Eagle in the Snow by Wallace Breem, a novel I began reading because it was about Roman soldiers and a novel which I finished reading because I just couldn't stop, it was too powerful. Or Pompeii, by Robert Harris, which was more or less the same situation. Beyond that, I read non-fiction, or I read much older science fiction and fantasy (where modern sci-fi is so frequently impenetrable to me, Isaac Asimov is still like an easy old friend).

And as I think further about this, I consider my television habits. Very abruptly, at the beginning of the summer which is now abandoning us, I lost all interest in the movie channels we had, in most of the re-runs, in most of the story-shows. I spent the summer devouring the Discovery Channel, the Science Channel, the History Channel. I re-discovered a delight and enthusiasm in deep sea marine biology and watched all manner of programs on the topic, then wandered off to read and study. Science became more interesting to me than science fiction. The science of the future delighted me more than the science of the fantastic.

The disjointing part of all of this -- and the part where you perhaps begin to think I've gone utterly mad -- is the strange feeling in my brain, a sort of off-kilter feeling, as if I can feel the gears of my brain shifting over. It's like a factory that's shutting down so workers can program the equipment for new materials and molds. Is that a cheesy metaphor? Probably. But it's what I've got. I go back and forth on all of this as I think about it, but there's no denying the fact that my short stories -- as those who read them can attest -- grow more and more quietly fantastic and more about people. If there is a fantastic element, a science fiction element, it's deep in the background. And as I look at the novel ideas which I am excited about working on, they really aren't fantastic, except in the sense of people. There's no smash-bang Star Wars novel in my future, for example.

This is so much fun. What fun would writing be if nothing ever changed? I love the big shifts and the weird days of feeling off-kilter. Couldn't be more happy about it.

And now, I've gone on at great length about it too.

I'm still alive, for those who care. :oP

2007-09-30T10:01:00.000-07:00

I hate to interrupt Pete's prolific blogging, but I thought I'd pop on and mention that I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. We've had a lot going on lately, and then I ended up with a nasty sinus *thing* that I think was partially due to allergies, thanks to our psychotic PA weather.

I'm mostly feeling better, except for the massive Jupiter-sized Boulder-O-Stress lounging across my shoulders. I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that something's gotta give here soon, and it's probably going to be what's left of my sanity.

The Most Dangerous Night of Television!

2007-09-28T13:21:00.000-07:00

First off, let me say how utterly hilarious it is that the title of this post is the catch-line of the Sci-Fi Channel. It's so...accurate. What could be more dangerous than watching Flash Gordon? Or maybe a special encore presentation of I was Eaten By A Fifty Foot Atomic Woman Spider 2 or whatever movie they're kicking around that week. Dangerous, even if you've never been inclined toward hanging yourself in the past.

...

The awkward part of having conversations with my friends is the bit where we come around to discussing television. What I, and my wife watch on television are not the things we should be logically watching, based on the rest of our interests.

For example, I do not watch Dr. Who. I do not watch Battlestar Galactica. I have had no inclination, despite the insistence of my friends that I would love them.

My TV tastes wander to the opposite end of the spectrum from the rest of my tastes. My favorite shows are things like House and Shark and my favorite shows are Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe and Survivorman on the Discovery Channel.

Beyond that, I watch other things, mostly with my wife. (On my own, I watch very little television). We watch things like C.S.I and The Biggest Loser and Ghost Hunters and Medium. You get the idea where my tastes range.

In my reading, though, I come across the fascinating idea that we have a whole new collection of sci-fi shows coming out this year...and no one's apparently interested in 'em. They are expected to suck harder than Flash Gordon. And that sucks pretty hard.

Nonetheless, the commercials started to catch my attention. So I watched some things. And here's what I thought.

...

Heroes: Season 2

I was a huge fan of Heroes season one, as mentioned previously on this blog. It didn't work for me for quite a while into the series...until I stopped trying to think about it like a TV series and started treating it like a comic book, with each episode being an issue. Then it works perfectly. The weird pacing problems that bothered me fell into place and I was absolutely riveted.

The ending was weak to season 1, but the story was great and I was a very happy man. I was delighted and overjoyed at each episode and giddy for the next one to come.

Heroes Season 2 starts off strong, following our characters from last season. I really like where they are right now, I like what we're getting to see them do. Hiro is adorable, Nathan is really fascinating and the Clare's dad (I can't remember his name all of a sudden) is the star of this episode just in a couple of scenes. Absolutely wonderful. I can't wait for the next episode.

Journeyman

"It's Quantum Leap," I said to my wife when we first saw the commercials. "It's Quantum Leap, without Sam!"

"It looks interesting," she thought.

So we recorded it. As I saw more and more commercials, I got more and more interested. So I was gently excited when I sat down to watch it.

Absolutely wonderful. I really like a TV episode where the ending has me grinning happily all the way through. The time travel was handled well, the reaction to it was handled logically, and I am looking forward to see where we go from here. I also like TV shows where it ends and the writer in me is busy figuring out where the storylines will go. How will his wife react? How will everyone else handle this? How is HE going to handle this? It's less about time travel and it's more of a character study, and I think that makes it stronger. It also isn't goofy, but there is a mild humor in it.

And the main star has such a cool arched eyebrow. This was a very good show, and I'm really looking forward to where it goes. It ended and I went "Oh wow...that was cool!"

Bionic Woman

The previews sounded cool. So we watched the first episode. It wasn't bad. I wasn't blown away, but there's definitely potential for the future episodes. The pilot episode was pretty self-contained (it was an origin story, all-told).

The special effects were just cool. This show, and Heroes, both really make me wish that Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman was being done now, because we'd get a great love story and some killer Superman effects, which we sadly lacked when the show was originally on.

I'm undecided about this one. I need to see where the story tries to go from here before I care, one way or the other. But it didn't actively turn me off and the battle was really cool, toward the end, so I'll come back.

...

So here I am. Someone who has not cared much about sci-fi since Babylon 5 went off the air (sci-fi on TV anyway). Someone who really abandoned it when Firefly went down. I'm interested, I'm enjoying it, I'm waiting to see what comes next.

NBC is suddenly holding the most dangerous night of sci-fi television, and I like that. They do a damn sight better job than the Sci-Fi Network does at anything.

Bits and pieces

2007-09-27T19:27:00.000-07:00

Let's see...

God in the Machine is a blast to write and I'm having a lot of fun. I've been waxing nostalgic for quite some time, trying to figure out a way to do a serial story again. Now that I am, I'm having a huge amount of fun. The only part I'm NOT having any fun with is doing it once a week. That is just exhausting. It also means some of the editing is bordering on sloppy, or non-existent, because I'm finishing episodes late-afternoon Mondays. (And the ideal release is late Sunday night).

Still, while doing a two-week schedule gave me the ability to work waaay ahead, as well as edit and tighten each episode (and make them around 15,000 words instead of 10k), it really did seem like two weeks between episodes was just too long to make people wait.

The reason I originally went with a two-week schedule was easy: Back in the day, when there were a big group of us writers who hung out together, and many of us were doing serial work (it was a fad: you started with a fanfiction series and went from there.) that's how it was done. Usually, the series worked together so that they provided a smooth schedule among all of them. I was the 7th and the 14th, I believe.

I'm just unsure if that works any longer. Especially with a series like God in the Machine, where I think that I have to really fight for people's attention. It was a fad, online series, and now it's gone and if I'm going to keep building my readership, I have to give them something to come back for on a fairly frequent basis, I should think.

...

Another not unrelated point: I was really bored with my Rome novel, which is partially why I quit working on it. I know every scene and all the details from now through the ending, but they felt contrived and awkward and I was uncomfortable with it all.

Then, when I was reading the wonderful Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton, I stopped and stared into space for a few minutes and realized that -- unrelated to the Peter Hamilton book -- I'd just solved the Rome problem without even thinking about it. I know how to make it work. I know how to keep all my details exactly the same, from now through the end, and make them work.

It requires really expanding the novel, but that's okay. Fantasy-ish novels aren't generally short. It also requires expanding my locations and my timeline and that's...actually fun. For one thing, it means I have to do more research on Roman society as well as Roman legal affairs, both of which I'm happily looking forward to digging into .

...

(the baby pictures I posted are my secret weapon against Lori's new blog. I have baby pictures, she doesn't. Nyah nyah. Sigh.)

...

So I was going through a journal I have. It's this beautiful red-leather bound book with a nice silk page marker. Very fancy. The first thing I did was scribble in it. My theory is, once scribbled in, it's defaced a little, and therefore I am less intimidated in just letting loose and writing any ol' thing in it. It's still intimidating, but it's also been around the house long enough that it's comfortable and familiar.

I was flipping through it, reading notes on my Rome Novel and bits of earlier drafts. Forty pages in, one draft stops almost mid-sentence on one page. The next page is blank, except for the following line. After that, the next page continues with the draft of something else. This is the line:

A rather perplexed London Times Newspaper announced that it would be a rough year, because the first song of the Cuckoo had been heartbreaking.

I read it and I was floored. I have zero idea what it means. I don't even know what to make of it. Usually when I stumble across something I don't remember writing, it's enough like "Me" that I think of new ideas (or remember old ideas, if this makes sense) based on it. But this...I get nothing.

I don't know what to do with it, I don't know if there's a short story in there, I don't have a clue. But I love that it's here, alone on a page, randomly in one of my journals, found by accident.

...

Right-o. I'm off to read some more and then fall asleep, until 5 A.M. when Mr. Baby decides that it's really time he was fed now, darn it.

Good night.

Photos, instead of content!

2007-09-24T22:07:00.000-07:00

Let's look at some baby pictures. Why not. There are women reading this blog. This'll be the most popular post in weeks.

^ This is my son, watching Dancing With The Stars (Seriously. What the hell is that show?)

^ This is my son, totally dissing Marie Osmond's Cha-Cha, or convulsion, or whatever it was.

^ Lazy cat...is lazy. Serious baby...is contemplating ur string theoriez.
(Lazy cat played by Bailey).

^ This is baby's happy look, just after sending Dad to the cornfield. Shudder.

^ VOTE ZACH TZINSKI IN 2008 FOR POOP REFORM!
(Charley The Seahorse For Vice President!)

^ Yes. We are all watched by Seahorses when we sleep. So don't ever close your eyes.
(The seahorse summons the clowns, you see. Who eat you.)

^ You can tell this picture was staged because 1) Baby is not doing his famous screaming/grunting/pooing combo (like a straining Hippo). And 2) Pete is not doing his shouting/gnashing/grousing combo which Dads the world over are known for.
Also, Zach looks like Dr. Evil, just a bit.

There we go. That was way easier than the post I was actually going to write, about the Season Premier of Heroes and the series premier of Journeyman. Those have way more words. This has way more baby pictures. Easy! Peasy! Rice and cheezy! (oh. And now I'm hungry. Sigh.)

Good night.

Blog me a blog, for blogging's sake, blogger!

2007-09-22T17:41:00.000-07:00

Been awhile since I've posted.

As many of you know, with the sad demise of Carrie -- who passed away from old age, having recently celebrated her 1,100,000,000th birthday -- it has fallen to me to maintain this blog's high standards. Therefore, before beginning this post, I was very careful to remove my pants. Also, because we are a bit entropic around here, I did not fold them up. They are crumpled! On the ground! Ha ha!

Exciting things which have happened on planet Pete:

1) We entered all of our books into Readerware's wonderful software, and were pleased to find that we have something in the vicinity of 1,200 books. Bliss! But we need more, more damn it.

2) Mister Baby is getting really good at focusing on the world around him. Specifically, he likes to focus on mine and my wife's faces. Sometimes, we get smiles, biiiiiig grins. He's just on the verge of laughing. He makes other sounds, but he's almost there. It's interesting to watch.

3) Other times, he gives me this stern-serious-ominous look which freaks the shit out of me and looks like he's about to send me to the cornfield, and then I give him to Mom.

4) God in the Machine is going well. Episode 5 comes out this coming Monday. It's a complicated series, full of complicated episodes, and I'm having a blast.

5) I gave up working on the first draft of Rome. I failed to start a 2nd draft properly. Lori convinced me that the first draft was fine. So I'm back trying to tool that into something I can enjoy working on. No success yet.

6) I just ate a pound of Jambalaya or so, along with corn on the cob. I am so full.

7) But this delicious Rooibos tea is definitely helping.

8) I love all of you.

9) I'm going to go write.

10) Pete

Hooray! VHV is done!

2007-09-03T18:46:00.001-07:00

Yay! Pete & I finally managed to squeeze in a few minutes to finish up Variety Hour V, which I believe has taken us longer to write than all 4 previous Variety Hours combined. Of course, at that time, I wasn't working a job outside the home, and Pete didn't have the adorable little guy in the post below.

I'm relieved it's done and posted, and I feel bad that it took so long for us to finish it. Hopefully our beloved readers find it worth the wait. :o)

I'm really excited to have that done now, so I can work on my new WIP. I'm really excited about it, because it's evolving nicely, and because I'm writing it in first person... something I haven't done before. I did get some work done to it over this long Labor Day weekend, but not as much as I wanted. Unfortunately, the tops of my curtains were all dusty and the windows desperately needed washed, so that took a huge chunk of my weekend.

I hope I can keep ahold of the excitement. My last novel was written when I didn't have this *job* thing hogging up my time.

Ugh. And I have a PTO meeting on Wednesday. Meh.

Maybe if I just don't show up for work... or the PTO meeting... they'll all just fire me. :oD

Because I am surrounded by women

2007-09-01T20:10:00.000-07:00

Here! HERE ARE YOUR BABY PICTURES!

*runs off screaming*

Back to School!

2007-08-31T04:17:00.000-07:00

Munchkin started back to school on Wednesday.

Wednesday evening, he informed me that he wanted me to quit my job and homeschool him because his teacher is horrible.

Why?

Because she had the nerve to give homework (said with utter disgust) on the first day of school. (I personally agreed that it was a bit much.)

Then he decided that if I wasn't going to quit and homeschool him, he'd go to military school. (Not sure where, since there isn't one around here...)

On Thursday, he learned that he has Social Studies ALL YEAR (in other grades it was only a 1/2 year subject), so he was excited as could be. He looooooooooooves Social Studies.

I'm all on board for the quitting my job. But the homeschooling? I think we'd be sick of each other by the end of the first ~~week~~ ~~day~~ class.

Sluggite days.

2007-08-24T21:25:00.000-07:00

I still remember the first Sluggy Freelance comic I ever read. It was this one. April 29th, 1998. I had met my wife by that point, but we were not friends. I was writing ten thousand words or so a day -- many of them crap. My job was a paper route. I was in a rough-and-tumble garage band, which for my part was mostly writing lyrics.

1998. Y2k jokes were starting to circulate. Backstreet Boys were still around, and I was not fond of them at all. I think I had just discovered some new bands, like KoRn. It would be another year before I bought my first Alice Cooper album (I can't even count how many I have now).

(A very typical guy/writer detail, too: I still own a couple of shirts from 1998 and they still fit.)

I came to Sluggy Freelance and I laughed and then said "What the hell?" and spent a couple of sleepless nights reading what there was of the archives up to that point. Since April 29th, 1998, I've read Sluggy almost every single day, unless something prevents me from it. And when I get back on the computer, the first thing I usually do is catch up on the few comics I may have missed.

I'm waxing slightly nostalgic about it, because today is Sluggy Freelance's 10th anniversary. It's hard to believe the web-comic's been going for a full decade, and equally hard to believe that I've been reading it for nine years of it.

Congratulations to Pete Abrahms and to Sluggy in general, and I look forward to another ten years being left in suspense over what the hell a "sluggy freelance" is anyway.

What Arthur C. Clarke said.

2007-08-22T15:50:00.000-07:00

I make no secret about how I'm a big fan of stage magicians, among them Penn and Teller, and Harry Anderson, who was always fun to watch. I'm also a big fan of psychology.

I've been deeply enjoying the episodes of Mind Control they've been showing on the Sci-Fi Channel, following the frankly amazing antics of Derren Brown, an illusionist who lays claims to neither psychic powers, nor real magic. Nonetheless, what he is able to is amazing. Go to YouTube and look him up. Watch the show.

Along those same lines, this was a delightful article that I enjoyed. And so, of course, I must share it with you.

Harry Potter kills Kids with Devil Worship!!!!

2007-08-22T08:47:00.000-07:00

Hey, you want to have some blood pressure spikes? I did. Here. Read this.

Follows is my response. Understand that it is not an attack on Catholicism. I am Catholic. I am proud of it. Nevertheless, it is something you lot probably didn't know about me, and the reason I am not forthcoming to mention it...is because of articles like above.

...

He is frankly a very poor writer indeed. Or a fine writer, and a poor thinker. That was a lazy, knee-jerk article without any particular purpose or use, just mindless puppeteering. Harry Potter is evil! Harry Potter kills Gods!

Ladies and gentlemen, if Harry Potter can kill God, then he's been croaked a long time now. By the same system of argument that he uses in this article, rock 'n' roll killed God (starting with that evil Elvis fellow) and so did the Roman Empire, and so did Leonardo Da Vinci, and for that matter most of the rest of the world, which has continued to contain quite a lot of things unrelated to God.

The article is cheap and stupid, when it comes to it. He has not read the books, he has not thought about the books, he has not treated the books as works of fiction, on the line of Stephen King or Gene Wolfe or Neil Gaiman, not on the line of the Bible (portions of which, certainly, are also fiction? Unless we're following a Protestant belief that Every Biblical Word Is True and Verbatim).

The article is dangerous, in that he takes a nearly militant stand against The Evilness of Harry Potter. My God, it's that same sort of "if it's not for the Bible and God, then it's AGAINST the Bible and God!" attitude which can be further translated to "Those stupid Muslims are all terrorists," and just a bit further to "Kill them all, God will know his own." It's a black and white worldview, a "with us or against us," decision that is dangerous and stupid and lazy. You have no business writing an article of any sort, about anything -- be it Harry Potter, world politics, the Minnesota Twins, or wormholes -- if you have decided that the world is thus, and everything which does just jive precisely with you is therefore evil, or bad.

Let's look at the good things Harry Potter does, all of which he glosses in a happy attempt at waving torches and pitchforks.

1) Harry Potter has brought quite a lot of kids back into an interest in reading. When they finish a Harry Potter book -- which they read fast and easy, something that is sweet -- then they have a year or two to wait until the next one. Or, now, they have no more at all. And therefore they seek out something else to read. I spend a lot of happy time in my used bookstore -- at last five or six times a week, if not more -- with a beleagured mom and a hyper kid, looking for other books they've liked. I'm afraid I've turned them on to such godless books as Isaac Asimov, the Lord of the Rings (we'll come back to LotR) and other interesting books like A Series of Unfortunate Events.

2) Harry Potter has several messages beyond death. From the get-go, we learn that you should rely on your friends. That's a good message. We learn that Good is Good and Bad is Bad, and you should always fight for Good, you should always fight for what's right. Even when the odds are stacked against you, even when it's hard and painful and the whole world thinks you're crazy, you should fight for good. This is a message we find in great literature all across the board. Isn't that one of the key messages of Babylon 5? This far, and no further. "You can say No I Won't one more time, and they can say Yes You Will. But as long as you don't give in...you've beaten them." This is the message of Harry Potter, the message of Babylon 5, the message of the Lord of the Rings, Superman, every comic book ever written, and...oh. The Bible.

3) The Harry Potter books are full of references to fairy tales and mythology, to the point where I happily helped a child find a book on the mythological and historical references of the Phoenix bird. This is wonderful. If we have all manner of scientists in the world because of Star Trek (I'll come back to that too), then I am content to think we will have all manner of historians and anthropologists because of Harry Potter.

Articles like this don't think of any of that. The author, who I will unhesitantly refer to as a fool, picks a small bad point of view and, when there is the potential for it not to exist (as it fails to here) then he makes it up. What does Frodo say about Sauron? He cannot create, only pervert? This is true of articles like this.

And speaking of the Lord of the Rings. God is not visibly, actively, in this moment present in the Lord of the Rings, therefore they are killing God by teaching us that this is a World Of Men. This is true of the Lord of the Rings books, as well. Only if you go further into The Silmarillion and the Lost Tales do you find out about Middle-Earth's God and Angels. The Lord of the Rings are easily so evil as Harry Potter -- full of wizards!!! -- and for that matter, so are the Idylls of the King by Alfred Lord Tennyson. And yet we do not see articles such as this appearing which accuse the Lord of the Rings of destroying God and killing young minds and leading them down a path of Satanism (A claim that baffles me, in that Satan has failed to even be mentioned once in Harry Potter, for how often they are is bandied about together).

Also, I mentioned Star Trek. Where all the other titles I have mentioned are just Not Mentioning God, Star Trek is anti-religion. It always has been, of course. And yet Star Trek has existed for decades now, for thousands of TV episodes and eleven movies, coming soon. So where are the rampant articles declaring Star Trek a menacing evil to religion which will destroy God and bring about the end of a hallowed view of the universe? There aren't any. Not particularly.

