Amy Lane's Blog: Writer's Lane, page 139

Airports, Flames, and Tazers

Hello, DSP peeps!So, uhm, yesterday was a travel day.

I usually don't have too much to report about those, yeah?  I get on the plane, I happily occupy myself with books and knitting and music-- things I don't have enough time to do off the plane-- and then I land and cab, or kiss my husband who is waiting for me.  (That second part is the best part.)

But yesterday…

It might have been exhaustion.  I'm heading for a nap shortly, and that's how I spend most of the day after any trip, and there's a reason for that.  But it might have just been…

I dunno… Monday?
L.A. Witt
My plane left NOLA at around 5:30.  After attending breakfast with Dreamspinner & Co. (wherein we realized we wouldn't see each other for months, and were all really frickin' sad!) I set up shop intending to work, but in reality what this did was give me lots of time to talk to Zam and Belinda McBride and L.A. Witt and. EM Lynley.  (Talking to L.A. Witt right before I catch my cab is becoming a habit-- I think I should always do this, because she's funny as hell, savage, kind, and likes stupid spam on her phone.  What's not to love?)  Then Zam and Belinda and I all shared a cab and checked in and got a chance to talk some more-- awesome, no?

The weirdness started when I got on the plane.

The guy in front of me was cute.  He was also drunker than any man I have ever seen in public.  When the passengers stood up at the end of the flight, the woman in front of us had really amazing earrings, right?  And this guy almost reached up and grabbed one, like a baby.  He wasn't doing it for attention, he was just that beery. The guy next to me-- who washed down two Dramamine with Jack & Coke-- was like, "Dayum, that guy's wasted."  (He also was darned cute-- but I watched him drool on himself a lot, and the only time that's adorable is when it's your own mate.)  So, well, that was odd.

And then we got to LAX.  So, if you arrive in LAX in T5 or T6, and you need to go from one to the other, they send you on a sherpa hike through a long existential tunnel, replete with murals of places that neither T5 NOR T6 generally go to.  Seriously.  Paris is pretty and all, but the majority of these flights are domestic, and given that you're trekking down a mostly featureless hallway with no air conditioning?  Screw Paris, I want some fucking air!  Oy!  And then, when you get to T5 (in my case) and attempt to use the ladies room, you find a three-seater.  Yes.  10 gates and a three-seater.  With a lot of pissed off women, sweating because, again, no air.  I've been in campground bathrooms that were bigger and less irritating.

But after that, I plunked my ass down at a charging terminal and, omg, finally got around to texting my family.  Chicken, of course, was using me as a way to stay up during her 9:30 class, but Mate actually shared stories.  In particular, this one:

Mate:  So, the stove caught fire.

Me:  o.0

Mate:  It hadn't been cleaned in a while.  Remember the toaster oven?

Me:  But I just CLEANED the oven.  Is there no justice?

Mate:  This was a burner.  It's all right though.  The flames freaked the little kids out, but I had it under control.

Me:  Mom guilt.  IT BURNS!!!

Seriously-- that's all the little kids could talk about this morning.  (After opening their presents of course.  New Orleans masks do a lot to ease the pain of parting.  Saying.)  Dad made them go outside while he tried not to burn the house down.  *headdesk*  If I wasn't exhausted, I'd probably clean.

And while I was texting that, some weird shit was going on next to me.  Somebody left their cell phone and computer charging… and then, just, uhm, left, while Security freaked the fuck out.  So, I dragged all my shit to a restaurant to go eat, and came back and they had apparently moved the stuff.  After some mindless sitting and starting Anne Tenino's Frat Boy and Toppy (which was hot and awesome!) we got moved to another gate (LAX-- I'm frickin' telling ya… it's like on some sort of weird warp of space, time, and logic!)  And we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  So the flight was delayed almost an hour and a half, and as we were all getting in line to board, security apparently caught up with the drunken 60 something guy who had left his cell phone and computer charging.

He was demanding them back.

Loudly, and aggressively.  From the nice man with the weapons.

"You can't do this to me!  I want to talk to the FBI!  I want to talk to your supervisor!  I want to talk to a real cop!  Give me back my fucking phone!  I'm within my rights!  What are you going to do about it, asshole?  Huh?  You gonna shoot me?"

And he got up in the security officer's face, and we all got to see the red light blinking on his shirt.

And then we got to see him still yelling, "You're not gonna taze me!" while the nice man with the taser said in his loud official voice, "TURN AROUND AND ALLOW ME TO CUFF YOU OR YOU WILL BE TAZED!"

The guy turned around, again asking bitterly for other law enforcement agencies which, I am sure, didn't want a fucking thing to do with this goatfuck, and allowed himself to be cuffed.  And then he pulled a 2 year old maneuver-- he let his knees collapse and when the officer grabbed at his shoulder to hoist him to his feet, cried, "My shoulder!  My shoulder!  I just had surgery!"

And that's when we all got on the plane, looking anxiously over our shoulders.  We really didn't care about the guy (I know that sounds cold, but live by the asshole code and be abandoned like a cold asshole) but we were just worried that the officer was going to have to actually taze him, and then the section of the airport would be shut down, and the flight that was leaving boarding nearly an hour and a half after schedule would be delayed yet again.  

It wasn't, but by then, I was so exhausted I actually drank a soda on the way home (when normally I stick to water, for not peeing in the tiny bathroom reasons).  And because the flight was delayed (he must have literally flown like the wind, because we only arrived an hour late, as opposed to an hour and a half late) when we got to Sac Metro, all of the roomy, modern, clean and cool bathrooms were closed up to be cleaned.

Ugh!

But on the plus side there was Mate, who was happy to see me!  And the kids, who gave me lots of hugs.  Squish needed her hair braided, Zoomboy wanted to try on his mask and the dog wanted to sleep in my shirt and everybody wanted to talk about the fire and…

Yeah.  Good to be home.  So very, very good to be home.

RT2014: NOLA

  So, right before I left for NOLA, Caroline Hanson asked me if I was going to have any time to play.  I responded, "Oh hell no!" immediately.  After three years of doing this whole travel thing, I've gotten used to the idea that, very often, the most I'll see of a particular city is the hotel and any restaurant a block away unless I play hooky.  Not so in New Orleans.    Part of it, I think, is that so much of the city is close, and in the French Quarter, it's far easier to walk on the broken pavement than it is to find a cab.  Part of it is that the hotel, while accommodating, has also been loud, just in general acoustical levels, so the temptation to linger and chat has been minimized.  It's been far more private to go out into the noisy city and wander than it has been to find a corner of the hotel and chat.
At any rate, I can now say I've wandered the French Quarter and strolled through the garden district.  I've dined like a queen and heard the river boats playing the creepy death marionette song while I was napping (which explain the really intense and creepy dream I had then, I might add.)  You can probably see from the picture that the river is right there-- vast and rolling and twice as wide as Folsom Lake near my home, so the riverboat song really IS close enough to pervade my dreams.  I have not seen any of the places hit by Katrina particularly hard--but I have talked to locals who were forced to relocate during cleanup, and it is clear that their heart is here.  It's easy to see why.
So, I have, in random order, some con pictures interspersed with some NOLA pictures, and I'm sort of out of it-- it's been something of a week and the end something of a month and a half.  On Wednesday, I broke down and started to laugh/sob hysterically, giggling, "A month ago, I was in San Diego!" much to Mary's chagrin-- she wasn't sure how she was going to get me to stop!  Anyway, stringing two thoughts much less two sentences together is something of a miracle for me-- forgive the lack of cogency, I swear I'll try to recover my brain cells by the next time I blog!
The first two NOLA pictures are taken from my hotel room-- I just panned to the right and then to the left.  I think one of the first things that hit me is how compressed the city is.  The good and the bad just right on top of each other, layered like an paints on an impressionist painting.  The second two are balconies at night.  Yeah, I know-- not hardly original--but the old quarter, man, you just don't see buildings that old in California.  And whether the balconies are apartment buildings or hotels, they're haunting and beautiful, and there is something seductive about the thought of tourists wandering the quarter, drunk on decadence and carry-away daiquiris, under the jaded eye of locals who have seen it all.         If you look down this narrow street at nine o'clock at night, you'll see that the locals get an eyeful. 
So, sandwiched between wanderings into the Quarter for food, was actual wanderings of the Canal Street Marriott for work. This picture here, with all of the lovely people in it, is from the DSP Fantastic Day Party.  Now, the party itself was pretty chaotic-- authors were coming and going and the place was mobbed with people looking for free books and signatures from their favorite authors.  For the record, including the signing, it was the second time I was in a room with Lee Childs as a professional-- and yet, I have no signature.  *sigh*  It was the one thing I wanted for my husband, and I'm sort of sorry I failed.  But the people I was working with?  The stunning Amanda Carlson, the hugely talented Tere Michaels, Anastasia (Ariel's delightful and helpful intern), lyric apted, our bubbly, kind, helpful publicist, THE amazing, talented and OH SO FRICKIN' GENEROUS WITH HIS TIME Damon Suede, the beautiful and SO perky, talented, beautiful, and inexhaustible Ariel Tachna, the solid, AMAZING Anne Reagan, the inimitable Connie Bailey, the talented, brave J.P. Barnaby, the talented, organized Kate McMurray, Elizabeth-my-darling-boss-whom-I-love-and-revere, her long-suffering (and delightful) son P.J., and, of course, front and to the left, Mary-my-Mary and nobody else shall have her-- all of these amazing, talented, wonderful, fantastic, creative, hard-working spectacular people made this event a success.
*whew*
Also happening at RT2014...
In the picture to the right (I hope-- something tells me blogger is going to completely reorg all my spacing for this post) you will see a picture of some really awesome giants in the LGBTQ industry-- yeah, I know, I've got no business there, but it was nice to be invited.  From left to right is Ruth Sternglantz, editor of Bold Strokes books; Christopher Rice, NYT bestselling author of delicious horror and murder mystery; Heather Osborne, admittedly brilliant editor of Samhain Publishers; some m/m author that nobody cares about; the brilliant and brilliantly opinionated Jay from Joyfully Jay Review Blog; and the beautiful and talented Kellie Jamison who writes menage where the boy parts touch.  The lovely and poised Sarah Frantz was our moderator, and we got a lot of great feedback from that panel.  I was really proud to be a part of it.  Also, Christopher Rice hugged me in the middle of a crowded bar when he was dressed all nice and I looked like ass, so, not only is he talented (I've read him-- I don't rec lightly) but he's also kind enough not to gaze at me in horror and turn the other way.  
This particular picture is of the signing, and I got to sit next to the stunning, sprightly, beautiful, talented, happy Tara Lain, and I love her, and love that she still enjoys the two of us being Lain and Lane, in spite of the fact that we were facing the horrors of the E.L. James line, and were forced to pimp swag.  (I had a lot of people who took my card when I offered them with a refrigerator magnet with my logo-- "Angst dragon?  Angst dragon anyone?"  the Angst dragon was hugely popular, much to my surprise.)
And in this gem of a picture, we have Z.A. Maxfield, Josephine Myles, Anne Tenino, and Mary Calmes-- and we're all in an interview about writing M/M fiction.  Pat Henshaw gave the interview, and she writes for a number of publications, including Publisher's Weekly, All About Romance, and The Romance Review-- she was doing a piece on the lot of us, and we brought our serious faces and serious answers to this one.  I look forward to seeing what she does!