The reason for this is simple. It is fashionable, at the moment, to attack Harry Potter books. What better a "me too" article could you write than a "Harry Potter is Evil And Bad And Stuff," article? What an easy thing to find a home for. It's like writing a lazy article that says "Those Muslim Terrorists Sure Are Bad Aren't They?" I bet you could find a home for it. But it's lazy, it's following a crowd that is, upon closer inspection, made up of mostly non-literate lemmings who are getting ever closer to a cliff.

I find, in my little bookstore, that the people who scoff at Harry Potter...usually have never read anything beyond Dr. Phil self help books, Sylvia Browne books on Finding Angels For Real This Time In Your Life, and occasional romance novels called things like Her Thunderous Heart.

Does that give them the right to judge? No. It won't stop them, but they have no right. They are Pharisees paying a crowd to shout "crucify him." They are knee-jerk fools with no thought beyond the popular conceit.

Does having a wider reading base give someone a right to judge? No. No. No. Who are you, or me, or anyone to decide if a book is good or bad? This is where censorship has come from, one of the greatest unnoticed evils of our lifetimes. I personally have a hearty loathing of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code style tripe, but would I prevent someone from reading it? No. Would I declare it evil terrorist propaganda? No. I have not the right. I have an opinion. Nothing more.

Articles about the evil of Harry Potter consign the author to the same bin of worthless fools as people who declare that Elvis will destroy the morality of America, television brings lawlessness and godlessness into the home, video killed the radio star, and so on.

I have this nagging suspicion that God doesn't care if we read or don't read Harry Potter, if we do or don't take back Jerusalem, if we kill the Muslims, or if we "kill them all, and let God sort them out."

This article makes it frankly embarrassing to be Catholic. Fortunately, there's more to a good religion than fools with pitchforks and stupid opinions.

Fortunately, there's more to life than that too.

Doin' the Happy Dance!

2007-08-21T14:59:00.000-07:00

I don't know WHY I'm doing the happy dance. Well, I know, but it's ill-timed. School is starting next week. Which means my PTO involvement is about to ratchet up about 185 notches. That's on top of the job and the whole being a wife and mother and not letting the cats starve thing.

So what does my traitorous brain do?

It gives me a fabulous idea.

For a freaking NOVEL.

*sigh*

I'm alternating between the Happy Dance and the What The Hell's Wrong With You Dance.

I'm also doing this novel in first person, which is new for me, but it seems to be the way to go.

Gak, I soooo don't have time for this right now!!!

~~Happy dance~~

>>deep despair<<

~~Happy dance~~

>>deep despair<<

~~Happy dance~~

>>deep despair<<

I think I need a refill of my PHENTERMINE. :oD

Nerves all a'jangles.

2007-08-19T19:35:00.000-07:00

It's been another long weekend, where all sorts of plans I had (relax; sleep; write; work on the Variety Hour's New Plot Direction) were put to the wayside by Mr. Baby developing a 101.9 degree fever and us getting to rush him to the Emergency Room. They checked him out and, because he's a baby of only a month (help!) old, they admitted him to a room to run a bunch of tests. They have to make sure it's not bacterial, because that can progress alarmingly fast and kill 'im.

So. I've been in the hospital all Friday, Saturday, Sunday (I went to work for seven hours on Sunday, a brief parole) and Monday. And, depending on what the tests show, possibly Tuesday as well. I'm here right now, in this cozy little hospital room. If ever you need a perfect writer's spot, come to this room. It's wonderful.

So. THAT was nerve-wracking. And exaperating. My second weekend in a row spent around the hospital.

But the thing that's really on my nerves* is the fact that I'm launching a web-based serial science fiction story tomorrow, Monday, August 20th. I had a lot of publicity planned around the first episode, and sadly a lot of it was cut short by trying to organize things from the hospital. Still, a couple of sites will make mention of it's launch, and I'm once again writing on the internet. I'm very nervous. The last time I did a web serial was maybe 2001, and it ended very badly for me.

Some good news, the artist I wanted onboard agreed. He didn't have to. I can't guarantee I'm going to make a single red cent for myself, or for the series, let alone for him. He signed on because he digs the story, and because we're friends. I found out that he signed on today, while I was at work. My wife called. I was very, very happy. I think every writer has an artist whom they click exactly with, and Christoffer Saar is mine. I'll give him a description of something and what he'll bring back is more accurate than what was in my head.

(For those of you AW'ers on here, remember when I was participating in that How To Write Comic Books thread, and I called in a favor with an artist who turned a one-page script of mine into a rough layout? That was Chris Saar.)

Also, this afternoon while at work, I wrote a short story. I really like it. I think I did some things with it that I hadn't done before, and I really nailed the emotion I was going for. One of those blessed few stories where what you picture in your head is actually less than what comes out on paper. Usually, it's the other way around. I never quite reach what I'm aiming for.

It's called Into Silence, Like A Shout. It's about 3,500 words long. It's on-purpose about as High Fantasy as a story can be, or rather, it's about High Fantasy. And several other things. I'm glad I finished it. If I'd had to come back to it, I never would have found the tone again. I'm very proud of it.

Okay, time to go hold my son, who is a wriggle-worm, and to sit around and be bustingly nervous about my series launch tomorrow.

I'll post a link to it in the morning. Check it out, please, please.

To Bore the Ever-Loving Shit Out Of You...

2007-08-16T15:31:00.000-07:00

As promised! *grin*

Here's my lengthy trip report!

Day One: Miami, Florida

We got up at 3 AM. Well... I got up at 3 AM. Hubby got up at 3:20, and it took us until almost 3:50 to get Son up. And we had to leave at 4, sharp. Needless to say, I wasn't thrilled with our roaring start. Son was cranky, but he did chill out on the ride to the airport. We got to the airport at 5:00 for our 6:00 flight. (We flew Delta on the way down to Miami.) We checked our bags without incident.We got to the gate and had a few minutes to sit around.

The guy at the counter was a complete moron. He told us there was a slight delay because there was a mechanical problem. "Hopefully it's not anything serious," he says into the loudspeaker.

WTH?? Idiot. He must have missed "Gloss Over Everything" Day at airline employee training. Then he announces that there's no working toilet on the plane, so use the restroom now. Turns out the mechanical problem was a faulty latch on the cargo hold. They fixed it, and away we went.

It was Son's first time flying and he was really nervous. I was trying to reassure him, while not admitting that I was a tad apprehensive myself. Some people should NOT be allowed to have access to loudspeakers.We finally took off at 6:30, with plenty of time to make our connection in Atlanta. Son decided flying was pretty cool. The clouds were huge and puffy and white against the perfect blue background. It was absolutely gorgeous.

Atlanta airport is HUGE. We went to our gate to wait for our connection, and I got to charge my cell phone. They have nifty stations set up - round tables with outlets so you can plug stuff in or work while you wait for your flight. They also had a Cinnabon, so guess what we had for breakfast!

The flight from Atlanta to Miami was a bit smoother... no idiots making announcements there! Unfortunately, Hubby & I both got really bad earaches. We each had one ear that just refused to pop and it hurt like hell. Not to mention not being able to hear right. Ugh.

Getting onto the ship was smooth as could be. Royal Caribbean is uber-organized and absolutely wonderful at making sure you're on VACATION. They keep all the paperwork and checking in stuff to a minimum. They now have a fabulous online checkin process, which I used, so we just had to go to the counter, show our ID and credit card (for on-board purchases) and we got our SeaPass cards and onto the ship we went.

We got on board and went right to our room to unload our carry-on stuff, which mysteriously got heavier and heavier by the minute. After we unloaded, we went up to the Windjammer for a buffet lunch. Hubby & I both thought it was excellent, but Son was less than impressed. We went back to the room, where I took a cat-nap and they went off to explore the ship.We decided that since we only go on vacation every 5+ years, we were springing for the good room. I'm glad we did. We got a Junior Suite, which has its own bathroom and a private balcony. It was WELL worth the extra cost.

Around 2:00, there was a big thunderstorm that lasted about 2 1/2 hours. After it was done, it was absolutely beautiful! It took out all the humidity, and it was just lovely. On the hot side, but very comfortable!

At 4:30 we had the mandatory life jacket drill. Afterwards, we came back to the room to relax for a little bit. (Relax for the guys meant checking out the flat-screen TV in our room. For me, it meant digging out all the toiletries and putting our travel documents in a safe place.) We watched the ship pulling out of the dock and heading out into the ocean.

For dinner, we went to Johnny Rocket's. It was awesome. It's a little 50's style diner with jukeboxes on the tables and a red and chrome decor. Very fun! It reminded me a lot of Zimmie's (local diner that went out of business YEARS ago), which I miss tons!

In the evening, we walked around the ship and just hung out. Very low-key. We were back to the room and in bed by 9 because we were all exhausted and the dolphin encounter was first thing Tuesday morning, so we wanted to be rested up.

Day Two: Nassau, Bahamas

When I got up at 7, we were pulling into the dock. We got breakfast at the Windjammer (gotta love those buffets!) and then got ready to leave for our Dolphin Encounter on Blue Lagoon Island. We followed our tour guide out and - of course - she conveniently led us through a cluster of little merchants and shops and down a side street to a water ferry. We rode the ferry about 25 minutes to the island. We saw the Atlantis resort and lots of amazingly beautiful homes along the shore. The water was crystal clear, and you could see to the bottom. Very very cool.

We got to the island and walked down a little pier into the Dolphin Encounter. They split us into groups of 30 people, and then each group went onto a square platform in the water. Inside each square was a sort of "sidewalk" type platform. We sat around the square, just watching a few dolphins frolicking a few feet away. Awesome.

Our dolphin was Andy, but he was rather temperemental and didn't feel like interacting. All the dolphin activities are voluntary, which is cool, so we had to wait for another dolphin who was in the mood to interact. We got Goombay, who turned out to be perfect. He was really into being in the group, and we had an amazing time. First, they led each family onto the water platform, where we got a family picture with one of us getting a kiss from the dolphin. Son was a bit timid, so I got the kiss. *grin* The picture turned out awesome, I love love love it.

After the families were done, we were split into 3 groups of 10. We were in the first group. We all walked into the water on the platform and the trainer brought the dolphin around to each of us. We all hugged the dolphin and gave him a kiss, then we got to rub his back and his belly. Then we danced with him. It was so much fun! Son was still a bit timid, I think it was mostly because the water under our platform was deep and it was freaking him out.When our group of 10 was done, we got to leave the platform. We wandered around the gift shop and then out back to see the Sea Lions, who were hiding. Only one was lounging in the water. We went back through the gift shop and they had DVDs for sale of our group interacting. The DVDs were $58, so we decided to not buy it. We did, however, buy $59 worth of photos. (The minute we left, I regretted not buying the DVD. Turns out, you can order them online, so I ordered it. Now I'll have to pay an arm & a leg for shipping, but I don't care. Reverse buyer's remorse????)

We rode the ferry back to the dock. For some reason, it was rough, and I wasn't feeling so well by the time we got back to the dock. I got a massive headache, thanks to the rough ride and the high humidity. So we got back to the ship and I took a short nap. I felt a LOT better, so we went back on shore and checked out a ton of little shops. There was a Hard Rock Cafe, a Burger King, and a Subway. Not quite what I think of when I think "Bahamas".

Dinner in the Windjammer. Yum.

Day Three: CocoCay, Bahamas

Wow. The ocean in the Bahamas is the most amazing mixture of colors. And so clear you can almost see the bottom. In fact, in the more shallow areas, you can. It's just breathtaking.Today, we were anchored off the shore of CocoCay and had to take a ferry from the ship to the shore. We were the first off the boat, so we had some time to walk around before our Glass-bottom boat tour. I was really looking forward to seeing some colorful ocean life.

We chilled on lounge chairs while we waited. CocoCay is reserved for Royal Caribbean's private use only. It's basically a beachy extention of the ship. There are a handful of little shops and thousands of lounge chairs. And little else.

We weren't allowed to take any shells from the island, which was a bummer. Son and I found a ton of tiny little shells that would have been perfect for in the scrapbook, or in a little jar. Or something. But we did the Right Thing and didn't smuggle any back on board.

The glass bottom boat tour was a huge disappointment. I suppose it's my own fault for having such high expectations. I thought it would be a big boat. With a glass bottom. That you can look through. Crazy, I know. Turns out it's not. It's a 3-level boat with glass panels on the bottom deck. So we had to sit on the upper decks and take turns going below to see what we could see. Which was, not surprisingly, not much of anything. We saw a few starfish and some plants. And sand. Lots and lots of sand. Meh.

At the end of the tour, the boat pulled close to the shore and we fed bread crumbs to some colorful fish. That was pretty cool. The fish would actually jump out of the water trying to get the bread before all the other fish got to it.

Overall, it was just hot and crowded and lame. Won't be doing THAT again.

By the time we got back to the island, it was so miserable hot that we all had sweat just running down our faces and backs. Ick. We poked around the shops VERY briefly and hopped the first ferry we could back to the ship.

We grabbed some lunch and then I sat on the balcony to write in my journal. We were positioned perfectly! We were on the shady side of the ship, and there was a wonderful air going, so it was comfortable out there.

CocoCay was a fair disappointment for all of us. We decided that if we do that cruise again, we'll just stay on board for CocoCay. We were very much looking forward to the next day: Key West.

Day Four: Key West, Florida

We had high, high hopes for Key West, as it was our very favorite place when Hubby & I cruised 5 years ago.

As luck would have it, the captain announced that we would be arriving early and would have an extra hour and a half in Key West. Yay!

As MY luck would have it, we had to go through an on-board customs checkpoint before we could leave the ship.

Surprisingly, we had more good luck. We were supposed to be in the first group to go through customs, at 7:00 AM. We got there at about 6:45 and were probably about the tenth people in line. By 7, there were at least 100 people in line. So we got to zip right through. It was super easy - just show our ID and travel documents and off we went.

We got off the ship and walked around a little bit before coming back to the pier to meet up with our tour. We opted for a repeat of the tour we took last time: a Conch train tour of the island, plus a visit to the Aquarium and the Shipwreck Historeum. We ended up on the very last seat of the train, facing backwards, with zero shade in intense heat. Needless to say, it wasn't my favorite tour. It was okay, though. Still better than CocoCay. :oP

After the train ride, which lasted about an hour, we were dropped in Old Town, which is walking distance from the pier. We went through the aquarium and the Shipwreck Historeum, then climbed the tower. Oy. My legs were shaky til we climbed back down. #1, I hate heights, and #2, I'm waaaaay out of shape. And I was peeved because it was so crowded that we couldn't get a good picture of us with the ship in the background. Although I did get a decent one of just Hubby & Son.

We checked out a bunch of little shops, and watched the chickens walking around the sidewalks. Yes, chickens. And one mangy cat.

One thing I noticed - Even though it was hot and humid and muggy everywhere we were, there weren't any bugs.

Anyway. We walked around Key West and just had a wonderful time. We took lots of pictures with statues. Hubby's favorite was a scantily clad pirate woman with big boobs. LOL

Key West was just perfect for us - lots to see, but everything is just so laid back and we just took our time and did what we wanted to. We can't wait to go back!

Finally we went back on the ship. We had to get our stuff packed and set out for disembarking in the morning.We were slated to exit the ship at 7, so we would have to get up at 6 to get dressed and pack up the last of our carry-on stuff.

Day Five: Miami, Florida

I was up at 5 because I kept waking up, panicking that I had put our travel documents in our checked luggage. I forgot my glasses, so I had to put my contacts in to check the papers in my carry-on bag. (Yes, I'm blind as a bat.) Of course the docs were right where they should have been.

We were up and around and to the Windjammer at 6:30 for breakfast. Along with everyone else on the ship. We were slated to exit in the 7:00 - 7:15 time slot, so we ate fast and went back to the room to grab our carry-ons and do a last minute check to make sure we didn't leave anything behind.

We got off the ship and onto a bus to head to the Miami airport. We were at the airport by about 7:45. Our flight wasn't until 2:55.We gave our checked luggage over to the US Airways rep and headed for the terminal and settled in for a loooooong wait.

We noticed that all the US Air flights were late coming in and going out. Hmmm.At 2:40, they decided to tell us that our flight was behind. Way behind. Great. We had a 50 minute connection to start with. They tell us that there's no way we're making our connection, and they'll put us up in Charlotte, or they can get us to Philadelphia and put us up. No thanks. We want to go the heck HOME.

We got on the plane to Charlotte. We made up some time in the air, and had about 8 minutes to get from Concourse B-4 to Concourse E-18. They made an announcement to please let off passengers with Indianapolis connections because they had such a tight connection. WTH? It wasn't as tight as ours, by a longshot. Screw it, we jumped off with the Indy people. US Air had a cart waiting for the Indy people. Who had more time and not as far to go. And nothing for us. Bastards.

So we ran. Literally RAN through the Charlotte airport. We made it! They held the doors for us, and then about 2 minutes later another group ran in, gasping and looking as rough as we were.

I was so relieved I almost cried. We flew to Harrisburg. (Almost home!)

One of our bags did not.

They managed to screw up and put someone else's name on our one suitcase. That someone else was bound for Houston. W.T.H???

So we came home. I was livid. The woman in Harrisburg was a complete idiot with the attention span and listening comprehension of a maggot.

Our bag was finally delivered to our door Sunday night around 8:30. Hooray. Everything was intact and fine. I hope the souvinirs had a nice time in Houston.

SUMMARY

I left a LOT out of the last section, mostly because I'm sick of bitching about US Air and how much they suck. I wouldn't fly them again if I got free round trip tickets. (Well... maybe if they were FREE...)

Instead, I'll focus on the good stuff, which there was a LOT of. Son was perfectly behaved during the airport debacle. (Not going to point out the hissy fits during the cruise though. Tuesday morning was the worst, but after that he was very good.)

Nassau was beautiful and we'd go back in a heartbeat. We would definitely do the dolphin encounter again, too.

Key West is just wonderful. We picked up one of those freebie real estate guides, and if I ever come into an extra $6 mil, we're moving to Key West.

Royal Caribbean is fantastic. I highly recommend a cruise to anyone. It's the perfect vacation. You just get to the ship and everything else is taken care of. Food around the clock - delicious food, and such a variety! They had several different ethnic tables to serve all the different people on board. Every Royal Caribbean employee we came in contact with was friendly and pleasant. Not a grouch in sight. ;o)

CocoCay... Meh. I could take it or leave it.

All in all, it was a wonderful vacation. A much needed vaction. This has been a hard year for us, so it was great to be able to go and kick back and just not worry about anything. THAT is what a vacation should be. And it was.

Angst from my angst-ridden soul

2007-08-16T08:52:00.001-07:00

I came on to write a chatty post, free of angst, about how my robot series is finally coming to life and how happy I am that I'll get to write it after all. I was also going to talk about how I've set myself a deadline to finish my Rome novel by September 13th (which, it just occurs to me, is also my wedding anniversary).

However, the door rang and the mail lady gave me a package. "Jaycinth" is the name on the return address.

Inside the package is as follows:

1) A heavy ceramic dish

2) Which has gummy worms in it

3) As well as the best macadamia and butterscotch cookies this world has ever known.

So instead of sharing feelings with you, I'm going to sit here and stuff my face unto death.

Oh, and sleepy Zach says hi.

*wave*

Let me tell you about MY weekend.

2007-08-13T23:01:00.000-07:00

Worst weekend ever. EVER.

Let's break it down.

Friday daytime was busy, full of a busy work shift, time spent with all sorts of families. I'm already a very stressed out person, so it was a long day. But not as bad as...

FRIDAY NIGHT: Friday night was a fascinating experience of ups and downs. Many a time have we told my wife's mother that we have bad storms here in Minnesota. She, being an idiot, has no idea what this means. She lives in Nevada. They get slightly muddy out there. So while visiting us, every time we had a drizzle or some wind and a few clouds, she'd titter, "Oh you had your storm!"

"That was not a storm."

So on Friday night, we got hit. I mean nailed. On a doppler map, the extreme dark red part of the storm nailed St. Cloud, us in particular. The storm was a huge, violent, long-running, powerful thing. Lightning struck the field next to us and across the street from us. It brought down trees. At around midnight, it struck our building itself and we lost almost all the electricity in the building. The wind was at seventy miles an hour. Nickel-sized hail. Pounding rain, flooding. Everything.

So on the plus side, I'm happy that my wife's mother is going into a panic attack about this. I'm not keen on her anyway, and it's about time she got to experience a storm. "That's a mother-effing storm, damn it!" I would have gleefully shouted.

The hallways were mostly dark. There were patches of lights on. There was also a deep throbbing HUM from the elevator, God knows why. Anyway, it was deeply frightening in the hallways, and not just because I can give myself the heebie-jeebies at the drop of a hat. Creepy.

So, we had to go down to Mother-In-Law's guest apartment (where she lived, one floor below us, for the longest month of my life) to bring her some matches and candles, since we had no power. My wife went down there once by herself while I stayed with Tzinski 2.0. She came back up reporting that 1) M-I-L had not answered 2) It was creepy 3) All throughout the floor, there was this loud sound of a distressed cat meowing, as if it were coming at you from the walls themselves. Freaky.

So, I went down with her the second time. Her mom answered. It was delightful to watch her freaking out. Then, we went back out into the hallway. Standing in the apartment building's hallway was a cat. A skinny little cat, part Siamese, with beautiful blue eyes and a terrified meow.

I managed to pick it up, when it came to me. Without knowing what else to do, we took it back upstairs and locked it in our bathroom, gave it food or water. It seemed a bit like an outdoor cat, although it was trusting of people and knew how to use a litter box. We had no idea.

The storm went, and kept us up, until 5:00am. By the time the storm finished for good so we could have gotten sleep, it was 6:30. Zach was beginning to wake up. We had to meet Renee's parents at 7:00. They wound up getting some sleep. We got zero sleep.

SATURDAY DAYTIME: This is the day when we deal with her parents, and then with my parents, and then I have to go to work, where it was extremely busy. I am running on maybe a total of twenty minutes sleep. You thought I was hypertensive and an unkind person before? You should see me here. BY that night, I'm weird and tired and miserable and haven't really eaten any food all day. Which brings us to:

SATURDAY NIGHTTIME: Zach stayed up all night, and I do mean all damn night. And when he wasn't up, I was taking care of my wife, who was unable to get warm, despite the fact that she had four heavy blankets on her. She was also running a fever. She couldn't take care of the baby, or herself. So I had to do both. And also keep an eye on the hyper cat in the bathroom. Saturday night, I got maybe an hour of sleep. So, this is two nights of almost no sleep.

SUNDAY DAYTIME: I go to work. Half an hour later, my wife calls. She has a fever of 103.7 degrees. She is barely conscious. Certainly, she can't take care of the baby. So I made lots of frantic phone calls until I found someone who could cover for me. I got home and my sister and I took my wife (and son, who can't stay home yet) to the Emergency Room. We got to the hospital at 12:30. They admitted her to a room at 3:00. They treated her eventually. We finally got to go home at 8:30 at night. We also didn't get to eat all day. Nothin'.

SUNDAY NIGHT: We get home. We have to take care of Zach, who no longer wants to sleep. Also, a hyper cat. My wife fortunately began to feel better and tended to Tzinski 2.0 a little bit, and I mercifully got a little bit more sleep. Which brings us to:

MONDAY DAY: Where I worked, began to recover from the worst weekend ever, took the cat to the humane society (which is a whole blog post by itself, since Humane Societies are generally about as helpful as killing the animal yourself; I swear they get their rocks off killing things)

and

MONDAY NIGHT: When I write a blog post.

So. How are you tonight?

Got My Luggage!

2007-08-13T15:59:00.001-07:00

We got our suitcase Sunday night around 8:45. Hooray.

US Air still sucks.

Back From Vacation! US Airways Sucks!

2007-08-11T08:35:00.000-07:00

What do you mean, "Oh... you were gone??"

We had a lovely time on our cruise. I'll post details later, and bore the ever-loving shit out of you. I promise.

Today is reserved for my loathing and disgust with US Airways. I hate them all. May the airline go bankrupt. (Cheers!)

We arrived at the airport 7:30 Friday morning for a 2:45 flight. Yeah, won't be using THAT travel agency again. Anyway. All was spiffy until we noticed that Every. Single. US Air. Flight. Was. LATE. Coming in, going out, didn't matter. We also noticed that every Delta, AA, Norwegian Air, Bob's Airplane Service (and Bait & Tackle) was On. Time.

Our flight was almost an hour late. We had a 50 minute window to make the connection. Well, now we're down to -10 minutes. EVERYONE ELSE on the flight was rebooked to better connections. Except us. We're cursed or something. We go up to the counter to ask WTH??? and the guy's like "Oh... yeah. You're heading to Harrisburg. We were going to talk to you last."

Uh-oh. That can't be good.

"There's no way you're going to make your connection and we don't have anything else available until tomorrow."

Really. Not. Good.

"We can get you to Philadelphia and put you up in a hotel."

Um, no.

"Or we can put you up in Charlotte."

Slightly better, but still... no.

We wait for the flight to Charlotte, and en route, the pilot makes up some time. We now have a fabulous 8 minutes to make our connecting flight.

We land in Concourse B 4.

By the time we got off the plane, we had 5 1/2 minutes. Of course, the connecting flight was on time. Bastards.

Connection is in Concourse E 18. As you can see, it's a freaking hike.

Concourse E is up here ...................................X

and B is here ^

We RAN through the airport and made it just as they were closing the doors. They let us on (HOORAY!).

My chest was on fire. I am way out of shape. Oy.

We land in Harrisburg. (Yay! Almost home!)

But.

Only one of our suitcases landed with us.

Keep in mind, we had gotten up at 5 A.M. to be off the ship & to the airport. It's now 8:45 P.M. I was *not* a happy camper. Throw in a complete bitch with a comprehension deficiency at the luggage counter, and I'm ready to twist someone's head off and play soccer with it.

The dimwit in Miami put someone else's name on one of our suitcases. It is taking the scenic route to Harrisburg from Miami, via Houston.

Allegedly, we are guaranteed to have our suitcase within 48 hours. Yeah. I'll believe it when I have it in my hands.

What really irks me is that 90% of my souvinirs are in that suitcase. And my favorite jeans. I just want my stuff.

Grrrrrrr.

The War Overseas

2007-08-09T16:11:00.000-07:00

No, not that war. Another war.

People keep telling me I look really tired (which is really true) and they assume that it's because of the baby. This is incorrect. Actually, we've all settled into nice routines, Me, Myne Wyfe, & My Son. It's the in-laws that wear me out.

There are lots of reasons. Mostly, they're idiots. If they read this (which I doubt), I am unapologetic. Most exhausting of all is how deeply racist they all are. I really lucked out with Myne Wyfe, apparently. She's the sane, good-looking, intelligent one of the tribe.

(Examples of racism: My sister makes an offhand comment that there's a lot of crime in Washington D.C.. Mother-in-Law's first comment is, "So there's a lot of black people in the area...?" OR, My sister points out that the caretaker of our apartment building is rude to her. Mother-In-Law: "So is she Mexican?")

It's lazy racism. She's just stupid. For example, although black people and Mexicans are apparently evil (I forgot; we apparently are in danger of terrorism here in Minnesota because we have a lot of people from Africa and Simolea here.) she goes on and on about how Italy and Italians have a "different and unique culture," (because she's Italian). THey are just different. It's not bad. Just different. Different culture. Were that she allowed other cultures to have differences too.

Anyway, apart from this, we get a lot of telemarketing calls around the house. Lord knows why. For the past few days, I've been angry enough (translation: really wants to put an axe through someone's face; anyone will do) that I've gotten through my phone phobia and started taking telemarketing calls. I'm not mean. I doubt I'm capable of being mean. But I'm not nice, and I feel better for a bit.

Three calls, the past two days, have been from some unknown name and weird number I didn't recognize. I didn't think anything of it. I would answer them. Some deep, accented male voice would say. "....Hello....? Renee...is there....?"

"Nope," I would say, "Wrong number. She's gone for a bit." and then when they started stammering, I'd hang up. Take THAT, outsourced telemarketing bastards!

This morning, after the third call from this same deep voice, my wife looked at the number.

"That's an Italy number," she said. "Probably one of M-I-L's relatives. She gave out our number to everyone."

I have therefore been rudely hanging up on some Italian relative of Renee's whom we've never met, who probably doesn't even speak English (the last time one of her relatives called from Italy, he babbled at us in Italian for thirty seconds and we hung up in confusion).

I'm a teensy bit guilty-feeling about this. Mostly, I'm enjoying it.

Excuse me, I have to go sharpen my axe.

Are you there, God? It's me, Satan.

2007-08-06T21:13:00.000-07:00

Before The Dawn of Time:

Hey, God. Sorry to bother you. I know you're getting ready for your project's big launch. I was just letting you know we got here okay. I hope you're not still mad at us. No hard feelings, huh? Really spacious down here. A bit warm, but we'll manage.

300 Million B.C.:

Hey, me again. I wandered around Earth a bit last week, hope you don't mind. Nice place, really pretty, great job on the fjords. When I still upstairs, I heard you had Slartibartfast on those. Was that still the case? He did a great job. I'm getting a really red rash all over my body and wings from the heat. I think I'm allergic to brimstone, which is weird, 'cause there's a lot of it. No fun. Gotta go.

Genesis:

Hey, I just wanted to say sorry really quick. I know you were keen on that man and woman and all, but she was having such an issue with that diet thing of hers, you know, I didn't think it'd hurt, so I was all like 'fruit's great for you.' Totally didn't know what was up with that tree. I am all about making that up to you.

354 A.D.:

Hi. I know they were going on about what I was up to on Earth, so this is just an FYI to let you know I wasn't doing anything. It's all weird down there. I never know how to act. I know, I know, "when in Rome, do like the Romans," but when I was in Rome, it was weird. So I've been working from home. Hope things are okay there. We tried putting in a cooling system, but all I get is sulfur out of it. Really sucks. Later.

1969:

Hey, God. I know they're going on and on about me getting into the music scene, you know, but I'm really not. I don't get that rock and roll stuff at all. I'm big into classical and blues, you know, so I try to enjoy that whenever I'm on Earth. It's a shame that when they die, they go up there. All I get down here are rock and rollers and these guys from ghettos who talk in rhyme to beats. I don't know what to do with them. I gave them the sulfur cooling system.

1999:

I know you don't normally tell people this stuff -- tight-lipped guy, you are! ha ha! -- but I was wondering if the world was REALLY ending? Do I need to be clearing room for the final arrivals? Only we're pretty full right now. This free-verse poetry thing has really filled up our nooks and crannies. BTW, I thought that Y2K thing was a hoot! You're such a kidder.

2007:

Emo kids: not me. Can I not have them when they go? Honestly, the grunge folks are bad enough. Also, WTF is up with Scientology? Sometimes, I just don't get your jokes.

Gotta go. Later.

Yrs.
Satan

Writing skullduggery

2007-08-02T10:25:00.000-07:00

Remember that bit where I mentioned I'd done a good 2,500 words?

Well, I started to type them into the manuscript, making my changes as I went and reading it for errors.

Then I realized that some of the logistics were off.

Then I realized that the whole scene was off.

Then I realized that the scene, as it's being told, Does Not Work. I think it needs to be told by another character, who is looking back on the scene. But I'm not sure that works either. I keep putting it together that way in my head and it comes off awkward.

So I thought maybe I should tell it from the bad guy's standpoint. Except I haven't gotten into a bad guy's head this whole time and wasn't planning on it. And there aren't many details to tell from the bad guy's standpoint. So THAT doesn't work.

So, having typed up 1,000 out of the 2,500 words, I have stopped typing. I will need to erase a chunk of this (not too much, possibly, I hope).

It's not that I hate the You are on the wrong track alarm that goes off in my head. That's dead useful, like a Spider Sense. It's that it doesn't come equipped with a here's the right track alarm which tells me where to go instantly. So rather than working, I get to just stew on it. Hmph.

Anyone want to finish this Rome novel for me? Can we stop the ride? Can I get off?

*beleagured wave, then heads off to Run Errands With Wife & Baby*

Because I have been asked...

2007-08-02T07:16:00.000-07:00

Since some people are hazy about where in Minnesota I live, and so I would like to say that:

1) I live in St. Cloud, forty-five minutes away from the cities.

2) I am fine, my family and friends are fine.

3) I am nonetheless deeply heartbroken for the people who WERE on the bridge when it collapsed.

4) Moment of weirdness is that we now have to find a new route for our trip to the cities, which was planned on Friday and would have been in the vicinity of the bridge.

...

That said, life around here is peacefully chaotic. Zach, ignorant of all the horror stories you hear about newborn babies, behaves himself and is thoroughly enjoyable. When he cries, or fusses, then his diaper is dirty or he's hungry. Fix whichever the problem is and he settles back down. He spends lots of time awake, but he's quiet and peaceful. Just enjoys looking around. (Not that he can focus more than 15 inches in front of himself yet, but nevermind.)

Runt, one of our three sibling cats (and then we have our fourth non-related cat), is a deeply jealous and insecure cat who doesn't like having to compete for attention with other cats. He needs to be cuddled and felt loved. We always say he'd be a perfect old lady cat. We were curious to see how he'd do with the baby, since he tends to get scared and react with hostility toward new arrivals.

He is fascinated and fixated on the baby, in a non-violent way. He wants to be near Zach and lie by him, he acts in a non-afraid and comfortable manner. He acts different (more dignified and secure) around us now too. It's a complete change.

The other day, he found a way into the crib on accident. This Is A Bad Thing, and of course we've remedied the situation. It was no less adorable, though, to come in the bedroom and find Zach sound asleep with Runt curled up at his feet, just looking at him.

The other night, I wrote 2,500 words of Rome novel; the first thing I've written since about three weeks before Renee had the baby. I'm not back on track yet (and, having plenty of non-writing time to think and analyze it, I realize I've been off-track for years now) but maybe I'm getting there. I think I have a very long-winded article/post to write, mostly for my own benefit, talking about my writing and where it perhaps went wrong. Of course, that'll be for another day. My computer time is a bit limited these days, which is not entirely a bad thing.

I love Zach to death. Have I mentioned that? Honestly, he's great. Yessir, I will love him right up to the bit where he gets colic, and then I'm going to sell him to Wal-Mart production shops.

...

I got a haircut. I have short hair again. Profoundly weird. I look like a human being for example. Since everyone in the world prefers me with short hair ("it makes you look like an adult, and NOT a lemur") I have it now. I always mean to gather up my hair when they cut it and donate it to something useful, but I can never get up the courage to ask the nice (and not totally unattractive) girl who cuts me hair if she will please sweep my dead hair into a bag for me. For a good cause? Yes. Profoundly weird? Hoyeah.

Also, what is it with people in haircut places having really awful haircuts? How is this a good thing? You want a guy with a boring simple haircut and girls who very little hairstyle at all. You don't want them to have only half a head of hair which is spiked and looks bizarre and hungry. Do you? Of course not. Would you go to a doctor who was covered in scars and missing an eye, 'cuz he liked to practice? That's what I thought.

Whoops. Mr. Baby's awake. Off I go!

New Toys!

2007-07-28T19:18:00.001-07:00

I got myself some new toys today! Since Pete got a new baby and all, I thought I should have something new as well, but I wanted something that didn't poop or cry. ;o)

I ended up at OfficeMax (drool, I looooooove office supplies) and I bought myself a nifty 250G external hard drive. My computer is about 5 years old... I know, that's like a billion in computer years, but there's not a darn thing wrong with it other than I'm running out of space. I've never had this one apart, so I didn't want to mess with internal stuff. I spent the better part of my evening backing up my photos and music, my two biggest spacehogs. I also burned all the photos to CD that hadn't already been done. But I just can't make myself delete the pictures off the computer yet.

I also bought myself a new camera. Since I'm going on a cruise in a few short days, I wanted a small camera that I can tote around all day, every day. I have a Canon PowerShot S2 IS, which I love, love, LOVE. But it's big and bulky and not good for carrying around for long periods of time. I also have a PowerShot A430 that I got dirt cheap for my kid to use.

I saw a nifty waterproof Pentax that caught my eye, so I went into three - THREE - different stores, and in EVERY store, the display model was inoperative. All three of them. So my thought was that A) There's a disgruntled Pentax ex-customer going around destroying all display models of that specific camera, or B) They don't handle actual usage well and I shouldn't buy one. I went with B) and didn't buy one.

I *did* however, buy a Canon PowerShot SD1000, which is tiny and freaking adorable. I decided on it because Canon has never done me wrong, even back to my 35mm days. It was also on sale, which helped sway my decision. It's no bigger than a deck of cards, and the screen on the back is a really nice 2.5". It's also got 7.1 MP and a 3x optical zoom. Not quite as much zoom as I like (the S2 IS has 12x), but it'll suffice for vacation and everyday stuff. It's also tiny enough that I can just keep it in my purse for whenever photo-taking opportunities arise. Yay.

Oh, and 2G memory cards were on sale Buy one, get one free. Double Yay. Now I can put one in my S2 and have one in the new one. Son will inherit my 1G, I guess.

Huh?

2007-07-28T15:20:00.000-07:00

What the hell is "Pete's Shelf" and why is there no "Carrie's Shelf"???

*grumble grumble*

Tzinski 2.0 Released From Beta

2007-07-25T10:27:00.000-07:00

Associated Press

In a press conference, held today, the Tzinski corporation was pleased to announce that on July 24th, at 11:07am, Tzinski 2.0 was released to the public. Weighing in at six pounds, nine ounces and with a head of hair, this new model -- named Zachary Thomas Tzinski -- is expected to have a long product run.
"We are pleased with the launch of this new generation in our exciting Tzinski product line," said president and CEO Renee Tzinski, "And we are looking forward to many years of support for our customer line."
Also announced at this same press conference was that continued support of Tzinski 1.0 (jokingly called "Pete," by consumers) will continue.
"Although Tzinski 2.0 is exciting and groundbreaking in ways that our original model could never manage, we do intend to continue promoting and supporting the talents and abilities of Tzinski 1.0, which we think will still have at least two more years of use and active service."
No patches have been released for for Zachary Thomas Tzinski software, and already the hardware has already produced several ouputs.

.

Does he not shut up?

2007-07-22T22:50:00.000-07:00

Every night, without fail, when I click the Stumble button a few times and after I've cycled past the games and the cat pictures (honestly, how many of those do we need? I have four cats. I don't come online to look at MORE CATS), it brings me to some sort of writing page.

Most of these are harmless and I think little of them one way or the other. Some of them, though, are How To Write More Betterer pages. I don't understand them. I don't agree with them.

Tonight, I found The Snowflake Method.

Well...

I briefly considered going through the Snowflake Method bit by bit and taking it apart here, so you would have a long blog post to skip. But then I realized I really hate blogger who quote articles bit by bit just so they can snip at 'em.

So I'll snip at the whole thing. I am so manly.

Folks, you don't have to write a book like this. Your book doesn't have to be written step-by-mother'lovin' step. You don't need to write a one sentence followed by a paragraph followed by a page and so on. You can just meet a character and start writing. You can have a situation, a line of dialog, anything you want and just start writing! Do you like to outline? So just outline what you want to outline, in as garbled a mess as you need to, and then get on with it.

A query letter I got once, through BBT Magazine, had this line toward the bottom: My second novel is currently slated to enter production at the end of next month.

Neat! And I am currently slated to change my pants around the same time! It's not a damn movie. I realize that kid was just trying to sound highly impressive, but it just comes off as silly and lazy.

Writing gets way too high-handed at times. The writers do, I mean. The writing itself fails to care one way or the other. Writers are either plucking their mystical words out of the ether as their ethereal muse guides them along their paths to Byzantium, or else they are acting as though their books are movies, like above.

You can just write. Okay? Nothing more, nothing less, just write. That doesn't mean you have to write by the seat of your pants, because not everyone does that, but good lord. This is writing.

This is storytelling, when you get down to it. We are the descendants of the men who told stories around a campfire, handing them down from generation to generation, and of the women who told their own stories in their own languages that the young men did not know and the old men were too wise to learn. We owe it to each other to tell stories. Not tell each other how we're someday going to tell somebody a story.

It's like dieting by reading a ton of dieting books. You're still getting fatter. This is the same thing. You can outline and plan and prepare all you want, but if you don't get down to it sooner or later and just write, then you're not accomplishing anything. Sooner or later, it goes from planning to stalling. One is useful. The other is fear.

HP7

2007-07-21T17:06:00.001-07:00

I just finished it.

It was wonderful.

I loved it.

The best laid plans...

2007-07-20T04:31:00.000-07:00

My plan for working was something along the lines of "get in, do a half decent job, get out" and eventually quit and go back to being a stay-at-home-mom.

So what happens? On Thursday, I got a freaking promotion. Yeah, seriously. The other girl in my department has been off for minor surgery, so I've been shouldering a massive load. And apparently I'm pretty damn efficient. LOL

My boss kept telling me what a good job I was doing and how much she appreciated my efforts. Then yesterday, she tells me I got a promotion (same job, different level & pay scale) and ... a RAISE.

Now the really funny part is that the policy is that you have to be there for 2 years to get a promotion, but they made a freaking exception in my case. WTF?!

So I try to be half-decent and end up making myself indispensable. Something's just not right, here! LOL!!

Fortunately, my coworkers are 98% smart-asses, (talk about a good work environment!) so I've been getting comments about my diabolical plan for world domination, and this is just the first step. MUWAHAHAHAHAHA Little do they know that it's actually the THIRD step!