Okay-- this picture above me, I blew it up not so much because I'm trying to brag THIS BIG but because for some reason I ended up in the program, and I was tickled as hell.  I mean, you probably can't read the names, but there's Lee Childs and Charlaine Harris in the top left, Debbie Macomber, Tess Geritsen and Sylvia Day in the top right, and, yeah.  You might recognize yours truly, hanging out with the big kids, trying not to look weird.  I failed-- FRICKIN' MISERABLY-- but dude.  It's not every day you wake up and see you're keeping that company, even on paper.  (In reality, as I said, I couldn't get Lee Child's autograph.  Nobody, NOBODY, buy the fiction that I am any bigger than any other soccer mom out there, because it's a sad, sad lie.)  
And, to prove that last part, we have here the house of a real giant in literary fiction.  Yes, quite inadvertently (I swear-- we skipped the tour!) Mary, her husband Juneau and I managed to wander by Anne Rice's house.  We were, of course, suitably impressed.  I mean… look at it.  These were the houses in the garden district, and they were by turns glorious, damned, beautiful, ramshackle, and, almost universally, haunted, whether by the past or by the ghosts who couldn't leave because the oppressive humidity created a magnetic field that would have stopped a horse.  
I also took some pictures of other houses that caught our eye.  The blue and red one was simply charming and colorful (although not quite as vast as some of the others) and the one with the lovely driveway apparently belonged to the tire king of New Orleans.  (Don't look at me-- we sat there to catch a cab, and that's what the tour guide told us!)  To the right, we have, well, a lizard.  What can I say.  He was cute, he had a little frill along his back, and he was willing to pose.  I liked this lizard.  I wanted to make him famous.  He eats bugs like the giant cockroach we saw dead on it's back as we crossed Canal street this morning.  (It was hideous-- Mary almost got us hit by oncoming traffic because she was crossing the street freaking out.  "Juneau, did you see that bug????"  I didn't blame her.  We want this lizard to grow big and strong so he can eat other cockroaches before they get as big as a woman's fist.)
So it was a lovely wander, but, when we returned to the hotel, after a cool drink (non alcoholic) I went up to my hotel room (Mary has since moved out because A. I snore, and B. her husband is here and she wants to spend time with him, which is part of our code.  Mates before sisters-- it's just the way it goes) and she went shopping for her son. But I needed to blog, and really needed to write.  Man, I just needed some quiet to be in my own head.  
And to remember why I do this.  
Last night, Mate put me on the phone with Squish, and she didn't really want to talk to me, so much as talk with me in the room.  She and her brother told meal worm stories (thank you second grade science) and I just lay there, on the bed, watching her talk, and missing being in that room with all my heart.  So here's the picture from Wendy's wedding, that my mom took, because how soon were we all going to be dressed up in the same place again? and that's going to have to do me until I get home.  I don't quite recall being this homesick in my entire life-- I'm afraid it's colored the goings on here somewhat, and I've tried to spare you that.  There's nothing sadder than hearing a grown woman whine.
Besides.  Some of it has been delightful.  This picture of Elizabeth, taken when we were playing hooky in the Quarter on Thursday, is something I'm going to treasure.  There were good times to be had here, and once I'm home, and my family is around me, I'm sure I'll be more open to how awesome RT2014 really was.  (And maybe not burst into tears when someone mentions RT2015, which is what will happen for the next week or so, just to warn folks.)
So the next time I blog, I'll be home.  
I can't wait.  

New Orleans

In 1814 we took a little trip…

Good morning, America How Are you?  Don't you know me, I'm your native son…

There's a moon over Bourbon Street...

There is a house in New Orleans…

So, this the place where all the music comes from.

I like it.

The streets that I've seen are narrow, with broken sidewalks and crooked drains, and the buildings are squeezed together, like sisters in a church pew.  I have yet to see the river, but the the humidity is lessened by the wind off of it, and there is the smell of things happening, and of spices and cooking shrimp.

No corner is the same.