Er... never mind. You didn't just read that.

I'm not quite sure what I'm doing wrong. Maybe I need to TRY to be indispensable...

Nee-chee! Nee-chee!

2007-07-18T23:02:00.000-07:00

I don't have much to say tonight, because I'm reeeeeallly tired. The only reason I'm still upright + conscious is that I'm making a desperate effort to work on my Rome novel. It doesn't do me any good to know how it all goes from here to the very end if I don't work on it.

However, I have this link, and I just had to share it. Because what could be cooler than Jerry Springer Meets Philosophy? Honestly, Carrie and I should have written it. I'm ashamed we didn't.

Time to go see if I can do a thousand words or so, for the first time in two weeks. Wha-hey, I'm already at 700.

*zonks out*

Mechanical Animals

2007-07-16T09:14:00.000-07:00

I dunno. A lot of the time, I just don't get the rest of the writing world. I realize this is my fault and not their's, but still...

I stumbled (I should say Stumbled, as in StumbleUpon, which is Lori's fault) across this web-site a little while ago and, since it was for writers, I usually pause a moment and give it a look.

I gave diagramming sentences about thirty seconds of my time, because I didn't enjoy it in school and now, years later, I still don't enjoy it. I like to think I'm a good writer, but I'm not a mechanically minded one. That is to say, I could use a gerund properly in my everyday writing...but I don't think I could define it properly for you. (Actually, I can: in English, a gerund is identical to a present participle. I just think of them as the -ing words.)

So then, I wandered deeper into the web-site. I looked at right brain writing prompts, and I looked at the six-traits program. All of it comes off as useful -- which is an improvement, normally Stumble gives me a hairbrained self-published author who is telling me How To Get Rich Quick And Be My Own Publisher!!! which is really the LAST thing I want to be.

But anyway, I don't know if I'm being closed-minded (I try not to be, I really do) or if I'm just built wrong, but I read stuff like this and wind up going why? Is it really necessary? It fascinates me more than anything. When I spent time on AbsoluteWrite, it always fascinated me that some people could ONLY write at certain times of the day, or ONLY write with a certain computer, or ONLY write with certain music going, or, or...

And yet, and still...

As I get older, as my life gets busier and more full, I find that limitations start imposing themselves on me, probably out of exhaustion more than anything else. Yesterday, I just couldn't write with rock music (so I put on the Kingdom of Heaven soundtrack, because it's such a good one). For most of the past week, probably a little longer, I've mostly not been able to write. If I've gone on the computer, I just stare at it while my brain randomly bounces around like an epileptic hamster. Eventually, I turn it off and go to bed. I have two articles that I need to type up. I have short stories to send out.

So maybe I'm coming, the long way, to a medium-ground of writers where all sorts of prompts and games and tools, such as are found on that above site -- and countless other sites just like it -- are actually useful and necessary.

For the moment, it all still seems sort of alien to me and I'm cheerfully fascinated by it.

Happy News 1: Last night, I sat down and wrote five pages of notes, excited to the point of shaking. In the those five pages, I wrote down the scene I'm on right now in my Rome novel, and then mapped the story out, in detail, all the way through the very ending scene. I didn't change my ending like I thought I needed to, I just clarified it. I happily know my REAL ending scene now, and I like it. I could write it today, if I wanted.

Happy News 2: Myne wife...has NOT had the baby yet. Why is this happy news? Beats me. I was keeping with the motif. I wish the kid would just come OUT already. Honestly, what else has he got to do?

Okay. Rather than write (this is the most I've written in a few days) I'm going to gather up my wife and....go play Nintendo Wii. My baseball pro status awaits!

Harry Potter 5

2007-07-12T21:31:00.000-07:00

Whenever I go see a movie which I really enjoy I tend to, as a product of my childhood years, not talk about it. You can tell how much I like a movie by how much I Not Talk About It. When my wife and I saw Running With Scissors, for example, you could tell how much I liked it by the fact that I was incessantly telling people about it. (For the record: Everyone involved with that film should be hanged, drawn, quartered, and the film should be burned.)

Anyway.

When it comes to movies like Harry Potter, which I love as much as I loved Star Wars when I was a kid (before they made prequels and I realized it was all mostly garbage), I don't read reviews, I barely mention it. It just frustrates me when someone else disliked it -- especially when they can't explain why. Another thing that bugs me: Opinions without reasoning. If I like or dislike something, I have reasons. I don't always understand why the rest of the world sometimes doesn't.

Anyway...

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the movie, is thus-far my favorite movie. I'm glad that the movies are getting progressively darker as the books do. I'm glad that we got Dudley at the beginning. I'm glad that in parts, the movie made me jump

Delores Umbredge was creepy. I mean, out of the Twlight Zone creepy. She was done wonderfully. And Emma Watson was absolutely psychotic as LaStrange. But then, Emma Watson's always fun. I was happily surprised when I saw her. I didn't realize she was in this film. I've been busy with what's technically called "life," so I didn't really keep up on pre-production gossip. (Mostly, I don't care. I don't need to know every time the actors change caterers for lunches. C'mon.)

I haven't read Book 5 since it first came out (or book 6, for that matter). I've read each once. I remember them well enough. That's enough for me. This means that I don't get into a frothy lather when they cut something, or add something. Mostly, I don't notice. Or care. A movie is not a book, nor can they ever match up exactly. The only way to faithfully adapt a book to film is a TV series or mini-series. So when it comes to movies, all I ask is that they care and they are sincere. Hence why Batman Begins, which was nothing like the comics, is my favorite super-hero movie.

Harry Potter 5 was dark and visceral and funny. They finally used Filch, who has wonderful comedic potential. I enjoyed Luna's character no end.

The ONLY question I was left with after the movie was, if Hagrid's brother is THAT BIG...how did Hagrid's dad (normal sized) and Hagrid's mum (presumably also THAT BIG) how did they...you know...you know? I don't know. And I don't want to know.

And....I think Dumbledore might be able to take on Gandalf at this point, in a fight. Yes I do. Although Albus Dumbledore isn't an angel, like Gandalf. (What? Oh, just go read The Silmarillion).

So, I loved it. I am desperate for the next movie. I may re-read book six, just for my fix.

Oh, a final good thing about this movie. IT HAD NO TIME-TURNERS IN IT.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (no intentional spoilers)

2007-07-12T09:38:00.000-07:00

I saw the movie last night! I think this is the first time I've gone to a movie on its release date. The theater was packed. *PACKED* We got there about 15 minutes before the start of the movie due to getting off work, and we were lucky to get decent seats.

There were two guys in front of us who were holding 3 seats. We thought they were *for* someone. Nope. They were just seathogs. Seriously. It was: Empty seat, guy, empty seat, guy, empty seat. They had their mega jumbo huge popcorn on the middle seat, and apparently just wanted the other two seats for their invisible friends.

ANYWAY!

The movie. It was a weird combination. They took sooooooooo much more out of the book than in any other movie, yet this one was the hardest to follow if you hadn't read the book. Weird indeed.

The ladies playing Dolores Umbridge and Luna Lovegood were spot on, IMO. Bellatrix LeStrange was also excellent. Other stuff, not so much. The Order of the Phoenix which, um, is the whole freaking POINT, right???? is a bare mention. Nymphadora/Tonks was way underused, as was Kreacher.

There were a few slow parts, and a few edge-of-the-seat parts.

All in all, it was a good movie, and yeah, I'll buy it the day it comes out on DVD, but I won't be seeing it in the theater again, like I did with Goblet.

In spite of the amount of cleaned-up-freaking-hot Gary Oldman in this film, Prisoner of Azkaban is still my favorite.

This One Is Better.

2007-07-09T17:21:00.000-07:00

im in ur blog raysing ur cuteness

2007-07-08T23:53:00.001-07:00

Parent 'Hood, part one

2007-07-06T20:20:00.000-07:00

As many of you are no doubt aware, my wife is pregnant (with a child). The kid's definitely going to be out by the end of next week, if not sooner, so sayeth my wife. I believe her. I believe her because people keep telling me all sorts of stories about The Power of Maternal Instinct And Also Its Accuracy, so I'm going to just go with it.

For women, pregnancy is a big deal. A lot of human beings on the planet are women and I bet they agree with me here. There are countless things that a woman has to worry about. For example, she is gaining weight and has to deal with her changing body image and how she feels about it, as well as how she will adapt to being a mother and whether she will be good at it, and how she feels about that. Also, she needs to come to terms with her own mother, with how she will bring values into her child's life, with what sort of decorations to have in the baby's room, what sort of clothes to buy for the baby, whether to breast feed or use formula (which, it is hammered into you in medical places, is the devil's preferred baby feed). She has a lot of feelings about all these things.

Guys, mostly, are trying to be quiet and nice because we're afraid, deep down, that someone will point out that this is all our fault.

Thankfully, nobody really points this out. Well, your pregnant partner will as she is trying to get a kid the size of an engine block through a space the size of indoor pipes, but no one else points it out. Unfortunately, this doesn't mean they've forgotten.

Pregnancy classes, which I have attended with my wife, are designed specifically to punish guys for their part in all of this. Of course, you are told by smiling people with name tags and worryingly large salaries that the classes are to prepare you for giving birth. Giving birth, they are quick to say, is an intricate and immensely complicated project. This is why men build space shuttles and telescopes, as opposed to give birth.

Well, I see through the clever charade. Pregnancy can't actually require all of the things they say it does, because most of them were only invented in the past twenty years to give me something to spend money on (I had so few choices before). My heart goes out to the Cro-Magnon woman who had to give birth in a cave before the invention of birthing balls or encouraging phrases to be repeated during meditation. It's a wonder the human race survived without the modern medical profession. (And when it comes to it, it's a wonder we survive with it).

Anyway, the classes are there to torture people. Men, certainly, but they aren't exactly blistering with excitement for pregnant women who mostly want to go home and not be upright anymore.

Our classes were begun with a very nice instructor, who was pregnant. She instructed us in what the classes would be about and what everyone's names were. In future classes, we did not see her again, because she went into labor. This is the sort of thing pregnant people are always doing.

For the remainder of the classes, we had another lady, who was also pregnant. Since she didn't normally run the class, her teaching method was to bring up a Powerpoint slide behind us, and then read what the big yellow letters said.

Mostly, they said things like "Pregnancy is a joyful experience." and "The discomfort is okay, because at the end you get a bundle of joy!" and so on. It didn't mention how the bundle of joy ends up in a position to be held, but never mind.

The bit I'm getting at is, they are very keen to tell the partners -- that would be the non-pregnant men who are trying to vanish into their seats -- that in the hip modern world of giving birth, we are very important. We are as important to the process as women. We have feelings and emotions and a role to play.

Unfortunately, we never find out what that is. This is because it doesn't exist. Mostly, as I listened to her talk and read the little book they gave us (which showed people who were clearly on many drugs not available in the U.S., and were therefore happy to be in labor) I realized that the role of the man is to be supportive and encouraging and not leave the room and find a television. Or go to sleep. These are probably grounds for divorce.

The book and teacher always faltered on this subject. Mostly, they give men lists of things they can do for the women (who is pregnant) while she is in labor. What we can do mostly includes the above mentioned two items, as well as repeating inspiring phrases to the women.

This sounds like a good way to get punched in the face. One of the phrases, and I am not making this up, was Surrender to the pain, which I am supposed to recite as a mantra whenever my wife -- who is pregnant and will be the one in labor -- feels pain. My wife, who is a sane woman, made fun of this phrase with me. I do intend to say it. I just plan to do it in my best Darth Vader voice. And maybe I'll only say it to the doctor.

The final piece of foolishness from the classes which I'll discuss (because I'm tactfully not bringing up the bag of random baby junk, such as a hotel-shampoo sized bottle of baby shampoo, which they foisted on everybody at the start of every class) is the relaxing meditation.
We are supposed to sit on the ground. Who thinks of this? While it is funny to watch a lot of pregnant women try to sit on the ground, you wouldn't dare laugh, else you find out how fast they can get up.

Then, while relaxing music is playing, we close our eyes and recite the following, which I am not making up.

"You are feeling a gentle breeze..." (here, the man rubs the woman's shoulders lightly, to simulate a gentle breeze with fingers)

"Now, stormclouds approach and a light rain begins to fall..." (here, you drum your fingertips on the woman's shoulders, who is probably ticklish and is now completely tense trying not to guffaw in class)

"The rain gets heavier..." (more of the same, but harder, and now your tense woman wants to make you dead, and would, except she needs you to tell her to surrender to the mind-blowing agony of labor, later on)

"A breeze comes and blows the storm away..." (back to breeze. How relaxing.)

This was the silliest thing. The second time she did this, she said it was optional. Amusingly, everyone busied themselves with getting up and getting ready and then, not wanting to abandon her, we all filed out and hoped someone else would stay. No one did.

This is probably why, next time, they will implement chaining the men to the tables, to help them surrender to the pain better.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!

2007-07-04T14:33:00.000-07:00

We had a small cookout and then I had to run to Walmart for essentials. I've also done two loads of laundry and a load of dishes. We're a wild and crazy bunch, let me tell ya!

Right now it's pouring down rain, which is good because we desperately need the rain, but not so good for the fireworks.

Not that I care, because our version of fireworks is to give Son and handful of sparklers and let him run through the yard. Wheeeee.

I'm psyched over the trailer Pete posted. I had seen it before, but now I'm re-psyched. (psychotic?) I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE THIS MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am also excited about the book, but the book won't heavily feature Gary Oldman. :oD

Did I mention that I can't wait for the movie?!

I think I'm going to go read. I'm midway through the 7th Stephanie Plum book, and it's pretty darn good. My last trip to Borders, I picked up 9 through 12. Which was handy, because it was buy 3, get the 4th one free. Yay! I love free stuff. I'm resisting the 13th book, because it's just come out in hardcover, and I would rather wait and get the paperback. Because I'm cheap. But I love the series, so I'll probably end up buying the hardcover... and the following week it will be out in paperback. *sigh*

Anyway! Happy Fourth!

omigodomigodomigod

2007-07-04T12:48:00.000-07:00

Holy....

My body price.

2007-07-02T17:42:00.001-07:00

$4575.00
Now I want everyone to stay away from me. I know what you're all thinking: You could get a Playstation 3 and one game with that money.

I see you with that candlestick, Colonel Mustard. Back off. I am not going in the library with you.

I should point out too that Carrie and I have something in common: we share a love of Gary Oldman. Except mine is probably much less creepy than hers. God only knows what sort of stories she writers. Shudder.

In my case, though, I adored him in two other roles.

That one dude from Fifth Element, one of the finest science fiction films ever made (for a lot of reasons, one of them being Michael Bay was nowhere near it.)

And then as James Gordon, in Batman Begins, where amidst one of the bestest movies EVER, he delivered a wonderful performance. I look forward to him in the upcoming sequel The Dark Knight. His best piece in Batman Begins was when he comforted a young Bruce Wayne. He's a very, very good actor who doesn't make a big deal out of it.

And then, of course, there's Sirius Black. While the character was something of a wash for me in Prisoner of Azkaban (the book; not the movie), probably because Harry starts seeing a big black dog at the same time as SIRIUS BLACK escapes from prison. Here I am, knowing that Sirius means dog, and his last name is black. Duh.

I like the character anyway. And although we didn't really see him in Goblet of Fire, he was really good at being completely unhinged in Azkaban.

The reason I don't immediately equate him with that role was that it wasn't until I watched the movie on DVD, a little while ago, and suddenly went "Holy shit, that's Gary Oldman!"

I hadn't connected it.

Okay, this was a longer post that I meant. I was just coming to tell you how valuable my body is and that I'll be raising my rates.

ADDENDENDENDENDUM: I can't believe I made a post about Prisoner of Azkaban without pointing out HOW INCREDIBLY STUPID THE TIME-TURNER BUSINESS WAS.

Honestly...

Chatting With Pete! And Other Stuff

2007-06-30T18:40:00.000-07:00

Ha! It's only taken six months, but finally Pete and I had a few minutes to catch up over IM. Catching up consisted mainly of the following:

CARRIE: Pete! I'm online!

PETE: Great! Hey! Hi! How are you?!

CARRIE: Great! And you?

PETE: Great!

Followed by moments of idle chatter, quickly dissolving into some really funny stuff, none of which I can remember, but it was good stuff.

And Pete has angered his wife, so I advised him to grovel, to which he muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "Damn women, always sticking together..."

Interspersed in there was some actually discussion of that thing... um, what's it called?? OH, YEAH! Writing! And he sent me a new short story (yay!) to read, and it was cool. Nyeah Nyeah Nyeah to the rest of you who didn't get to see it. *sticks tongue out*

*****

Currently playing: Come Go With Me by Expose (I can't get the accent over the e, so just pretend it's there, okay?)

*****

Currently I am reading Seven Up, the 7th (duh) Stephanie Plum book by Janet Evanovich. I am also going to start Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill, which looks really good.

*****

Today they finished construction on my new porch roof. Hooray.

*****

Fellow writers, do you tend to stick to one genre? For me, that's a big fat "NO." What am I working on right now? Well, I am trying to keep my novel in mind for editing, which is generic, general mainstream fiction. (Laaaaaaame, right?) I'm also working on a children's book.

And some, um, erotica.

I just kind of shake my head and wonder where the hell this all comes from. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. My personality (personalities?) has a wild range, so I guess it stands to reason that my writing would be all over the place, too. I do, however, think I'll be using a pen name for my porn. *grin*

I can just see it now:

AGENT: So what have you written?

CARRIE: Well, I have this children's picture book, this instruction book on tole painting, a romance novel, a non-fiction book examining the sociological aspects of Egyptian architecture as it relates to today's global economy, a collection of newspaper columns... OH, and a stack of porn.

Of course, *now* Hubby is interested in my writing. "Hey, you need any help with... research... you just let me know!" Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Riiiiiiiiight, honey.

*****

Currently playing: Don't You Want Me Baby by Human League

*****

There's a wily fly in here driving me insane. I went to get the flyswatter and the little bastard vanished.

*****

ELEVEN DAYS until Harry Potter 5 is in theaters!!!!!

*****

TWENTY-ONE DAYS until Harry Potter 7 is in my grubby little hands!!!!!!!!!!!

*****

So I have a slight Harry Potter addiction. Yeah, me and seventy BILLION other people. I cannot wait for the new movie. I also have a slight Gary Oldman-as-Sirius Black addiction. One of my dearest friends bought me this poster for my birthday last year. Maybe this year I'll get this one. *grin*

I'm torn about the new book. I'm excited to get it and read it, but I'm bummed that it'll be the last. I want to reread the first six before I read the new one, so I will probably have to stay offline until I get a chance to finish it.

*****

I think Snape is a good guy. In less than a month, we'll all know for sure!

*****

Currently Playing: Every Time You Go Away by Paul Young (Yes, I'm in an 80's mood!)

*****

Work's about the same. Tolerable but time consuming. We're hoping that by fall we'll be in a place where I can quit (if I decide to) and dedicate more time to my writing. Working a full time job has shown me lots of areas in my life where I need to improve, not the least of which is wasting time online. Should I quit, I will work hard to keep the Internet as a resource and tool... not as a necessity. It's very easy to let it get too important.

But we shall see how things work out.

*****

Big plans for the Fourth? Here, we plan to just have a quiet day at home. Maybe a cookout with some family, but otherwise a quiet day just hanging out and maybe getting some stuff done around the house. That's how I like my holidays. Quiet and close to home.

I hope you all have a safe and enjoyable holiday!

It's the game of Life!

2007-06-30T18:13:00.000-07:00

I just realized that the last time I posted, I was indicating my own death. It occurred to me I should post again to, you know, let you know that I survived food poisoning and the flu. Here I am. Alive! And probably a mutant thanks to the viruses, but never mind.

Anyway, I'm conscious, upright, working again. My Roman novel (with the catchy working title Roman Novel) is getting to about seventy thousand words. A couple of days ago, I sat down and mapped out where it goes from here to the end. Took me four notebook pages, but I have most of it planned out. So I happily know where I'm going. I also now know that I have a looong way to go. There's a lot of novel here! I can only hope that it actually remained interesting to read after, for example, page five.

Let's see. Lori and I are writing an extremely long article (or articles, or who knows what) about...everything. All your potential writing questions can be answered in a highly opinionated form! Maybe! Because you may never see it!

In other news, my wife was full term last Monday, although she's not due until July 16th.

In related news to the other news, we finally settled on a proper name for Tzinski 2.0. He actually has a name! It was the first name we both agreed on, and so it's now set in stone. If he comes out as a girl, she's going to have the most manly name of anyone in a dress (if you are a man and are wearing a dress, don't feel you have to correct me here).

Also, this writer would like to thank Mike Rowe of Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs television show for having a way long marathon the other night, so that I got NO sleep and then had to get up early. Thanks a lot. Could you maybe have a boring episode, so I can turn off the TV and go to sleep? Honestly, it's worse than Dog Whisperer marathons at this point.

(What? You want to know what I'm listening to right now? Well, Napster just finished playing Respect by Aretha Franklin and is playing Midnight Special by Credence Clearwater Revival. Up next is Boogie Chillin' by John Lee Hooker. What? Yes, there is a lot of funk in this house, thank you.)

Current matter of angst: I am doing layout for the third issue of BBT. This issue is 100+ pages in length, has twenty stories or so, interviews, all sorts of stuff. It's freaking huge. I hate layout. I hate it with bad words on top. Nothing presently makes me grumpier than sitting down at the computer and knowing that I have to work on it. It'll be beautifully laid out for about twenty pages, and then you'll get eighty pages of text all streamed together in one big block. And no one will dare complain, because I'll be standing on a street corner in a sack cloth, shouting that the world is going to end when the Lobsters finally get here.

Also: Thanks to Amazon.com's blog, I read that computer keyboards are in theory dishwasher safe. And since there was no other voice in my head to go "waaait a minute..." I found my secondary keyboard, took the keys off (to make it easier to dry) and popped it into the dishwasher.

I used it this afternoon. It didn't make it type much better -- I think it's just a lousy keyboard -- but it does have an interesting lemon scent. It also failed to catch on fire and kill us all. I consider the experiment a success. This means that if you, after reading this, manage to set yourself on fire, then it's on your head and I will not feel guilty.

I had an interesting and witty article to write for you all on teenagers, but I've just fallen off my caffeine high like a Mob snitch falling off a pier with cement shoes on. So, leaving you with that perplexing metaphor, I'm going to go curl up on the couch with a warm fuzzy cat and read a book.

What book?

Myths to Live By, by Joseph Campbell.

Right. And how was your week?

P.S. I have to share this comic strip with you. This is a sheer work of art. I love it. I wish I could print it and hang it up, but I haven't the ink or the sheer wall space necessary.

"Hot blooded, check it and see"

2007-06-23T19:49:00.000-07:00

"Got a fever of a hundred and three."

That's it, really.

*falls over dead*

Ha! Take that!

2007-06-22T16:11:00.000-07:00

RT suggested I torture Rob with this gem, which I think is hysterical. I'm not sure why, but I do.

Enjoy.

And if that's not enough, try this.

Oh, and this is old, but it's political, so surely Rob will enjoy it thoroughly. ROFL

Nothin' but a picture.

2007-06-20T22:06:00.000-07:00

Because it made me laugh.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled war between Carrie and Rob, in which I am France.

We won't take this lying down!

2007-06-20T18:51:00.000-07:00

No, sir!

Rob has sworn revenge.

*clasping hands and tapping fingertips together in a diabolical fashion*

You haven't heard the last of me!

Ode To Robaeiou(andsometimesy)eieio

2007-06-19T15:33:00.000-07:00

Rob waits

collecting unnecessary vowels

minimal consonants

Waiting.

Time passes.

Months.

Years.

An eternity.

Still...

no check.

And we spelled it differently anyhow.

My lawyer friend says

"You don't owe him shit."

So there.

Myne Office

2007-06-15T22:39:00.000-07:00

This is a test.

2007-06-14T21:51:00.001-07:00

I have to make sure we have the right sort of blog readers around here. This is a simple test. Remember, if you fail the test, you are not scum. You are not a bad person. You just...well, nevermind.

MC Hammer OR Run DMC?

Mega Man OR Iron Man?

Led Zepplin OR Black Sabbath?

Diana Ross OR Aretha Franklin?

Super Nintendo OR Sega Genesis?

Street Fighter OR Mortal Kombat?

There. I think we can decide from that.

minnesota nice FROM HELL

2007-06-13T07:21:00.000-07:00

I can't really talk too mcuh right now, i just hope everyone is safe and managed to get their families somewhere okay and maybe you stil have the internet. im about to get my wife and animals and head out we're going to try to get somewehre isolated where the walking dead won't find us. i don't know if there will be anyhwereh left though. everyone who dies comes back as one of them and THEY are killign so many. its brutal. the television si dead. i supoose the internet will be soon too.i hope youre all okay. i hope you are able to fashion crude weapons and if your hand turns into a demon chop it off but replace it with a chainsaw that will help.
okay i have to go we are heading for the hills. i hope i can figure out how to work this shotgun. bye friends.

ADDENDUM TO BE FUNNY (SINCE THIS POST WAS PREVIOUSLY NOT)

(this was the post that I put on BBT. It, at least, is recognizably a joke and not me having some sort of angst-ridden natural disaster. Sigh.)

-----------------------------------

I don’t know if anyone out there is reading this. I don’t know if there’s anyone out there to read it. God almighty, I dont’ know what’s happening. This is terrible. this is terrifying. I don’t want to die. If you’re reading this, you know what’s happened, you know that the dead have risen up, the DEAD HAVE RISEN UP, and they are walking the earth.

I don’t know what to do. Is it safe here? My apartment is on the third floor of the building, am I safe? Will the zombies figure out how to get in, and if they do, will they figure out how to get up here? My door is thick and dead-bolted, does that protect me? God, I don’t know. I don’t know how smart they are, but I’m terrified. I have no weapons. I have a knife in a drawer, a big one, and I own a copy of Gigli, but is that enough? I DON’T KNOW.

I tried turning on the news, or something on the TV, but there’s nothing. Just dead channels and camera shots of empty studios and screams in the background. Nothing I can use. I tried the radio, I found one in my apartment, but it’s all dead air and static. There was one station that had something, but it had a scared woman who was crying and who was reading the Psalms, over and over and over again out loud. She walked in the dark places, and the Lord was with her.

Christ, I don’t know if he’s with me, or any of us right now. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED? I saw, out the window, the undead attack a man out in the street, down the road from my building. They just FELL on him and he screamed so damn loud, it made my legs shake and there was a crunch…I heard it from here…and the screaming stopped. I swear to god, he’s with them now.

They’re shambling closer to my building. Oh god. They’re swarming through the parking lot now. Two of them are sloshing through the fountain up front. They’re bouncing between cars. They’re not coming into the building.

THey’re clustering beneath MY WINDOW. Oh my god. I went and looked down over the balcony and there’s gotta be thirty of them, THIRTY OF THEM, all gathered on the ground floor, staring up at me and my balcony, those that have eyes. THey are clawing at the walls with arms and pieces of hands. The ones with flesh make a dull slapping noise. The ones with nails, or bones, just screech and scrape against the siding. They all smell. Some of them like old dirt, some of them like mildew and mold, and some of them still have that sharp, sweet smell of death, that smell of corn syrup and salt. I almost threw up. Oh god oh god oh god WHAT DO THEY WANT?

It looks like they have something in their…hands…hang on. I’m going to go look.

I can’t see so well, but it looks like they are all holding a few papers, each one’s got some papers in one hand that they’re waving at me.

Hang on, someone let go and his papers flew upward. I’m going to try and snag one….

Oh my god. Oh Jesus. OH GOD.

The paper has a name and an address printed neatly in the top left corner. Then, it has a title followed by an approximate word count centered and the spaced down two spaces, the story starts in Courier New, double-spaced between lines.

How did they find me? Oh my god. Oh pray for me, if you’re out there. But what does it matter? We’re all DOOMED…

The End of the Sopranos, the Beginning of a Series

2007-06-11T04:34:00.000-07:00

WTF was that ending??? MEH, I say. All in all the episode was pretty good, but the ending blew chunks. Humpfh. I was expecting it to go out with a bang (pretty much literally), and instead it went out with a... hell, I don't even know what that was. It was lame. Disappointing. And not very satisfying. HBO can do a hell of a series, but their endings suck ass. I'll add the Sopranos to the list of series finales that sucked ass. (Oz and Carnivale, anyone?)

*****

Well in other news, I started reading an awesome new (to me, anyway) series last night by MaryJanice Davidson. I started Undead and Unwed, and it was fabulous. It reminded me of the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich - it was written in first person, and it was funny as hell. Several times I had to stop reading because I was laughing so hard. I love this author. Why? Because she starts the acknowledgments page with, "There's really no need to thank anyone; I did this all myself. Okay, that was a rather large lie."

The first chapter begins, "The day I died started out bad and got worse in a hurry." Brilliant. BTW, this is a vampire/romance series. It's fricking wonderful. I can't wait to get the rest of them!

Green Eggs & It

2007-06-10T22:07:00.000-07:00

Doctor Suess and Stephen King, as written by Pete Tzinski.
(Blame goes to Lori Basiewicz, who suggested it.)

I do not like Green Eggs and Ham,

I fucking hate them, Sam I am

All things serve the Beam,

I will not eat Green eggs with cream!

To the dark tower, the child Roland came,

To eat Green eggs is to know shame.

I will not eat Green Eggs with beer.

And we all float down here.

You're welcome.

Bags, Bones, and Heartstrings

2007-06-04T16:26:00.000-07:00

(Note: This was originally the article I wrote for my weekly column, over on the BBT web-site. I really like it. So I'm posting it here too.)

...

You will forgive me if, this week, I fail to write about Pirates of the Burning Sea, which I have played not at all. Video games must actively work to hold my attention, which is inclined to slip away at any moment and go find a book, a movie, a song, a thought. Pirates are fun, but my attention has slipped. For now.

I knew all week that I wasn’t going to write about a video game this time around, and so I’d been stewing on what to write about. Mostly, I think I already knew what was coming. It’s been coming for a year or so, and I think it may as well go here, because this is a good place. We do not always speak seriously or meaningfully, but we are capable of it. I’m sorry, there are no laughs I expect in this article. I could write about my twilight zone trip to the Twin Cities, but I don’t think the joke would come across properly.

So I will write this instead.

...

Clive Barker once said, about comic books, that they are incapable of inspiring terror, of making you laugh or cry the way a movie can, or a book can. Clive Barker — who is not only an excellent writer, but also a genuinely cool person — seemed to be wrong on this point, as a couple of writers (Neil Gaiman, friend of Clive, was one of them) pointed out. For me, I was mostly on the fence. This was the first time it had really gotten me thinking about the subject.

I’ve been reading comics since I was old enough to hold them. Monthly comic book issues, Archie comics, super hero comics, newspaper funnies…Like books, I read them. I’m wired to read, that’s all. I read until my eyes hurt and I can’t seem to focus properly on things further away than book-reading-distance.

Comics never hugely made me feel, though. Not really. And for that matter, as I thought further on the subject, I realized that neither did books, did they? I read them, I enjoyed the stories, but like I never felt strong emotion about any of them. No more than you would get teary-eyed when a friend relates a sad sort of dream he had the night before. It’s not your dream. It didn’t make your heart jackhammer.

Mostly, I didn’t think about any of this, I just accepted it. Movies and TV shows could move you, sure enough. There’s something about the mediums (and I think it’s because they’re passive mediums) which allow you to feel what they tell you to feel. Books and comics told good stories, right enough, but there was no emotion.

The Clive Barker comment got me thinking, when I happened across it a year ago. It got me thinking, but I did nothing about it. It just gradually built in my mind, because that’s what happens. It’s been said that with writers, thinking mostly just gets in the way. As it happens, I believe this. I think that when you think too much, it’s like focusing on your feet as you try to go down the stairs. Mostly, you wind up lying on your butt, at the bottom.

What this means is, I can’t give you my actual thought process. I can just tell you that it took the past year-and-a-bit to get here, and this is what I’ve got.

Books and comics do move you, specifically they do move me. When I was young (you know, way back), I read a book about a boy and a girl who made a pretend land and a tree fort, across a river. I was in love with the girl and enchanted by the book. The book ended very sad, very badly for the girl. I remember clearly, as a young boy, walking around just stunned, just absolutely heartbroken. I sat on a tree, outside, and just stared and stared at nothing. She could have died in my arms and it would have gotten me no harder.

For a long time I didn’t know what book it was. I tried to remember, I would retell the story to people and no one usually knew (partially because I mussed up the details along the way). I would perenially go hunting for the book and come up empty handed.

Then, a while earlier this year, my wife and I went to see the movie Bridge to Tarabithia. Ten minutes into the movie, I was crying. Openly, brokenly, as I realized that this, this was the book I’d read all those years ago. It all came back. It hurt watching that movie, which was well done (it may have been horrible, actually, I was somewhere else watching it) and knowing what was coming. I spent two hours after the movie not speaking. I doubt I could have. It wasn’t the movie that hurt, it was a book reaching out to me across eighteen years or so.

But what else? I remember finishing Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series. I remember reading the second-to-last volume and I reached the end of it and going oh shit, oh SHIT, because suddenly I knew what was coming and desperately wanted it not to come. When I finished the series, I was heartbroken and miserable for days. I was older now (I came late to Sandman) and it really shattered me. As always, there’s a piece of a writer’s mind who looks at your own emotions, as if from a distance, and says So this is what it feels like, so this is how you act. It doesn’t matter. You can be divorcing your wife, your child can be dying, and ruthlessly, somewhere in the back of your mind are the traitorous writerly words so this is what it’s like.

I think back now and remember the Death of Superman arc, which also messed me up. Superman was a hero for me as a kid (not as big as Captain America, or Hal Jordan) and I was crushed when Doomsday killed him. Shortly thereafter, Bane broke Batman’s back. What a place to be as a kid. I remembered all this when Captain America died, and I was already mulling in the subject. THis added to it.

But fear? Sadness, perhaps. But fear?

FEAR, I discovered from Stephen King. A movie can make me jump, or revolt me, but while I was beginning to accept that a book could make me sad, break my heart, tear me up, a book could not make me jump, could not terrify me.

It was only three months ago, or so, that I read Steve King’s Misery, for the first time. It was not my first Stephen King book. Cell wasn’t scary, it was a rollicking good zombie book. The Dark Half wasn’t scary, it was another damn good story. Secret Garden, Secret Window (and the other stories in the collection Four Past Midnight) was one of my favorite stories ever (and the Johnny Depp/David Koepp movie is stunning). They didn’t scare me, though.

Misery did. I remember reading further and further into Misery. Specifically, I remember reading a scene while sitting in the bath where something is cut off. The description of it isn’t emotional and full of exclamation points, it’s just there. The words may as well be invisible, I’m seeing it more than I see any movie. I realized, dimly, as I read this horrifying scene and headed further into a horrifying book that I was holding the book at arm’s length, and I was pushing back into the tub, as if trying to get away from the book, this bunch of pulped paper in my hands.

That fascinated me. That’s when all of this thought about writing and emotion came up into my thoughts. The parts of my mind that are always thinking, always running, always saying so this is what it’s like, finally gathered up what it had and handed it to me up front.

What caused me to write about this now is that I just, ten minutes ago, finished reading Stephen King’s Bag of Bones, which I started because I’m writing a book that’s hard and I needed a good read. I also needed a book that had nothing to do with Romans in any way shape or form.

Bag of Bones doesn’t have the outright horror that Misery did, but it had quiet terror built into it. It’s not a horror book, it’s not a ghost book, it’s a love story and a story of redemption that happens to have ghosts in it. Nevertheless, there’s one early scene I read, while sitting on the couch after everyone had gone to bed. In it, our hero Mike Noonan looks under his bed and sees his dead wife lying there with a book across her face. When she tries to take it, she snatches it back and says Give that back, it’s my dust catcher.

I shut the book. I got up. I went to bed.

There were more scenes like that. I mostly didn’t read this book in the bath, because while most of the book is a story that fails to be supernatural or scary at all, every now and then it comes to a scene that is just spookier than shit. When I hit those, that’s it.

It was a powerful book, all through. The emotions never quit. It wasn’t just terror. It was sadness and hatred and a need for revenge and a need for justice, and a longing for a happy ending that was impossible, and a longing for the happy-enough ending that was possible, and a dozen other things. It’s the kind of book that will leave me thoughtful and a little bit quiet the rest of the evening. I’m not thinking so that’s what it feels like, because I know already. But I will be thinking about the book and the people in it and the what if’s and the emotions.

When I read a book that floors me, or that really gets to me — like Tarabithia did when I was young, or Narnia, like Bag of Bones did now — I find myself going I want to write like that. Of course. Who doesn’t? Mostly, it means that I don’t want to write Bag of Bones, by Pete Tzinski — because knee-jerk imitation is as pale as any other form of imitation; witness the dozens of authors trying to write their own Frodos and Sams — but it means I want to write a book that hurts you when you read it, that makes you love and laugh and cry and be deeply uncomfortable.

I haven’t done it yet. I have, in some short stories, creeped out, or made sad. Not much. Not enough. Mostly, that’s fine by me. If I could go "I want to do that," and then do that, then where’s the challenge, where’s the learning, where’s the joy? They say getting there is half the fun. I’d say it’s all of the fun. Once you’re there, sooner or later you’re going to start thinking about the next journey to the next place. It’s human nature. We can spend hours and days climbing a mountain, and then spend twenty minutes at the top.

There’s no revelation here. I’m telling you that books and comics can emotionally effect you as much as television and movies, as much as music can. You probably already knew that. I think I came at it all wrong, trying to think about it too much. I think they’ve affected me all along.

…

The final thing I want to talk about is perceptions. This is mostly unrelated, but it fascinates me, and I want to touch on it. Bear with me just a bit longer.

When I first read Neil Gaiman’s children’s book Coraline, I thought of it as the adventure of a brave and definitely odd young girl. One thing Neil said about the book was that kids love it and adults are creeped out by it. He theorized why, and mostly I didn’t understand properly. His theory was this: For a kid, the book is an adventure story, of a young girl who beats the odds. For adults, it’s the story of a child in danger.

I read the book three or four times, and it was a little brave girl having an adventure. I loved it. I read it out loud to my wife

I read it again, last month, eight months or so into my wife’s pregnancy which will result — as pregnancies tend to — in the birth of my son. This time, when I read it, it was very definitely the story of a child in danger, and this time, it scared me.

There’s a bit in Terry Pratchett’s Thud! where Sam Vime’s young son is in danger, and it was the same thing. I read it before and got on with it. I read it now, and it terrifies me, as it must have terrified him, as it terrified Sam Vimes. If you’ve read the book you know the scene I’m talking about. These are the scenes that come back to haunt me, that haunt any parent I think.

And always, there’s the thought in the back of your mind. It’s not your thought. It’s the thought of parts of you that aren’t yours to control or command. Your better parts. It always says So this is what it’s like…

You Bastards!

2007-06-04T08:59:00.000-07:00

No, not YOU! When I got DSL, I got an Earthlink account, which has my main email, as well as a boatload of free webspace, which I use a lot. (Mostly for hosting pictures and whatnot, but the point is that I use it!) Well, I've had this since 2003, and now I get a notice that Embarq (formerly Sprint, the only DSL provider in my area) is eliminating its affiliation with Earthlink this fall. Dammit! That cheeses me. I hate, hate, hate changing email addresses. Despise it. Loathe it. I hate going into my billion and seven online accounts and bills and changing my user profiles. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. It's freaking annoying.

***

In spite of that, I'm happy! I'm off work today to help at Son's school this afternoon. I miss being home and doing stuff on *my* schedule.

***

I can't believe there's only one episode of the Sopranos left!!!!! Ooooooooooooh, my, last night's episode was awesome. I don't watch many shows regularly, but this one I do. HBO has some of the most brilliant shows, they really do. Of course, I'm still pissed that they screwed me out of a resolution for Carnivale, which was fricking brilliant. BRILLIANT. And I'm still annoyed that they canceled Oz, which was also brilliant. Disturbing, but brilliant.

I'm really hoping the finale of the Sopranos is satisfying. As in, Tony *better* get Phil. If that shitbag makes it out, I'm going to send HBO a scathing email. That's right. A SCATHING email.

***

"Scathing" is a pretty cool word, isn't it? I love cool words. Facetious, gremlins, shitbag, putrid, fricking, mundane, assimilate, fuck, sashay, extrapolate, harbinger... awesome words, all of them. *grin*

***

BookWorm Adventures rocks. You should try it. And then pay the $20 to get the full version. It's worth it. Loooooooove that game!

Still Kicking!

2007-05-28T12:39:00.000-07:00

I've been so busy lately I can hardly stand it. I went three days - THREE DAYS!! without being on the internet at all. I didn't even have a few minutes to check around AW before I collapsed into bed.

Let's see... work has been... well, work. I won't say more, lest I be accused of whining. On top of 40+ hours a week of working, Little League is in full swing. (Full swing... get it? Oh never mind.) We have at least two games a week, and in between games there is practice, plus I am in charge of the concession stand, so I have to check it and make sure it's stocked every time there's a game, whether it's Son's team or not.

And of course we've got lots of end-of-the-year school stuff going on.

Oh, and did I mention that my relatives decided that we were having a Memorial Day cookout here? At my house? "No, I'm not having a cookout here," was apparently grasped as "Sure! A cookout! That'd be awesome! Everyone come to my house!" At least it's over and done with and I kicked everyone out. Don't look at me like that, I fed them first! Sheesh.