Even the Marriott-- and I've been to a few versions of this hotel-- is different, with two different towers, joined by a bridge of the lobby.

All food is good food.

I'm sure this place has its dark corners like everywhere else, and I understand that in the morning, they have to hose the vomit off of Bourbon Street, but in the meantime, it is full of nooks and crannies, and I have gotten big smiles from nearly everyone I've dealt with.

And the accents are soft on the ear, rolling like honey, and kind.

So New Orleans is a good place, and the convention is going well-- I presented two panels today, and that was thrilling.  (Exhausting, too, but thrilling-- I love doing the presentations, but I do hope people reign me in if I start getting too Amy.)  I've met a lot of the awesome people that I look forward to seeing whenever I go to these things, not least among them Mary-my-Mary and Elizabeth who is the best boss and loveliest friend I could ever wish to have.   I got to see Suzanne Brockman in a panel led by the dynamic Sarah Frantz and although I had to run away at the end and couldn't stay to meet her, I at least got to see one of my idols and a writer I've always really admired.

And tomorrow I have the morning open.  I am going to wander New Orleans in company, and if life is good, find yarn before my interview-- or at least, some souvenirs for Squish and Zoomboy and company.

At the moment though, I'm a little bit sleepy.  Mary is mocking me while she labors industriously on her novella, and I flounder through my blog post-- usually, I get more work done than this, but tonight, I may have to concede that, as lovely as New Orleans is, it's not home, and I have had something of a month.

Even so-- I would like to get to know this city better.  It truly is darkly charming.

A Mother's Day Post

Heya--

I always regard Mother's Day with such mixed emotions.

On the one hand, it's great to have a reason to do pretty much nothing while my family makes a big deal out of me.

On the other  hand, especially when our grandmothers were alive, between grandmothers, stepmothers, and moms in general, we pretty much subsidized Hallmark.

On the one hand, it's great to have a reason to get together with family.

On the other hand, I sort of want to spend the day loafing, and, especially when we used to try to hit everybody, loafing was not in the cards.

In recent times, especially as I've gotten older, and a little more selfish, I've been a little more assertive about saying, "Yanno… this is my day.  Mine.  Imma go out to dinner with my family and make a bunch of phone calls."

This time, we actually asked my stepmom out to lunch, and my dad decided he wanted to do one better, and make us lunch.

My stepmom, exhausted from planning Wendy's wedding, was like, "Whatever.  I really just want an excuse to do nothing.  I would really like to sit."

I've got my own fish to fry-- and bringing my family to said wedding was part of that, and getting ready for RT was another part, and a reluctant chance to rest after Oregon was another.  So, yeah. Sitting?  Doing not much?  I'm all for it.

But I feel a little guilty.  I'm leaving my husband home again on Tuesday, with the kids and the house and the animals, and although he does a wonderful job… I'm leaving him.  It's like, "How do I get mother's day when he's doing both our jobs?"

But he insists.

I vote that for Father's Day he gets to do anything he wants to do on the planet.  Anything.  Hell-- I'll go off planet.  Golfing on Venus?  A Martian brothel?  It's his.  I seriously learn how to be a better mother from my children's father-- he's kind, he's responsible, he's funny.

And he's giving me my own day.

I hope I deserve it.

Happy mother's day to everybody-- mothers of children or friends or fur babies or ficus-es .  May you have a friend, a helper, a mate of some sort (even a sister or a mother of your own) to assist you in your endeavor.  May your babies (of all sorts) be grateful and kind, and may your helpmates give you solace when things get too hard.  May you be remembered for your good points and forgiven for the rest, and may your failures make your spawn laugh, and may you be able to laugh at them too.  May you spend this day how you wish-- asleep, awake, in company or alone--and may cleaning the kitchen or not cleaning the kitchen be irrelevant to your happiness as it stands.

May you know joy.

(Speaking of joy, Chicken sent me this video after I published, so I edited to put this in.  I adore it fiercely.  Best handmade card ever.)

Did I tell you I got to be a douchebag?

Okay-- can I just say this isn't a meme, it's really what she said, and this picture and quote alone is like one of my favorite rants of all times?  And that's saying something-- a fan who read Blackbird went off on a rant about health care during the review, and I almost broke protocol to say amen-- when it's the truth, it really is their words to Goddess's ears.

Anyway, that being said…

*whew*

So, yes.  Getting ready for RT -- leaving at ass-crack-dawn, Tuesday, and sort of excited about it.  Going to Avocado Wendy's wedding on Saturday-- getting the entire family ready, which is busier than it sounds.  (Or maybe not.  I remember my grandparents nagging my father to get a haircut.  I have now become my grandmother, and Big T is very, very afraid.)  The chaos that's resulted from simulplanning the two events at the same time is…

Daunting.

So you guys get random today, because that's been the sort of week I've been having!

*  I packed SIX flat-rate boxes, the biggest ones, to send to NOLA today.  The post office crew watched me as I was working, and no, I don't think it's a coincidence that only one guy was there when it was my time to be waited on.  NObody wanted in on that action.

*  I was so proud of myself too-- I got them all ready, carried them all to the first counter, then the second.  And then the guy behind the counter said, "That's not a real place.  Check the zip code again."  So I had to change the zip code.  On all six boxes.

*  I finished this blanket mostly in the car to and from San Diego and to and from Portland.  The young recipient won't even know it's late.

*  The cat got stoned off the blanket fumes.  What you can't see in this picture is that he's currently trying to snort Mate's hair.

*  Took the kids shopping for suits and dresses last night.  Squish is wearing a grown-ups dress that looks adorable and needs just a tiny stitch to close up the chest, as she as of yet has no cleavage.  It fits. It's adorable on her.  I'm a little afraid-- she's chubby, but she's also very tall.   Zoomboy had to choose between a one suit with a tie and another with a hat.  He picked the hat with Perry the Platypus on it, because he's inherited his mother's sense of style.

*  We all went shoe shopping today.  Now I'd actually ordered an orthotic pair of shoes for this wedding specifically, but I don't think they're going to make it in time.  Imagine my surprise when I found size gazunga in Payless Shoe Source.  And heel cups.  Not ideal, no, but it does mean if I can't get my toes done tomorrow, I don't have to worry.  I can make my feet cute on Monday, and wear the Payless flats tomorrow.  And just the fact that I'm writing this down scares me, because I didn't used to think cute feet were a thing.  Now I'm adding them to advice I give younger writers.

*  We took Mate's mom out last weekend, as a pre-emptive mother's day move, and she and Mate were so cute sitting together I had to take a picture.  She's really a lovely woman-- Mate is as good to her as he is to me, which makes him an even better Mate.  I'm saying.

*  And speaking of good Mate, I got back today from taking the post office and shopping and trying to write and running around in circles, and there was a box of Shari's berries on the porch.  Happy mother's day to me, from Mate.  I was so stressed, and it was such a sweet gesture, I cried.  We ate them all tonight (because they're usually sent RIGHT when they're ripe-- they go bad sometimes if you wait until the next day) and they were YUMMY.

*  BTW-- I know it's late, but happy Star Wars days, people-- I hope May the Fourth was with you and you survived Revenge of the Sixth.  Zoomboy is such a fan of puns, we heard those about six zillion times.  But that's okay.  Tonight, the guy on @midnight told a joke about seeing the dentist at Tooth-hurty in the afternoon, and Mate laughed pretty much until he went to bed.  I think we can forgive ZB his little obsession.  In fact, I encouraged it-- I saved this from Twitter, just for him, and he was tickled.


* Oh-- and did I mention that fate gave me a chance to be a douchebag?  I mean, in grand style too-- the kind of douchebag we all want to be!  So there I was, last week, sitting with Julianne and waiting for Mate to come pick me up after our road trip back from Oregon.  Now, if you all read that post, you know we were both pretty toasted by the time we got back-- exhausted, edgy, not quite sane-- and then to make things even merrier, there I was when I saw the guys.

You know.

The guys.  From the school I worked at.  Eating at the same place we were on their lunch break.  The guys who made my staff room a dream.  *choke*  The guys who often made me feel like I was incompetent and hysterical, because I didn't agree with them.  The guy who did an impression of my vibrator in the staff room, and yelled at me in the middle of the quad for feminine hygiene disasters.

Those guys.

And a funny thing happened.  I wanted to talk to them.  I wanted to find out if they were okay.  I wanted to tell them that I was okay.  Because as miserable as they made me-- and as misogynistic as that staff room was-- they had still been my colleagues.

But, well, I also wanted to rub their noses in the fact that I didn't have to work there anymore.  One of my favorite poems has always been The Ruin'd Maid, and I wanted to go be the ruined maid.  Yes, it was petty, but, well, I admit to pettiness sometimes.  Sue me.

So I went to talk to them and I found out that one had twins and was cancer free (and I rejoiced-- I had been worried about him) and the other had, against all odds given his behavior towards women in general, gotten married.

I was genuinely happy for them.  But when the guy who'd gotten married talked about moving to another school district, I looked him in the eyes and told him that when he left, he'd be surprised at how very small the staff room really was.

I went back to sit with Julianne for a bit, but as they were leaving, I ran to tell them to make sure to tell the third leg in their little tripod hello.  He hadn't gone out, and I'd missed him most of all.  While we were standing there, an old student came up, ignored them, and said, "Hey, Ms. Lane-- so nice to see you.  I understand that they screwed you over but that you're a big writer now."

I shit you not.

It was glorious.

I grinned.

I said, "Well, uhm, yes."

And she looked at my former colleagues, singing my praises, and said…

"Yeah, we loved her.  She let us watch Sponge Bob."

"SpongeBob?  I did not!"

Ah, good moment over.

Douchebag moment repaid in full.

But it was sweet while it lasted-- I swear.

And I'm glad I know the guys are okay.  I mean, I don't forget what I learned about standing up for myself-- and that I should have--but it's that curse of seeing the whole person, too.  Yeah.  Those guys made me cry a lot.  But they also fought the good fight, and that's admirable, and I respected them for what they did for the kids, if not the women in their own department.  So it was closure, and I"m glad.