We're also having babysitter issues. How many migraines can one person stand in a week??

And then what do I do? I get sudden inspiration for my children's book series. (Yeah, a series... I'm incapable of coming up with small projects.) I've made some headway, and even got a few pages that I had a vision for sketched out. Ha. Sketched. I think my nine year old would have probably done a better job, but that's neither here nor there.

No progress on editing my novel. I'll get to it someday.

I also started reading a new book. It's the first in a series. I won't mention it by name, because I'm only to about page 10 and it sucks so far. I'm TRYING to give it the benefit of the doubt, but it's not looking good. I think this will be a good book to read in the pool so that if I get to page 50 and it's no better, I can drown it. Unfortunately, I bought the second book, too. I'm irked because it sounded really good. Pfffft.

My cat has decided to take over the spot on my computer armoire where my old printer sat (that my new printer won't fit in). She was lurking there, unseen, when I sat down. Suddenly, there was a wet nose against my knee. I thought she was going to fall over laughing when I screamed.

Speaking of screams, we have a crazy neighbor! Hooray! Our next door neighbor's daughter's ex-husband (got that?) periodically comes to stay with her, for reasons that are beyond my grasp. He's been in jail lots of times for illegal possession of firearms and all sorts of fun stuff. Oh, and he happens to be bipolar AND paraniod/delusional. Oh, and did I mention that he doesn't bother taking his meds?? So yesterday, we're outside in the pool and he dashes out their back door, screaming and cursing and carrying on. Fun stuff. Needless to say, we exited the pool and went inside until he jumped in his vehicle and sped off down the road. Idiot.

Hope you're all having a safe and happy Memorial Day!

Fairies Wear Boots

2007-05-27T07:17:00.000-07:00

So, I saw on the Entertainment Weekly web-site (why I was there, God only knows) that Stephen King had done a list of his favorite rock and roll songs. It was a good list. I mean, it capped out with the Sex Pistols, and that's a good way to end any list.

So I says to myself, I says, "Self, why don't you do one of those lists for both your loyal readers? Won't that be fun?"

Except...

I have no idea how to do it.

It occurred to me that my musical tastes, varied though they be, tend to wander through different phases which affect what I listen to, or what I consider popular. Thus, I have no idea how I'd write a decent "definitive list."

So instead, I'll arbitrarily name off some songs that, if I were stranded on a desert island for today only, I wouldn't mind spending the day listening to. Bear in mind that this list is probably influenced by the fact that Black Sabbath's We Sold Our Souls for Rock 'n' Roll hasn't left my now playing list in three days.

Here we go. My top twelve.

12. John Lee Hooker, "Boom Boom"
Honestly, how can you ever NOT want to listen to that song? It's one of the best blues songs ever done. And John Lee Hooker is a good person to look to for inspiration as a writer, too. This is the man who said, "I don't need no three days to record no album." Go and do thou likewise, the next time you feel the almighty writer angst tickling your throat. Go watch him do it with Van Morrison.

11. Black Sabbath, "Black Sabbath"
This isn't their most popular song, nor their most catchy, but the guitars do some truly amazing things, and this early in his career, Ozzy's voice is full of texture and emotion in a way it lacked, later in life. And the way the guitar suddenly attacks toward the end is just stunning. Here's a video, but since it's weird 1970's stuff, just think of it as enhanced audio.

10: Metallica, "Master of Puppets"
Although really, it could be the whole entire album. You can have an argument with any Metallica fan about what their best CD was (and each argument will end with "they blow goats now") but for me, it's always been "...Puppets." The songs are solid, the writing is powerful, the guitars line up beautifully, you get Cthulu references, and "Orion" was a great instrumental. The song "Master of Puppets" was just brilliant though. They still rock live, long as they steer clear of the new stuff. Which blows goats.

9: Lonestar, "Walking in Memphis"
I know, I know. What the hell's country doing on this list? And I don't know. I don't like country, but I like this song, and I like their particular version of this song which is better than, say, Cher. It's a good song, and it's one of those songs that I listen to over and over again and think "there's a story here." There probably is. I just don't know it yet. I like songs that nudge me into thinking that, though. Here's an Elvis Montage with Lonestar singing. Give it a shot. A final weird detail: whenever I listen to this song, I and my visual mind always see...a rainy, blue-tinted window. I don't know why.

8: Credence Clearwater Revival, "Down on the Corner."
This song sounds like a John Lee Hooker party, and I love it. This is another one where you could very nearly put in any song that John Fogerty wrote. The man's one of the greatest rock 'n' rollers we have. The band broke up. The rest of the guys are now Credence Clearwater Resuscitation, or some dumb shit. John Fogerty is still going, all by himself. Guess which one still rocks? You got it. Here's a video lesson in why, even as rockers, we need to get away from the seventies really fast. A final note: John kind of looks like Harrison Ford, doesn't he? He Steve Martin. It weirds me out, watching him sing.

7. Cradle of Filth, "Nymphetamine"
I realize I just took a fairly blues-rock list and steered it headlong into heavy metal, but that's sort of how I am. This is a pretty typical list for me so far. This song is one of CoF's best and I never get sick of it. The female vocals counterplay wonderfully with the lead singer's alarming voice. I've been a CoF fan for a long time. This isn't going to change that. Their new CD isn't as good, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy it. Here's the short version of the song, and it's video. Please watch it, even if it's not your sort of thing. I think you'll enjoy it. The lyrics are a good thing to find too. Dark, but it's poetry.

6. Rufus Wainwright, "Hallelujah"
This is another one of the songs which I listen to and have large parts of my brain saying "This is a story," over and over again. I haven't written anything about it yet, and I may never do so, but it always leaves me thinking like a writer. There's an umpteen million versions of this song by all sorts of people, but I like Rufus's other songs ("In the Graveyard," for example) and so I chose him. Plus, he was the first person I heard do it. I first heard it during Shrek, and it caught my attention and distracted me from the movie. Here's him doing it live, and rather well.

5. Alice Cooper, "Bed of Nails"
Again, this could be the entire "Trash" Album, which is one of my absolute favorites. I'm a big Alice Cooper fan in general. I can listen to this album, or "The Last Temptation" or "Brutal Planet" over and over again and be happy. "Trash," though is a particular favorite. Here's a really cheesy video for it. What do you expect? It's the eighties, which were like the seventies, but with fewer mutton chops.

4. Ozzy Osbourne, "Road to Nowhere"
Another one where it could be the whole album. "No More Tears" is my favorite Ozzy album ever. Aside from fairly perplexing middle-songs like "Zombie Stomp," which are still catchy, it's a great CD. But the particular favorite for me is this last song on the album. I think it's Ozzy's best, ("Blizzard of Ozz" didn't catch for me, I like it but this CD's better) and I'm happy for anything that has Zakk Wylde tearing up a guitar. Here's the old music video for it.

3. Thea Gilmore, "Mainstream"
This one was tough, in that it could've been a half dozen different Thea Gilmore songs. She's the best British songwriter and rocker that we have right now, and she makes me very happy. Her last CD, Harpo's Ghost, is great...but I come back to this song, which was one of the first I heard. Failing to find anything about this song online, I give you Thea's MySpace page, where you can hear some of her stuff from Harpo, all of it good.

2. My Chemical Romance, "Welcome to the Black Parade"
When they released "Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge," I was very impressed. I called them -- and I stand by this -- the current Alice Cooper. They don't sound anything like Alice, but they embody some of the same things that Alice Cooper did and still does. I was proven dead right when they released their concept album, "Welcome to the Black Parade," which has crawled up my list as one of the most solid rock albums I've heard in ages. It's wonderful. I could have listed a lot of songs here instead of the title track (I could have done "Teenagers, Famous Last Words, Blood or Mama...") but I thought this song was a good starting place. Even if you have the good common sense not to listen to Emo music, you should pick this CD up. They've gone past that now, they're just a solid rock band. With this CD, I hear the same story of tone and story that with other songs has made me want to write a story about it. Here, I'm just content to listen. I have no Black Parade stories (well, I do, but I have no desire to write them.) Here's the video for you.

1. Nightwish, "Ghost Love Score"
This is another song that tickles me as a story. It has since I first heard it. It's epic and powerful and beautiful and, and, and...Actually, the whole CD ("Once") is really stunning, and I'm looking forward to their next album, the first single from which we get on May 30th. For this song, I've written four different stories, all called "Ghost Love Score," and with each one, when I go to sell the story, I've changed the name to something else. (e.g., I sold "Ghost Love Score" to Coyote Wild and changed the name to "Only Time"). This is because I feel like I still haven't gotten right. I still haven't written THE story that belongs to this song. Here's a video for you.

...

So. There's my list. It could be changed tomorrow. I can look at it now and think of what I've left off (Simon and Garfunkel, the Beatles, Coheed & Cambria, Bowling for Soup...) but it'll do for now.

With the songs that are tickling me as stories, I should mention that it's not the lyrics in any of those cases (except "Hallelujah") which keep moving me to stories, it's just the emotion, the tone, the color of the song which I go for it. If I were just translating lyrics into a short story, that'd be easy. The songs resonate something within the creative parts of my brain, and I'm trying to get them out and written. That's all.

...

This week, through midnight on May 31st, I'm in a race against Lori Basiewicz (Birol to you, chum) to see who can get the most written on our respective novels. This is a terrifying race, in that she's got an iron willpower where I have the willpower of a small floppy fish. Loser buys the winner an interesting variety of tea.

So, this is my last blog until June, while I go write until my fingers fall off. And the reason I'm SAYING that this is my last blog post until then is so that I don't do what I'm doing now...which is waste writing time (this race has been in progress for two days now) by sitting here writing an ****ing list of songs.

So, now I vanish and stop writing just like

American Idol

2007-05-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

I always watch the season finale results show with something like trepidation, in that it's going to be enjoyable, except for the bits that are really horrible. So! Here's my breakdown of this year's season finale.

I should mention first, I just wasn't hugely tense about it. My wife and I were talking about it last week, and we realized we didn't much care who actually won. Either way, there will be a Blake Lewis CD and a Jordin Sparks CD, and I'll buy them both.

Blake Lewis & Doug E. Fresh (sp?) I had no idea who Doug Fresh was until this moment. This is because I'm a skinny white boy with about as much funk as leftover food (get it? funk?). However, I've enjoyed Blake's beatboxing -- again, something I never expected to like -- and I thought the performance between them was a lot of fun. Not my type of thing, yet I was very happy during it.

Jordin Sparks & Ruben Studddddddddard. I'd never actually heard him sing before. He did a pretty good job. They worked really well together, and it made me happy.

Kelly Clarkson, "Never Again" I really like her. She's got a helluva voice, a lot of attitude, and she seems intelligent enough. That's a big point in my book. She sounds great live, and it made me happy. On a similar note was Gwen Stefani, whose music can make me throw a radio out the window. And yet...I really enjoy it when she just talks. She's so damn normal and cool. It's just her music I can't stand.

Bette Middler: Honestly, I didn't know she was a singer. No idea. I thought she was an actor. I don't know if her mic was off, or what, but her singing...oof. I'll stick with the movies.

Sanjaya and....Joe Perry... Honestly, this is the type of thing that makes you watch this show. You just know Joe Perry went home and got a call from Steven Tyler going "Ha ha, that was so cute! You were a cute couple!" and Joe's like "Shut up, Steven, damn it!" and Steven Tyler's all "You two should exchange shampoos!" and Joe's all "I'm allowed to think about Liv Tyler all I want!" and then Steven hangs up, and there goes Aerosmith.

And that's our segue into the strangest thing ever, which is:

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, etc. songs, done very well by some very good singers.

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds....

....WHAT?

Who the hell, on American Idol, said "What we need this year is a tribute to the general drugged-out trippiness that the Beatles had! Let's make sure we get songs that spell LSD, and also songs that say "My friends gonna help me get high." This is TV gold!"

Weirdest. Thing. Ever.

Well, except for maaaybe the Big Bird fat yellow-clothed woman who came on stage and promptly went diving for Ryan Seacrest's tonsils. That might have been the most alarming thing ever. I still say that that bug-eyed kid and the rounder kid are a John Irving novel taking place in real life. Since I don't have any friends who have read John Irving, my Owen Meany jokes all fall on deaf ears, with working mouths that then call me loser.

And THAT...was Idol tonight. I won't tell you who the winner is. But I will say, I'm glad whoever won, won, and I'll buy their CD, and I'll buy Blake Lewis's CD too.

Good night!

The Opposite of Dead

2007-05-14T21:05:00.000-07:00

(which is, of course, 'alive.' Do try to keep up here.)

I'm sorry I haven't been around. It's been busybusybusy on this end of the world. Work is busy, for one thing.

My wife tested positive for Gestational Diabetes; normal diabetes would be less of a problem, but since the result of this would be twelve pound baby, we're having to be extra careful with what she eats. Mostly what this entails for me is getting up excessively early to make a real breakfast for her before she goes to work. Combined with late nights spent writing (or, alternatively, staring at the computer slack-jawed) and I'm pooped.

In other news, I've downloaded Stumble for Firefox, which is the most addictive thing on the whole planet and you absolutely shouldn't go out and download it. You'll have no life ever again.

Instead, you should go play Grow.

That's about the extent of my life, oddly enough. I'm waiting for them to open the building's pool, so I can get back to swimming. I'm a good swimmer, but you have limited opportunities for it in Northern Minnesota, if you can believe it. It's how I maintain this stunning figure:

Spent a happy afternoon yesterday hanging up pictures on the walls. My wife does puzzles and then glues them together, we frame them, then they make lovely artwork. So my TV is now framed -- as it were -- by two cool dragon/wizard pictures. And we have this winding dragon sculpture that appears to be coming right out of the wall. I would have totally included a picture, but I cannot seem to find my digital camera.

Also, right at this second, humidity appears to be at around 150%, and I've sweated half my body weight. So I'm going to take the laptop and crawl into the fridge and do some writing there.

Someone come pry me out in an hour or two.

Happy Mother's Day!

2007-05-13T09:24:00.000-07:00

Happy Day to all the Mothers out there!

I've been having a fabulous Mother's Day. Hubby is really bad at holding on to presents. He practically bounces out of his skin waiting for Christmas because he wants us to open our gifts early. I almost always get my birthday presents a week or two early, and Mother's Day is no exception.

Last week, he gave me a gorgeous diamond pendant necklace, which I have wanted for years. I don't wear much jewelry, usually just my wedding rings and my watch. Every so often I'll wear a necklace and/or a pair of earrings, and if I'm feeling really wild, perhaps a bracelet. I have simple, traditional taste in just about everything. I'm not into frou-frou fancy stuff. It's just not me. So I told hubby years ago that I wanted a simple diamond pendant necklace, and simple diamond stud earrings, and then my jewelry collection would be complete forever and ever. LOL Now I have the necklace, so once I get the earrings I'll never need another piece of jewelry*!

*Barring breakage, lost items and theft. I also reserve the right to change my mind at any time.

Awesome present, right? Right. But wait! There's more! Yesterday, we ran to OfficeMax (okay, we didn't run, we drove) and I got a laser printer. Can we say "WOOOO HOOOO!!!"?? I needed to print out my novel for some editing, as I've done a bunch of major edits on the screen, but I can't proof very well that way. My inkjet does okay, but it craps out on me mid-project. My other inkjet does well, but it was about out of ink and the cartridges are expensive. I needed to replace my main printer anyway, so I decided to go with a laser, particularly after some good discussions about printers on the AW forums. I did a bit of research online (How did I survive before the internet?!) and had a list of non-negotiable features. On top of the list was a large page-per-minute capability, and double-sided printing. I'm going through a massive amount of paper, and it's a major PITA and logistics exercise to print double-sided on a regular printer, so I definitely wanted the double sided printing. Oh, and I wanted a reasonable price.

So I ended up with this little guy. I spent last evening getting it hooked up and then squealing with glee as it printed out my entire novel in under 6 minutes. (You should know by now that it's the little things that excite me!)

The only downside is that I have a computer armoire, and it doesn't fit on the printer shelf. So hubby got a little stand and it now lives right beside the cabinet. It seems very happy there.

I'm going to be spending the afternoon of my Mother's Day sorting paperwork. I have a nasty habit of checking the mail and just chucking everything onto a pile and then sorting it later. I pay all my bills online, so it's not like there's anything I need to look at... Hopefully I can get through my mountain of outdated envelopes and massive stack of unopened magazines and then spend some quality time on the back porch swing editing. I really want to get it done so I can print the whole book out again. LOL

Special note to Pete: Yes, a pregnant woman does get a present for Mother's Day. ;o)

Yippee!

2007-05-08T16:48:00.000-07:00

I don't have to work tomorrow! Yay! (It's the little things that thrill me, ya know!)

I'm going along on Son's field trip, which should be really cool. We're going to a Science Center, where we'll be building a huge bridge out of K'Nex (er, I mean the kids will be building it...) and then we'll be seeing an IMAX movie on a massive screen. I'm excited! I cleared the memory card and put fresh batteries in the camera. I've really, really missed doing stuff with the kids at the school since I went back to work. Previously, I was helping out with odds and ends two to three times a week. Yeah, I miss the little stinkers. *grin*

***

I'm currently jamming to AC/DC. Hell's Bells is one of the Best Songs Ever Made. EVER. And You Shook Me All Night Long. And Highway To Hell. Love me some good old fashioned rock & roll, yes I do! Before my AC/DC started, I was grooving with Joan Jett. She also had some of the Best Songs Ever Made, I Love Rock & Roll, of course, and I love Do Ya Wanna Touch. Great songs.

My one and only stint at Karaoke was with I Love Rock & Roll. I must have done well because everyone in the room was applauding and dancing and telling me how great it was. Of course, they were all completely wasted by the time I got on stage, but let's not dwell on the little details, okay?

Oooooh, Kiss with Heaven's On Fire. Some bits of technology I have to be dragged into kicking and screaming, but I looooooooooooooooove my MP3 player. I love love love my playlists, which range from classical (Vivaldi's Four Seasons is a favorite) to Spanish guitar (Benise... yummm) to my beloved country, to classic rock, to hair bands, to more country. Sorry, no pop. Or rap. Ick.

And now we've got Kick Start My Heart - Motley Crue...

*extends pinky and first finger and head bangs*

Aaaaaaahh, memories... Now I just need to find someone to buy me booze and I'm back in my teens. LOL

Of course I could buy my own. But they don't card me anymore, and that's just depressing. :oP

***

And the answer is no, none of this has anything to do with writing. But it's fabulous for my mental health.

So there.

Yes, I Am Still Alive.

2007-05-05T13:07:00.000-07:00

And periodically online.

This week has been insane. In addition to working lots every day, Monday there was a ballgame in the evening. Tuesday we had an appointment in a town an hour from home. Wednesday was another ballgame. Thursday was a meeting at the school. Friday was "catch my breath" night. Today, I spent hours digging and weeding and planting pansies along my deck, after going to get said pansies, mowing most of the yard, going to my next door neighbor's jewelry party (out of guilt because I don't wear much jewelry, but she's a wonderful neighbor so I went), snarfing down something vaguely resembling lunch, skimming the pool (the fire company brought us a load of water so we could get the pump going), and it is now 4:15 PM (EST, for the nosy among you) and I am just now sitting down.

I know, I know. RT's going to be PMing me, smugly asking how much editing I've gotten done in there. NONE. So there. Pbbbbbbt!

I've been down in the dumps lately. A combination of spring fever and being trapped in my job, I think. Add to that some babysitter issues, behavior issues with the Kid, and throw in all the other day to day shit that goes on, then top it all off with Little League and PTO volunteer obligations, and that makes for a grumpy and overwhelmed Carrie. (Yeah I know. Cry me a freaking river, right?)

On the upside, Hubby and Son were out and about today and stopped at the mall (which is about 45 minutes away). Hubby got me an awesome Ravens sweatshirt, a "Parking for Ravens fans only" sign to hang in front of my parking space, and a Ravens yard flag. *grin* I'm all set for football season! WOOO HOOO!! It's been such a long hard week that I promptly burst into tears and confused the poor guy. Oh, well. If he's not used to my idiosyncrasies after 17 years, it's his own fault. LOL

The weather is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful here today! It's sunny and warm and completely gorgeous. I'm debating curling up with a good book, doing some editing on my book, or just sitting out back on the porch swing and watching the birds and relaxing.

Or maybe I'll compromise. Maybe I'll sit out back with a notebook and sketch out my idea for the children's book I'm working on, then read a good book, all whilst relaxing. (Yes, RT, I neglected to mention editing. *grumble grumble* FYI, RT is far worse than Pete when interrogating me about what writing I'm getting done. I can distract Pete, usually by mentioning BOOBS, and change the subject.) That sounds like a good compromise to me. Or maybe I'll go to Borders and buy another stack of children's books to ~~read~~ study for research. Nah. It's too far away. A trip to amazon.com is more likely.