And my next blogging day is Mother's Day.  If the fates are kind, I'll have some time then to blog, if only to say "Happy Mother's Day everybody."  I k now that two days after that I'm on a plane for NOLA, and my agenda is a little insane.  I"m blanking out just thinking about it.  Don't say anything, I'm spazzing.

And on that note, I'm going to write for an hour!  Peace out!

Alas, no *kermit flail* today...

  Alas, nothing says "RT Season" more than people too busy to pimp their own books!  Seriously, I got no takers for *kermit flail Monday* this month, and truthfully, I can't think of many of my friends who actually have releases, so, I guess mostly I just remind you all that Blackbird Knitting in a Bunny's Lair is out, and that The Granby Knitting Menagerie-- the collection of the original three Granby Knitting novellas-- is available in paperback! 
But really, that's old news, and I'm almost embarrassed to recycle it (not too embarrassed, but almost) and since I have books of other people to pimp, I thought I'd pimp a cause.  
Shh Moms Reading is a book review blog that discovered The Locker Room a couple of years ago and have been some of my staunchest supporters since.  Denise Milano Sprung is one of the moms-- and the one who contacts me the most-- and you may notice that her brother is featured in the poster at the top of the page.

As well as the words "memorial fund".  
I write a lot about mental illness and drug addiction.  Although I have not suffered through these things myself, I have dealt with these issues through multiple members of my family, and my God does it suck.  Mental illness is often hereditary, and it often skips a generation.  I am going to be examining my children for signs of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder for the rest of my life.  I am going to watch to see if they're self-medicating for depression with an eagle eye.  Sometime soon, I am going to have to have a talk with my oldest daughter about what went wrong with her biological grandmother, and why she needs to be careful-- and no.  Although I've been honest with my kids their entire lives, and it's not going to surprise her, I'm not looking forward to the conversation.
And working as I do within the LGBTQ community, it gets worse.  The general population has an attempted suicide rate of 1.6%.  Teenager attempted suicide rate goes up to 4%.  LGB teens go up to TWENTY PERCENT.  Transgendered teens are at 41% rate of attempted suicide.  
The world is not kind to those who don't conform.  
Whether it's mental illness that sets us apart or the world's reaction to our sexuality that sends us spinning into depression, the fact is that brain chemistry and despair steal our best and our most beautiful from us on a daily basis.  Stigma of any sort hurts us, and we all know our government sucks donkey balls about taking care of anyone who isn't rich, white, and greedy as fuck.  The mentally ill or terminally depressed are not treated well.  
This last summer, my biological mom went off her meds.  When my grandma passed away last February, she ran out of medication and went in for her regular checkup.  The new doctor-- overworked and naive--asked her how she was doing after two weeks off of a medication that she'd been taking for nearly thirty years.  Mom, wanting to be normal, wanting to be independent, and, yes, very unmedicated said she was fine.By the time my aunts and uncle realized what was going on, she was hostile, aggressive, and escaping the care home she really loved in order to wander the streets at night.  
She got put into the "more secure" psych hospitals until she could go on her medication willingly, without monitoring.  
It took more than six months for her to get back to the place she liked, and in the meantime… those places are horrible.  
I saw a lot of young people in those places, clinging to their boyfriends or girlfriends during visiting hours, dreading the hour when they'd be alone in that terrible, terrible place.
God, I didn't want to leave them alone.  But I didn't want to bring my kids there either.  This is a good cause.  It's one that I believe in.  We need to treat our mentally ill better.  We need to treat our young people, gay, straight, bi, and trans, with more respect, so that depression isn't ever linked with sexuality again. 
I'm giving all of my profits for Truth in the Dark during the month of May to the Keith Milano Memorial Fund for Suicide Prevention, because it's just so easy to fall into despair, and so hard to pull out of it.  Because we need to take care of each other better, and this is one way to do it.  And because Truth in the Dark is about finding hope and value in ourselves, whether we are perfect or (as is mostly always the case) very, very flawed.  It's the story I gave to high school students that got me pulled out of teaching, and it's a decision I (most days) don't regret.  If you haven't read it, now's the time to buy it.  If you have read it, by all means donate to the fund straight out if you feel so inclined.
That boy in the fundraiser poster haunts me.  He has so much promise.  So many people have so much promise.  Goddess, we need to honor that. 

Blackbird Knitting in a Bunny's Lair

One of the things I really love about writing is when you find your characters in a place that they created all by themselves.

In Winter Courtship of Fur Bearing Critters, we learn from Craw that Jeremy was an ex convict and an ex conman, whom Craw had met panhandling on the streets of Boulder.  When it was time to write Jeremy's story, I had to elaborate.

I'd already established Jeremy and Aiden as communicating mostly by bickering, so I needed to explain how that relationship had happened as well.  What followed was How to Raise an Honest Rabbit, and you all loved it, and I was pleased.

You were not so happy in Knitter in his Natural Habitat


when Jeremy got beat the fuck up.  I didn't know how to go to everybody and explain why that happened--but it wasn't something I'd just done because I wanted to see Jeremy and everybody else hurt.

In fact, it was something I had inadvertently set in motion from that first thumbnail description of Jeremy put forth in Winter Courtship.  If Jeremy was an ex con and ex conman, and he was going to have a happy ending with young Aiden, there was going to have to be a reason for him to go straight.  If there was a reason to go straight, there was going to be some sort of reckoning.

And if there was going to be reckoning, there was going to be fallout, and that was going to be a whole other book.

And that's Blackbird.

The first chapter of Blackbird might seem a little drifty.  I did that on purpose-- Jeremy is a little drifty.  He's in a hospital, he's coming and going from reality, and for a couple of sequences, he doesn't realize that the words that he hears in his head when he talks aren't what he sounds like at all.  So we see Jeremy at rock bottom.  Positive he deserved what happened to him at the end of Knitter, terrified that his boy won't love him anymore, positive that he never deserved to be loved in the first place.

When we see him at the end we see him in his glory, and although it's not a roller coaster ride to get there, I hope it is at least a pleasant journey.  I know that the ending made me cry-- and I was not expecting it to.  It's happy, right?  But, well, I think when you all get to see Jeremy change the soundtrack of his own life, you'll see why.

Oh yeah-- and we finally find out what happens to the floor safe.

(Oh-- btw-- ALL of the first Granby stories are now available in print in The Granby Knitting Menagerie -- for those of you who treasure your paper :-)


Description: Sequel to Knitter in His Natural Habitat
A Granby Knitting Novel 

After three years of waiting for “rabbit” Jeremy to commit to a life in Granby—and a life together—Aiden Rhodes was appalled when Jeremy sustained a nearly fatal beating to keep a friend out of harm's way. How could Aiden’s bunny put himself in danger like that?

Aiden needs to get over himself, because Jeremy has a long road to recovery, and he's going to need Aiden's promise of love every step of the way. Jeremy has new scars on his face and body to deal with, and his heart can’t afford any more wounds.

When their friend’s baby needs some special care, the two men find common ground to firm up their shaky union. With Aiden’s support and his boss’s inspiration, Jeremy comes up with a plan to make sure Ariadne's little blackbird comes into this world with everything she needs. While Jeremy grows into his new role as protector, Aiden needs to ease back on his protectiveness over his once-timid lover. Aiden may be a wolf in student's clothing and Jeremy may be a rabbit of a man, but that doesn’t mean they can’t walk the wilds of Granby together.
Here's where you can buy it:
Blackbird at Dreamspinner
Blackbird at ARe
Blackbird at Amazon

Here's some reviews of folks who liked it:

Love Bytes Reviews

The Tipsy Bibliophile

The Novel Approach  -- Now, you may want to notice that Rhys Ford (the inimitable and awesome!) and Lisa from TNA Reviews both conspired to help promote my book.  I almost burst into tears this morning when Rhys put this on my FB timeline, but I had no idea they were going to do a giveaway.  I'm thrilled and humbled, and I urge you to stop by this particular site and leave a comment on the giveaway post, because guys-- that was really awesome of them!



And here's an excerpt:

Shattered Bones
and Broken Strength


JEREMY STILLSON spent more time in the hospital after he stopped living a life of crime than he had before he’d quit. Given that his second hospital stay ever lasted over two months, he could safely say he was over the experience by the time he left for home.
If Craw hadn’t thrown a fit and begged and pleaded so that Jeremy could share a room with Ariadne, he never would have made it.