And another one

2007-04-28T16:18:00.000-07:00

Just so we don't all have that awkward business of a non-comedy poem sitting on the top of the blog, stifling user comments, here's another post for people to talk about.

First, we'll share what's possibly one of my favoritest (if not my favoritest) pieces of instrumental music. That it comes from a Star Trek episode (also one of my favorite) probably says something about me.

Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Inner Light

I don't remember how old I was when I saw that episode, but it was a big deal. I still maintain that the whole fifth season of TNG was one of the best-written pieces of science fiction, let alone Star Trek, that existed before Babylon 5 or Firefly came along and changed the playing field.

(Some people would say Battlestar Galactica changed the playing field. Honestly, and I've tried, I completely fail to see BSG as science fiction. If I had to list sci-fi shows on television right now, I'd get through Dr. Who, some reruns of shows I like, and then I'd start to stammer a bit.)

And then, because I should always endeavor to Bring On The Funny for you lot, here's Dave Barry, who is the essence of Brought On Funny.

If I had voted that election, and had been aware that Dave Barry was running for president, I would have totally voted for him.

Untitled

2007-04-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

And we climaxed,
While the towers burned.
And we came down,
When they did.

And we lay,
My head on a pillow,
Her head on me.
"Storm's coming."

And she said,
"I heard thunder.
Must be bad,
'Cause I hear sirens."

And I looked,
Out the window,
And just saw,
A lot of gray fog.

And I heard,
The television
Going in the other room.
News I couldn't hear.

And we kissed.
"Who cares?" I said.
"Just a storm. It'll pass."
We lay silent, in love.

And I cared,
Later, when I saw.
It really WAS a storm.
Just without clouds.

And I hated,
That my best moment,
and my worst moment,
Were the same one.

Boring bits, plus MATING!

2007-04-27T09:57:00.000-07:00

I was going to do a long and musing post about how the writing of my novel is going, and then I remembered that there are few things quite as boring as listening to a writer who is Great With Novel talking about the novel in question. Either it's going good, or it's going crappy. Most everything else is just bubbling excitement, or bleeding angst.

It's going very well. I'm at 15,000 words, all handwritten. I'm happily averaging about 300 words a page. This says a lot for my handwriting, which has improved leaps and bounds in the past year. I use letters, for a start. It's also typed up, because since I don't always have access to a uniform form of writing, the novel has the first page written in a journal, pages 2-12 written on white legal paper, pages 12-20 written on yellow longer legal paper (folded up from living in my pocket) pages 20-34 are in another journal, and so on. I have this folder with more or less all the pages in it neatly, and it is the messiest folder ever. I dropped it yesterday, and it was practically a natural disaster. Thank god for page numbers.

My main character continues to surprise me, which makes me happy. I thought he'd have a beard and longish hair. Instead, he keeps shaving his entire head. He also has a penchant for knives. Very odd, and delightful.

And that's all I'll say. You can wake up now.

Here's the MATING promised in the title: The secret origins of Elmo (look closely, at the end.)

Right. Off to write. Right.

In Doggerel We Trust

2007-04-25T20:57:00.000-07:00

So, the other night while cuddled (in a manly fashion) in bed with my wife, we chanced to watch an episode of DOG: Bounty Hunter. I was amiable toward it. He looks cool, in an eighties rocker sort of way. The theme song is done by Ozzy (and not Ozzy-is-so-sad, but Ozzy-is-rocking). What's not to love?

Half an hour later, I was incredulous and weirded out. Let's follow a typical hunt, shall we?

I'm sure I'm not making this up.

DOG: RIGHT, so today we're going to CATCH a CRIMINAL who has evaded the LAW, which is ILLEGAL!

WIFE: You tell 'em, baby!

DOG-BROTHER: Yeh.

DOG: Her name is CARRIE, and she is our BOUNTY. She's worth fifteen dollars, dead or alive!

WIFE: That's my baby's daddy talkin'!

DOG-BROTHER: Yeh.

DOG-SON: Yo, yo, foshizzle some nizzle hizzle, drizzle! Velveeta!

DOG: Let's ROLL!

CUT TO CARRIE'S NICE HOME. IT IS VERY CLEAN. THIS IS BECAUSE CARRIE DOESN'T WRITE ANYMORE, OR POST ON HER BLOG, AND THEREFORE HAS PLENTY OF TIME TO CLEAN.

DOG & COMPANY BURST INTO THE HOME THROUGH ALL AVAILABLE ENTRANCES (just left of the front door being an 'available entrance.')

DOG: CARRIE, you are BUSTED! You are UNDER ARREST! We're BRINGING YOU IN!

CARRIE: whflapy?

DOG: She's PRETENDING to be ASLEEP!

WIFE: Probably 'pretending' it's 3AM too!

DOG-BROTHER: Yeh.

CARRIE: Who the heck are you guys? Am I being invaded by RATT?

DOG: No. I am DOG, the BOUNTY HUNTER. In DOG we TRUST! I'm so sorry, did I waky your hubby? I didn't mean to. Sorry, sir.

HUSBAND: ......ZZZzzzzzzZZZZZzzzzz.....

CARRIE IS HAULED AWAY INTO THEIR SUV.

CARRIE: What the hell!? Hey, where are you taking me! THIS IS ILLEGAL!

DOG: What is illegal is the sadness in your heart, caused by your bad choices, Carrie.

CARRIE: Er. What?

DOG: Think of me like, like not a bounty hunter, but a Bounty Quilted Quicker Picker-Upper, for your sadness, and for your regret, okay, honey? How old are you, sweetie?

CARRIE: Old enough to legally get away with kicking you in the crotch for asking me that.

WIFE: My baby's daddy gets 'em! SHEE-OOOT!

DOG-BROTHER: Yeh! Yeh! Yehyehyeh! Yeh eyehheyeheyeheyh yeeheh!

WIFE: Sheee-ooot, all this'un talkin' got DOG-BROTHER excited. Shat yer trap, DOG-BROTHER, or we puttin' you in yer cage when'a we get back!

DOG: Carrie, I think that as we travel to bring you in for your bounty, we should say a prayer to Baby Jesus. Because he loves you. Just like I do.

CARRIE: I'm on Punk'd. That's gotta be it.

DOG: Like the great bounty hunter of hearts said, Won't you be my neighbor?

THEY DROP CARRIE OFF AT THE POLICE STATION, WHERE SHE PHONES A RIDE HOME AND GOES BACK TO BED SWEARING.

DOG: That was a HARDCORE CASE, fortunately I'm a TRAINED PROFESSIONAL, else I wouldn't have SURVIVED. Next time, let's see who tries to escape....THE DOG!

THE END.

(This episode featured music by Earth, Wind & Fire, in violation of the Geneva Articles of War)

....

You think I'm kidding. Go watch the show! It goes from HARDCORE BOUNTY HUNTER one moment to "if you had three wishes, honey, what would they be?" It's like Rambo combined with Dr. Phil. Except it's not even Rambo. It's Charlie Sheen in Hot Shots!: Part Duex combined with...Montel.

Weirdest. Show. Ever.

The HORROR of

2007-04-21T10:37:00.000-07:00

Here, let's watch a dramatic piece of horror television.

Here's part One:

Here's part two:

Here's part three:

Whoa. Where Am I??

2007-04-19T11:19:00.000-07:00

*looks around blog*

Am I in the right place? Apparently someone redecorated. :oD

*shrugs and goes about posting*

I wholeheartedly agree with Pete about Sanjaya. Sure, he seems like a nice kid, but I'm glad he's gone. He didn't deserve to get that far on American Idol. Is he a better singer than I? Probably. But he wasn't as good as some of the folks who got voted off before him.

And... Lakisha in the bottom three?! Eeek!

I'm not sure who I want to go next, because I really like all of the remaining six contestants.

***

I'm home today with a sick kid. :o( My poor little buddy got sick and ended up missing his first baseball game last night. So I called off work this morning, after being off yesterday for helping at the Kid's school for their Grandparents' Day event.

I spent a good portion of my night (when I would have much preferred to be sleeping) cleaning up kid barf.

WARNING, DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH:

In the evening, I took Son's temperature, and it was hovering just over 101º. So I gave him some Tylenol and got him settled into bed. Around 11:30, he was fast asleep. I was just dozing off and could hear his deep breathing. All of a sudden, he barfed himself awake. Ugh. Poor kid. No chance to lean out of bed and to the trash can. Nope. He threw up all over the bed, the sheets, the stuffed animals, the pillow, his shirt, his pants, his socks, and yes folks, the floor. I was gagging as I got his stuff pulled off the bed. Poor kid was dazed. We got him cleaned up and got the bed cleaned off and he promptly conked back out while we proceeded to drag his stuff to the washer. Ick. I nearly horfed myself.

***

Grandparents' Day was fun. We tie-dyed t-shirts. Blue.

Guess what color my hands are now.

Yep, blue. Most of the dye has come off, but I still look like someone just pulled me out of an avalanche... or a grave. My nails are blue and my hands still have a slight blueish tint. I've tried about a dozen cleansers and nothing is working. I guess I'll just have blue hands for the next couple of days!

***

More pleasantly, the school is also running a Scholastic Book Fair right now. I picked up a few books for myself and of course the Kid ended up with a few books to add to his library. He found a new series (new to me, anyway) that looks pretty cool. The Midnight Library. I'm going to read a few myself to see what they're like.

***

More pleasantly still, the weather here seems to be breaking. Today was nice enough that I cracked open a few windows. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and 71º. Thank goodness. I need a nice bright warm day!

America the passably intelligent

2007-04-19T06:35:00.000-07:00

This blog would like to extend it's hearty congratulations and warmest support to the people of America, who have finally made a really smart decision and sent Sanjaya HOME.

(It was probably because the ****ing 13-year-olds who were voting for him just had a lot of homework that night. I'm sure there will be plenty of free-form angst-ridden poetry about the lack of Sanjaya in their lives now.)

And I like how spelling-error-free this post is, considering I'm writing it while doing Snoopy Dances. No mean feat, I can tell you. (Way mean feet, though.)

And while American Idol provided their montage of Sanjaya's journey, complete with Daughtry's "Home" playing over it, I would like to offer my own video/song montage for Sanjaya's journey.

Naughty Bits

2007-04-16T11:29:00.000-07:00

Because this just seemed like the sort of thing that belongs on this blog

Girls outdo guys at ogling
Women are worse oglers than men - despite the widespread belief they are less physically focused.

Scientists used eye-tracking technology to pinpoint what people looked at when shown a series of sexy photos, reports The Sun.

They expected women to be more interested in faces and men in the naughty bits - but it was the other way round.

Dr Heather Rupp of the US-based Kinsey Institute said: "Men looked at the female face much more than women and both looked at the genitals comparably."

So, there you go.
...

Today is a beautiful day, with temperatures approaching seventy degrees. This would almost be too warm for comfort, except there's this cool breeze blowing now and then, just to cool things off. What else could you ask for?

I am therefore going out onto the balcony with a comfortable chair, a notebook, a freshly-filled fountain pen, and a bag of pretzels that no one will care if they leave crumbs on the ground.

Last night, I typed up about half of what I'd hand-written for the Rome novel so far, and was pleased to see that it was around four thousand words of text that I enjoyed reading as I typed.

Even later last night (something I paid for when I got up very early this morning) I kept writing where those handwritten bits left off. Earlier in the week, failing to remember the gist of where I'd left off when I wanted to do some writing (and was not at home) I picked a scene that I knew came a little ways ahead and I started writing from there. I got about fifteen pages handwritten from that point. So last night and this morning, I wrote the bit that bridged the two scenes together, and it worked very well.

It also, without intending to, solved a minor problem that I was expecting in another ten pages or so.

I noticed that with my last novel as well, now I come to think about it. I'll anticipate a problem ahead (Problem: I know why Our Hero goes into the hold of the ship; I don't know why the guards and the crew let him) and mostly ignore it, because I'm busy with the actual writing stuff. By the time I approach the problem, something has happened in the text which explains it away perfectly, and I don't have to consciously do anything to try and fix it (Solution: The guards think he's going after the guy who tried to kill Our Hero, failed, and was thrown in the hold with other people; the guards are wrong, that's not the reason, but they let Our Hero down anyway and hope for a good brawl).

So, off to the balcony to write. I already said that. Time to find out what happens when Our Hero's fever breaks and he is approaching sane for the first time in a long time (how long? He'll find out shortly.)

Nature Roads

2007-04-15T13:54:00.000-07:00

Well, it was too beautiful a day to stay inside, so I and my younger sister went for a hike through the nearby nature reserve. Anything that remotely resembled a path (i.e., did not immediately have a tree sprouting in our way) was walked on. When you're debating whether the thing you're walking on is a path or a riverbed, you are perhaps getting a little nuts.

We did about nine miles, round trip. We also found cool walking sticks. I count this as a good day. Now, I need something cool to drink (and a jug of passion fruit juice is calling my name) and somewhere to put my feet up, and a notebook. Time to do that writing thing I keep going on about.

...

I brought a camera while out there and thought, "Well, let's take a nice and interesting picture, to share with the world, indicating my cool and intellect. So I had my sister take this.

Not the greatest picture.

Then, because my cool and intellect usually lasts about as long as it takes for me to think of something funny...

The sun was bright. I don't ALWAYS look like an impish and slightly stunned Lemur.

And then, because it just seemed like a good idea at the time (and turned out to the best picture of the bunch...)

And there. I have other interesting pictures of mushrooms, butterflies, frozen lakes, and such...but honestly, how many pictures can you stand to see? So I'll leave it there, and go do something useful.

Abby Road

2007-04-15T10:11:00.000-07:00

So, I was intending this post just to welcome the newest member of our household, but in the process of getting the pictures of her off the camera, I found lots of obscenely cute pictures of the cats. So they get posted too.

Let's start with Bailey.

Yes, the life of a Bailey is a good and happy thing, where the thing on his shoulders is only used for rubbing, and eating. And being licked by other cats.

He also kicks butt at Soul Calibur II.
So! That's our Bailey moment!

Now, let's move on to...Runt!

Arrrrrr! He do be wild! He'll conquer that paper, you wait and see. Yarrrr! Or he'll make a squeaky noise and wonder why no one loves him right this minute.

Let's move on to Toby. Little Toby, who was a stray that we brought in. He was the size of my hand, I found him one morning swollen and bleeding by the side of a freeway. It was the morning after a major thunderstorm, full of hail and lightning and tornado warnings. He was less than six months old, practically oozing worms and other viruses. Based on his vet bills, the Vetrinarian probably bought a Hummer.

That's a fairly big barstool. As you can see, Toby turned out fine.

Anyway, the thing about changing the batteries in the camera is, you suddenly discover that all of the cats, knowing this was going to occur, have become disgustingly cute. They do things like this:

They have no shame. That's Baily, Logan, and Toby by the way. You can figure out who's who.

ANYWAY. The point of this blog post was to tell you about the new member of my household.

My wife is a Professional Dog Groomer, which would sound way more impressive if she didn't come home smelling like wet dog. Anyway, she works in the grooming salon of our local PetCo. They sell rats. One of the rats, under six months old, escaped two weeks ago and spent the past two weeks living randomly in PetCo. Terrified, obviously, by customers and workers and slamming pallet jacks and all manner of things. She finally got caught yesterday and put up for adoption. She lost half her tail, presumably got it ripped or cut off somewhere in the store. She goes ballistic around loud noises and is terrified of everything right now.

No one would have adopted her. Well, probably some sick bastard would have, to feed her to his snake. So Renee and I took her home.

She lives in the big cage now with our other, older female rat, Emma. Emma is a wonderful rat, who took care of one or our other old rats when she was weak and dying. She's thus far taken very good care of our new rat too.

Her name is Abby. And here she is.

She's pretty small. I would have taken her out for the pictures, but she can't handle being picked up yet. Give us a week or so.

And for the morbidly inclined among you, here's what's left of her tail (healed over just fine; just short)

She's obviously had enough of me. And now, probably, so have you.

So I shall go for a walk.

Zombie Jokes!

2007-04-14T18:24:00.000-07:00

I am not dead. As evidenced by the following zombie jokes, which I made up (despite my wife declaring that I didn't) and which I wouldn't make if I were dead, would I?

Q: Why didn't the zombie move forward with his lawsuit?

A: Because he didn't have a leg to stand on!

Q: Why should you never have a zombie roommate?

A: Because he'll always leave you in the lurch!

Ha! Ha! I am brilliance personified!

Yes, I'll go back to staring at pages of .php code now...

Where, oh where?

2007-04-14T08:43:00.000-07:00

Where, oh where, oh where is PeeDee? Where, oh where, oh where is PeeDee? Where, oh where, oh where is PeeDee, where could he have gone?

Sorry, flashbacks to when my Munchkin was a much, much smaller Munchkin and we'd sing that song with seventeen BILLION verses... where are your fingers, where are your toes, where is your head, where is your nose... *thinks back fondly*

I suppose he's done another self-ban, but usually he's still in communiqué. :o( Boo hoo, I haven't chatted with Pete in weeks. Hopefully he's off being über productive and has a whole stack of fabulous stories done.

Thanks to some gentle prodding ("Go write something.") from my favorite PM ~~victim~~ friend, I'm working on a short story, which may end up being the start of my next book. I've had the book idea marinating, and now I'm working on a similar story that I hadn't originally been what I was thinking for the book. But it just might work. And if not, what the hell. It's writing, right?

Right now the sun is shining! It's chilly, but not as nasty cold as it's been. I'm going to bury my head in the sand and pretend this is a sign that the late-season snowstorm has been canceled. *grin*

Off to write!

Creative Creativity

2007-04-10T19:17:00.000-07:00

It's probably just me being chronically restless, which I tend to be, but I love experimenting with different methods of writing things. I learned to write by hand, advanced to a manual typewriter, then electric, and then eventually found these computer things. I was very impressed with how fast and efficiently a computer could garble up and lose something I'd written. Way faster than a typewriter!

I never really switched modes because I had to. It wasn't Gee, I'd best start typing my stuff up so I can send it out. I just switched because I was curious, I wanted to experiment, and I eventually found a groove on each device and continued to use it until a new groove came along. I was always content in the knowledge that if computers irked me enough, I could go back to typewriting, and if that irked me enough, I could revert all the way back to handwriting. The versatility was important to me.

One thing I always do in art stores is ogle the sets of calligraphy pens which comes in attractive little packages. I like the pens with their fountain pen like points (being a sucker for fountain pens) and I like the little bottles of various inks. I always dream of scratching out a short story like this. I just never got around to buying any.

Fast forward to tonight. My sister, who has heard about this several times, comes out with a little bottle of black ink and a set of calligraphy pens and points and sets them down in front of me. I am busy sitting like someone in a coma, practically drooling, with a Hulkbuster of a headache and pain caused by the Brownian motion of air molecules brushing against each other.

Still, I'm delighted to try it. You're never too old to try new things! So I set aside my manuscript that I'm working on, by hand, and I put down a blank piece of paper and I go to try it.

I have no idea why I thought this was a good idea.

I scratch out one little line. And then, in the process of going to dip the pen into the ink again...I catch the pen tip on the edge of the bottle, upend it, and spill three fourths of the bottle of ink.

I spill it in a pretty puddle all over the table, two of my fingers...and three of my manuscript pages.

I haven't typed up any of this manuscript. I promised myself I wouldn't type it up until I'd finished chapter one. So you can imagine my screaming.

Fortunately, I only lost a handful of words, most of which I can probably guess. It's not like it blotted out half a page, said half containing such words of brilliance as to move the readers of the world to tears. I just have sentences that now go "You cannot be said with a flush.*

So, this proves that experimenting is a Very Bad Idea indeed, and I will now stick safely to the modes of writing that I learned when I was younger. No more of this crazy boat-rocking for me. Nossir. For one thing, it took me five minutes to scrub the ink off my fingers.

It did make me appreciate my cartridge-based fountain pen all the more.

And I think I should probably buy my sister a new bottle of ink, since her old bottle of ink is currently a large black stain (but it's on a large black table, so that's all right.)

* This is not an actual sentence. For one thing, this sentence is terrible, which is exactly the sort of sentence I don't write. So never fear.

Happy Easter

2007-04-08T08:11:00.000-07:00

Unless, of course, you don't celebrate Easter, and which case happy everything is closed and we have nothing better to do but go out and eat day!

I'm off to eat excessively.

It's SPRING!!

2007-04-03T17:42:00.000-07:00

At least until later this week, when we are to once again be subjected to nut-freezing weather. Not that I have nuts, unless you count the can of dry roasted peanuts in the cupboard. *grin*

I'm insanely busy right now. Work is maddening - there are eleventy billion end/beginning of the month reports that have to be done RIGHT NOW!! RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND OR THE BANK WILL IMPLODE!!! Yeah, right. If that were the case, I'd "lose" my files in the shred bin. OOPS.

This working thing sucks. (Yeah, I know. I get no sympathy but this is MY half of the blog and dammit I'm going to have a pity party.) I've had to almost completely eliminate my volunteering, which sucks. That was a part-time job in itself. The house is going to hell, and you want me to... what?? Did you say cook? Yeeaaaaah. I wouldn't be holding my breath for a home cooked meal.

My time online is ridiculously limited - it's even affecting poor Pete!

Not to mention I haven't been able to spend as much time polishing my shrine to RT, the object of my undying and insatiable lust. (He thinks I'm kidding because I confessed my secret desires on April Fool's Day. I couldn't wait any longer!) *grin*

A-hem.

Anyway.

So I've got spring fever in the worst kind of way, and I almost wish I didn't have the damn window in my office. I sit there, drooling on loan files, staring out the window at the sunshine (not directly at the sunshine, I'm not an idiot!) and thinking of the shitload of work I need to get done at home, but I can't because I'm stuck at work.

On top of all the work crap, there's my school volunteering which I'm still obligated to do, and I'm doing a piss-poor job at it, which is like nails on a chalkboard to my anal retentive self.

Oh, did I mention Little League?

And then hours of babysitting angst where my sitters (who happen to be close relatives) decided they didn't have time to babysit??????? It turned out ok, we hired a teenage girl who doesn't know we're ripping her off with the pittance we're paying. LOL

What? Did someone say writing? *convulses on floor, consumed by hysterical laughter* No, I don't think my book will get edited anytime this millennium. All my mental energy is being drained out of me. *poof* there went the last of it...

My Night

2007-03-29T21:06:00.000-07:00

So! I'm sitting in the bookstore tonight, having done a great deal of work. I have half an hour to kill before I close, so I'm kicked back, reading a Terry Pratchett novel.

This gaggle of teenage girls comes running into the store, giggling like teenage girls, and they fall all over themselves and my counter. Scaring the crap out of complacement me in the process.

"DO you LIKE have ANY books for LIKE a DOLLAR???" one of them asks.

"I really don't," I reply, which is true.

Quick whispering in their midst.

The girl leans on the counter toward me and says, "WILL you SELL us that PEN for a QUARTER???"

Pen? Oh yes. Because there's a pen behind my ear. Where a pen seems to live.

What the hell. It's a slow night.

"Sure," I say.

"And we need to to write a receipt."

"Why not," I say. And I write a receipt that says "This pen is worth one quarter." and I sign my
name.

"You're the BEST!" she giggles, and they run out of the store.

Scavenger hunt.

I chuckle, terribly amused. I leave my boss a note that says I sold a store pen for a quarter. I will sell our carpeting tomorrow night.

I tape the quarter to the paper.

Then I go back to reading my Terry Pratchett book. I put my feet up. I settle in.

I have a heart attack when someone puts a hand on my shoulder.

It's another girl, much calmer than the first one. She says to me, in a quiet voice, "Do you have any books for a dollar...?"

"I really don't," I say, which is true.

"Oh. Look, can I like give you a quarter for one of your book marks or something?"

"Sure!" I say. Because I'm easily amused.

"Okay, I'll be right back, I have to grab my friends," and she leaves quietly, calmly. She squeezes my shoulder on the way out. Which was odd.

Presumably, yeah.

Thirty seconds later, she returns with HER gaggle of girls, and they are ALL giggling and hyper now. Most of them are moms, this time.

The bookmark doesn't work. It's not pink. It's not rough. They need one or the other.

Desperate, they look around the store.

"I know!!!" One of them exclaims, the light of inspiration in her eyes.

"Can we buy that red pen from you, mister? For, like, a quarter???"

"Sure...!" I say, and I hand them the pen and take the quarter. And I add, "Do you need me to write a receipt?"

"Yeah, and if you could put your name on-- Wait, how did you know that?" the first girl asks.

"Another group was in here and bought something already. Er. My other pen, actually."

"DAMN IT! THEY DID NOT!" The girls are agog. Then they settle. "Oh well, ours is PINK!"

I give them a receipt, they leave, I close the store. I turn off the lights. I go to leave, walking through an empty mall where the lights are off.

I am just nearly to the exit doors, when....

"EXCUSE me, SIR??"

I turn. Two more girls are running at me. If this were the bronx, I'd be macing people.

One breathless girl says, "Can we TAKE our PICTURE wiht YOU???"

Pete says, ".....sure. Um. Why?"

The other girl stands next to me, the first girl stands on my other side and holds out the camera. One of them says, "Well, red is like pink, isn't it? You have great hair."

"Thanks." I say.

And then, bemused and with a flash spot in front of my eyes, I head out into the rainy night and go home, and reflect that sometimes, real life is profoundly more weird than fiction.

BOOBS!!!!

2007-03-29T14:33:00.000-07:00

Yes. Boobs. Just for you, RT, I'm going to talk about boobs.

People who yak on their cell phones while standing at the counter to order their freaking sub at Subway, and hold up their finger like "just a minute" to the girl at the counter. With fifteen people in freaking line.

People who drive 7 MPH. Unless you're in a buggy, drawn by a horse, that's just lame. (I live in Amish country. Lots of buggies... and they go faster than some of the idiots around here.)

On the flip side, people who drive 85 MPH down a residential street.

People who chew loudly in public places. *barf*

People who think their screaming children should be "enjoyed" by everyone because he or she is "so cute." Um, no. Rattlesnakes and scorpions are cute. Screaming children are not.

People who actually think their thong sticking out of their pants is attractive. Not to be repetitive, but *barf*.

The guy at Lowe's who thinks it's so cute when a "little woman" wants to buy a kick-ass drill. Yes, it's for me. No, my husband won't be allowed to touch it. Yes, you're a jerk.

People who say they'll do one thing and then wait until you're settled into complacency and then they yank the rug out from under you and leave you completely screwed and then get pissed off when you figure out a way to make things work without their sorry asses being involved at all.

Those are all the boobs I can think of for now. *grin*

A Movie All Writers Should See!

2007-03-24T14:19:00.000-07:00

Writer's Block - a movie that is apparently all about ways to overcome writer's block - something all writers need help with from time to time, don't you agree?

Here's the fascinating blurb: Deadlines ... what a bitch! Apparently Jack, a highly successful erotic novelist, is under pressure from his gorgeous editor to complete his latest work, which is already overdue. Jack needs a little carnal inspiration to get the creative juices flowing. A steamy threesome gets him tapping at the typewriter in no time! It's amazing how a little - or in this case, how a lot - of sex can relieve all that tension, not to mention unleash those imaginative sparks. So if you've got writer's block and you're staring at a blank piece of paper, take a tip ... things'll start looking up.

Do not click this link if you are under 18. I haven't seen it (yet), but it's high on my list! (Right after Captain Hooker and Peter Porn and The XXXorcist.)

Doing "it"

2007-03-17T12:00:00.000-07:00

You're all filthy, because of course, I meant writing.

Carrie (the other person who writes on this blog, obviously, do try to keep up) and I were discussing the AbsoluteWrite Writer's Retreat that's happening next year, and what we're actually going to write during the whole stay.

I made the comment that the thing about writer's retreats is, it's the only place where two people can come out of a darkened room looking messy and exhausted and very happy and people whoop and cheer and catcall...because they assumed they finished a book.

Carrie, who is wiser than I, pointed out that it's much more likely that they would believe it was sex, pure sex, regardless of if we brought out three hundred pages of manuscript and were stained with ink. She's right, of course.

TSUKI: Whoa! The bare-backed tango!

PETE: The what...?

RLLGTHUNDER: You got it on!

CARRIE: Yeah! On paper! Finally!

SPOOKY: Neat! How did it feel!

PETE: Great! It was like a big release! It was good to finally get it out!

HAGGIS: You dog! You DOG! Way to go!

CARRIE: It was longer than I expected!

PETE: Me too!

TSUKI: .....what?

PETE: But we got it where it needed to go, in the end!

HAGGIS: That tends to happen!

SPOOKY: WHOOO!

CARRIE: Now we just gotta figure out who else wants it.

DEAD SILENCE.

HAGGIS: Um. Er. Um. What?

CARRIE: Silly. We can't keep it all to ourselves. It's too good for that.

TSUKI: Neat!

PETE: I know! Now we just have to find a publisher!

THE RETURN OF DEAD SILENCE.

SPOOKY: Well, I mean, Hugh Hefner might know some...

PETE: Yeah! They put out a magazine after all!

THE SON OF DEAD SILENCE.

TSUKI: That magazine is hot!

DEAD SILENCE AND LAUREL & HARDY MEET THE WOLFMAN

PETE: So anyway, who wants to get their hands on it first! You guys got first crack!

CARRIE: I'm just glad to be done writing!

DEAD SILENCE IN 3-D

August Sixth

2007-03-13T14:53:00.000-07:00

August sixth, two thousand and seven, will be a normal, average day for most folks. They'll be getting up and going to work...

But not me!

I just got back from the travel agency a little bit ago, after booking our CRUISE!

HUZZAH!!

I'm so excited. My husband, my offspring and myself will be taking a Royal Caribbean cruise to the Bahamas. It's a nice five day, four night trip, and I. Can't. Wait.

We've never taken a *real* vacation as a family. Unless you count the nightmare of a trip we took to Myrtle Beach, SC - if I had to relive that trip, I'd snack on arsenic and wash it down with Drain-O. It was that bad.

Long weekends are as fancy as it gets. Hubby & I took a cruise in 2002 and we've been itching to take another one. So now's the time.

I'm really looking forward to a nice relaxing week on the cruise.

Of course, I expect a huge hurricane that ruins all our plans. Or a typhoon. Or some freak crosswinds that blow us into Bermuda, where we vanish.

I wanna go NOW, dammit, not 5 months from now. *whine*

We even sprung for the Jr. Suite so we'll have our own little balcony. Last time we went, I spent every evening on the balcony writing in my journal. I can't wait. It's gonna rock. :oD

Dear America

2007-03-08T22:19:00.000-08:00

Hi, America.

I'm over here.

You probably can't quite tell, since it's difficult to see with underpants on your head. But it's okay. I'm sure that's an acceptable look for you, and I won't even suggest you try and take them off without assistance.

Hey, you know that American Idol show thingie that you, America, mash phone buttons to vote on?

How about you...I don't know...like...vote the right people off, or something. Seriously. You voted off Sundance Head in favor of Sanjaya "I'm so pretty" Malakar. I mean, maybe you did really enjoy the strange songs in favor of a great version of "Mustang Sally," but who am I to judge?

(I mean, you should have kept him around because his name is Sundance Head! You don't get any cooler than that outside of the porn industry!)

No, it's okay, I just had to say something. You can go back to stumbling around with tighty whities on your head.

Here's my phone number, for you mash on your phone at. I bet I know someone who's certified to teach you baseball.

I Dream of PeeDee

2007-03-04T08:21:00.000-08:00

No, he wasn't dressed like Barbara Eden. Nor was I.

I knew it was inevitable, that sooner or later he'd show up in my dreams. And last night, he did.

For some reason, I was standing on my front porch and Pete pulls up in a pickup truck. (Flashbacks from Variety Hour, perhaps?) He jumps out and is wearing a flannel shirt (gee, where'd that come from?) and jeans. (Even in my dreams, I can't allow my brain to imagine the stretchy pants. ROFL)

(I'm also thinking he's probably not as muscular IRL as he was in my dream, *grin* but that's okay.)

So I was all excited because I'm finally meeting Pete IRL for the first time! Yay! He gives me a massive hug and we jump in the truck and go to the bookstore, where we proceed to walk around, pointing out our favorite books, then we wander into the erotica section and point out passages to each other, giggling like a couple of junior high school kids. We were shushed by some snot-nosed teenager who was the freaking MANAGER. Whatever.

At some point, we ended up in front of the Terry Pratchett books, where Pete tried to convince me that MOST of the books were actually GOOD, unlike the one I had picked up. So I bought one. (I can't remember which one, though...) Then we went around pointing out books we knew were by fellow AWers. I convinced Pete to buy a book by Jacquie D'Alessandro. LOL

After all this excitement, we went into a restaurant that was apparently attached to the book store, where we ate and talked and laughed for quite a long time. I was just thinking that we should get together more often when I woke up.

Sorry, thrill seekers, that really was it. ROFL I'd imagine it was pretty close to what would happen, should we actually ever end up meeting. Except for the pickup truck. And possibly the flannel shirt.

Oh. And the muscles. BUWAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Nanook of the North

2007-03-01T14:27:00.000-08:00

So, I got to the used bookstore today in time to be handed a Memo from the mall office, declaring the mall closed. Everything was closed, not because of the snow we've gotten, but because of the impending storm.

So, happy and puzzled, I closed up the store and got a ride home with the girl I would have been taking over for. In the time I got there until the time I got home (maybe twenty minutes) an inch of snow had fallen. By the time I'm done with this blog post, another two will probably be down on the ground.

I cannot see across the street. I just see a wall of fast-moving snow mixed with ice that turns everything into an impenetrable wall when it hits.

The grocery stores are closing, the banks are closing, the mall has closed.

The city and county have run out of snow plows and snow plow drivers. The shift they have going now has been going since four this morning. They have no choice but to stand down and go home. They have no one else to send out. The roads and streets are therefore (as of four o'clock) completely unplowed until tomorrow, when this same shift comes back to work.

I LOVE IT!

I adore this kind of bad weather. I love bad weather in general. When thunderstorms turn the skies strange shades of green and yellow and silver, when the thunder is something you feel in your feet and the lights flicker in time with the lightning, I'm happy as anything and prowling the house. Or I'm out walking in it, if I can get away with it.

With blizzards, I would bundle up and go out, but blizzards like this one would white things out enough that I'm not confident enough to be roaming the country-side. I like the bad weather, but I'm not stupid. I have no desire to get turned around and freeze to death.

Still, I'm happy as anything.

We have over a foot and a half of snow on the ground. We're predicted to get another twelve inches, but the prediction keeps rising. The Doppler radar shows a long and mostly verticle strip that's passing up, straight through us. And it's swirling too, so it'll come get us before too long again.

Hooray!

I'll report further, unless the ice kills the power. In which case, I'll get my notebook and my fountain pen and get a ton of writing done instead. There's no downside here.

Babies and things.

2007-02-28T22:02:00.000-08:00

Well, so myne wyfe and I went to the doctor's office the other day, which is always a very silly experience for me. I get very bored in doctor's offices, and that means I get goofy. I realize that it's probably useful to have a Scheduler on staff, but the concept of it just strikes me as amusing, when I've been doddering around the clinic ("medical plaza" the sign says) for an hour.

The nice thing about pregnancy, I've discovered, is that mostly by the time the "pregnancy" bit occurs, I've done my part and am in the clear. This is very good, because there seems to be an inordinate number of needles that need to be stuck in people.

I Do Not Like Needles. Terrified of them. My right arm, when I was a teenager, needed to be stitched back together after a nasty accident involving some very old and brittle glass. The anesthesia wore off halfway through and the next dose they give me didn't kick in until they were done. This means I felt at least twenty-four out of the forty-some stitches. Therefore, terrified of needles.

(another aside, since I'm meandering: this is actually the reason why I only type with nine fingers. My middle finger on my right arm is useless, except for gestures. My right arm still doesn't support weight extremely well.)

Anyway...the point I was getting at was that I dislike needles, and they seem to be taking enough blood out of my wife to start a blood bank. She says I'm doing that "exaggeration" thing again, but I maintain it anyway.

If ever you need to sneakily clone someone, just tell them that you need to run Important Bloodwork and then take a pint of blood and be on your way. THey won't even remember you amidst the rest of the hospital staff, the building which I affectionately call "The House of Knives."

This is all a round-about way of saying that we went in for an ultrasound the day before yesterday, and the doctor-guy tells us that Tzinski 2.0 is a boy. All I saw were a series of moving gray blobs in different positions (and, once, hauntingly enough, a face) so I'll take the doctor's word on it.

That said, the doctor's assured my parents that I was a girl, and they swore up and down that my sister HAD to be a boy...so I'm hardly basing my color choices on this doctor's testimony. I'm not entirely certain, but I think that mostly in Medical School, they just teach you how to keep a straight face while you use silly words and point at blobby things and wonder what to do with the pounds of money you made this hour. At night and on alternate Tuesdays, Medical School doubles as Clown College.

But I disgress again.

Baby = 50% Chance of Boy.

There.

It's also snowing, again, which means this may also be my last message to you lot. We're supposed to get upwards of eight inches. So I may have to go feral and herd wild attack moose while living in a cave in the mountains, like Jeremiah Johnson, a movie I reference all the time that no one but me has apparently ever seen.

There again. I'm off to write.

Get In Line... Or Do It Yourself... Or Piss Off.

2007-02-27T16:22:00.000-08:00

UGH. I get one call today from the person who is now in charge of the school's fundraiser (since I shirked my volunteer responsibility by getting my fun little job). "What do I do with this stuff?"

Ummmm... let's see...

1. Read the instructions.
2. Do what they say.

Then I get a note - "How soon are you sending the kids their pictures?" (School event, all the kids get their pictures taken and then we get them processed and give each kid a pic.)

1. When I get them done. Here's a clue: If your kid brings it home, it's done. If not... they're not done yet. K?
2. Or you could fricking do it yourself and get them sooner, K?

Geez.

Other than being barraged by idiocy, I'm in a pretty good mood. Except for being sorely disappointed that I haven't gotten my daily heavy breathing phone call from Rllg. *grin*

The Day After Yesterday

2007-02-25T07:07:00.000-08:00

So, three days ago I was wandering around the world in barely a sweater, it was warm and sunny, everything had melted, and life was nice.

Then, the storm hit.

We have, on average, around fourteen inches of snow on the ground. In places where it blew or could pile a little, it's easily twenty to twenty-two inches deep. It took me twenty-five minutes to shovel out the car so my wife could go to work. The wind is still going at ten miles an hour, but yesterday it ranged between twenty and thirty miles an hour.

Alas I have, when supplying my house, completely neglected the whole Snowshoes-and-dogsleds area, which could prove problematic. Fortunately, I have enough supplies (viz. popcorn, books) that I can hold out until help arrives.

Later, I will begin digging a tunnel under the snow, with holes for air every dozen yards or so. In this manner, I hope to reach civilization again.

Excuse me, I must go chop off my left frostbitten foot.

I had my Angsty-Os for breakfast today!

2007-02-24T08:52:00.000-08:00

Feel free to skip over this post full of vague and useless ranting.

I haven't really delved into the specifics, but suffice it to say that "emotional rollercoaster" is a gross understatment for my life the past two months.

Then yesterday, someone decided that now was the perfect time to pile on even more bullshit regarding stuff that is due to go on over the summer.

Why not? It's not like I have ENOUGH stressing me out, let's pile on a few more things! Sure! Carrie's not the type to end up with a gun in the clock tower at the town square, no sir! Ha ha! Oh. Wait...

So I spent most of last evening wallowing in my misery, and ended up crying myself to sleep in sheer frustration. Husband is a "fixer" so when I was sobbing out my angst to him, he was helpfully offering suggestions. Which made things worse because I just wanted to vent. (Although I did like his suggestion of watching Sopranos reruns for ideas on "solving" our "problem".)

Right now I'm just drained.

We're going to a pig roast this afternoon (Yes, a pig roast in 16º weather. Our friends are insane.) Other than that, I'm spending the weekend holed up at home and adhering to a strict code of avoidance and denial as far as the outside world is concerned. Thank heaven for Caller ID, which will be a valuable tool in my quest for solitude.

I much prefer being happy and angstless. My kitties help with that, so I'll share a few cute pictures of them. The first 3 pics were taken by my son, who thoroughly enjoys the digital camera and extreme closeups. LOL

This is Kelly, my nosy adventurer. She sleeps wrapped around my head at night. She loves to investigate everything.

This is Maggie, my lazy fluffball. She's floppy - if you pick her up, it's like she's boneless. It's really weird.

And this is Tucker, my scaredy-cat. She stays in the bedroom if anyone comes by. Right now she's playing with some of Son's stray Legos.

We got all three of our girls from the same litter. Here's a pic I took when they were still babies. They still curl up together sometimes, only now it has to be on the floor or the bed because they don't all fit on the chair sprawled out. (And we don't have that hideous chair anymore.)

Quick note

2007-02-22T11:30:00.000-08:00

BBT Magazine has a new web-site online which is very impressive and cool and built by yours truly, so you'd better love it (because I failed to go to sleep last night in the process of building it).

www.bbtmagazine.com

Check it out.

My robot serial is going through weird formatting issues which changes how I have to write it. It's still going ahead, though, so that makes me happy. I should have the first 'issue' (which will be three episodes long) done in the next hour or so. Released sometime in May, I think.

I have some interesting ruminations to share, but no time to share them! So they'll have to wait for a day or two.

It's thirty degrees and sunny outside, and it feels like summer in my deluded mind. I have all the windows open. I'm going to die thinking it was summer but with pneumonia anyway. You just watch.