HIS FIRST week was hazy, just a confused mess of pain and voices and Aiden—Aiden—holding his hand a lot, his voice choked and messy. Jeremy had a lot of surgeries in those first days, which was a blessing, because he didn’t really have to make any decisions. Aiden and Craw made all of those decisions for him.
Sometime toward the end of the first week, he woke up abruptly, breaking out of a bleary dream of being locked in a box of pain.
“Boy! Boy! Aiden!” he called, because his one constant in the past three years had been his boy. At first his boy had been sarcastic and frustrated because Jeremy couldn’t seem to learn the ways of living an honest life, but that had changed, hadn’t it? Aiden had gone from frustrated to friendly, and then, in these past months, from friendly to more than friendly.
Why wasn’t Aiden next to him?
“Boy?” he asked the cold and alien darkness. Some of his teeth were missing, his mouth hurt like the blazes, and it was hard to talk. “If you’re gone for water, I could use some.” Because his mouth was dry and his entire body… it felt achy and creaky and everything, everything hurt, but that dry mouth, that was the thing that was making him craziest.
“Jeremy—”
“Boy?” It was a woman’s voice, and Jeremy couldn’t figure out why a woman would be in his bedroom, his sweet little bedroom in his and Aiden’s tiny apartment. Jeremy loved that little apartment; it was safe, like a den or a warren, and you could fight the urge to run when you were safe.
“Honey, it’s me, Ariadne. We’re in the hospital, remember?”
Oh. Ariadne. Craw’s assistant and best friend. Spider-thin woman who liked to dye her hair bright red and who could knit lovely things like lace while yelling at “her boys” not to track sheep shit all over the store.
What was she doing here?
Oh yeah.
“Hey, Ariadne,” he said, feeling loopy. “How’s the baby coming?”
“Hanging in there,” she said weakly. She had pregnancy diabetes as well as high blood pressure. She was one of the most active people he knew, and she’d been on bed rest since Thanksgiving, which was….
When was Thanksgiving?
“Ariadne?”
“Yeah, hon?”
“What day is it?”
“December 20. You’ve been here around five days.”
Jeremy whimpered. “I don’t like hospitals,” he said nakedly, and he heard a noise. He tried to move his head, but his face was swathed in bandages and his body just hurt so bad. In a moment there was a rustling, and the sound of something being dragged, and then something else.
In another moment there was a softness near his cheek and the smell of the special soap Ariadne liked to buy from a crafter in Grand.
And then there was a pressure on his blessedly undamaged hand.
“I’m right here,” she said, and he moved his eyes just enough to see her wan and pale face in the light creeping in from the hallway.
“I don’t mean to be a bother,” he said, keeping his voice low in the hospital echo. The words were almost a cruel repeat of his first months spent at Craw’s farm and yarn mill, when he’d had one foot out the door and all of his earthly possessions packed and ready to bolt. The words “I don’t mean to be a bother,” had been code then, for “Don’t get attached to me, I’m not staying.”
“Well, it’s nice to have company,” Ariadne said quietly. “Keeps me from worrying so much about my little one here.”
Jeremy felt weak tears sliding down the sides of his face. “You shouldn’t have to worry,” he said sincerely. “You of all people should have a healthy, happy baby. You’re gonna stick around for it. That’s important.”
“I’ll be here for you too, okay, Jeremy?”
Jeremy nodded and tried not to be afraid. Bad things came out of the dark—fists and gunshots and the butt ends of pistols. Sharp needles and scalpels and that horrible, nauseating, free-floating feeling of anesthetic.
“I appreciate it,” he said, feeling dumb and helpless. “Just until my boy gets here.”
Oh no. He’d just called Aiden “his boy” when Ariadne and Craw weren’t entirely comfortable with the two of them yet. “Don’t tell Craw,” he mumbled. “But I really love that boy.”
“Craw’s fine with it,” Ariadne soothed, rubbing the back of his hand. “Craw and Aiden saved your life.”
“Yeah,” Jeremy said, remembering that terrifying moment when he’d heard the gunshot and thought it was the one that killed him. And then Aiden sobbing over him, yelling at him for going to defend their friend alone. “He cried for me. My boy shouldn’t ever cry for me.”
“We all cried, Jer,” Ariadne murmured into the darkness. “You’re going to have to take better care of yourself now that you’re meaning to stay.”
“Yeah, okay.” Jeremy was tired now, and the fact that he could smell his friend, feel her touch on his hand, that meant the world. “You… you’re not leaving anywhere tonight, are you?”
“No, baby. Right here.”
“Well, as long as you’re comfortable,” Jeremy said, and then he fell asleep.


SOMETHING HAPPENED. Something bad. Another surgery, maybe? Pain, confusion, more anesthesia—God, that shit made his stomach feel just raunchy. But it was over, and he was back in the bed, and he knew Ariadne was with him in the same room. He thought numbly that someone must have brought her bed over to his, because when he tried to turn and then stopped because it felt like a steel spike was lodged through his stomach, she was close enough to touch his shoulder as she soothed him.
“Aiden, hon, he’s awake. He was asking for you.”
“Jer?”
“Boy.” The sound was a drawn-out syllable of relief. “Boy, you’re here.”
Jeremy felt a hot presence next to his shoulder, rough with razor stubble and tearful breath.
“Jeremy,” Aiden breathed.
Jeremy smiled a little. “Got used to you,” he mumbled. “You and me, we lived together. I loved that. It’s hard when you’re gone.”
“We still live together,” Aiden said, and the words relaxed Jeremy’s shoulders, helped the pain flow over him and drip away, just like the bag of fluid attached to his arm.
“We do? I don’t live here?”
“No, Jer. I moved into your apartment, remember? Except we’re gonna move.”
“Why do you have to move?” No! Oh no. Aiden couldn’t move out—not when Jeremy was thinking about starting a bank account and taking everything out of the safe. Including the mittens.
“Not me, Jeremy, us. You and me are going to move out. Ben is letting us buy his house now that he’s in with Craw.”
“Craw’s mad,” Jeremy said disconsolately.
The week after Thanksgiving, Aiden had told their boss at the fiber mill that they were together. Jeremy had been in the barn, feeding the animals and making sure everybody’s heater worked, and Aiden had come up behind him, wrapping those great brawny arms around Jeremy’s waist and kissing softly at the nape of his neck.
“Bad?” Jeremy asked. He’d heard the voices from outside the barn and the slam of the door as Craw stomped inside the house. Aiden had promised him—promised—his voice soft and insistent, that Jeremy would not be put on the spot because their three-year friendship had finally matured.
“He’s a stubborn bastard,” Aiden said into his ear. “Nothing new. He still thinks I’m his little brother.”
Jeremy’s shoulders drooped. “You were my little brother,” he said softly, stroking the rabbit in front of him. “Maybe I should just—”
Aiden’s arms tightened. “If you say it, Jer, you’ll break my heart.”
Jeremy closed his eyes then. “Anything,” he muttered. “Anything but that, boy. You understand? Not breaking your heart—that’s like my number-one priority.”
Aiden’s warmth at his back comforted him like a bale of straw, throwing his own body heat back at him with interest. Behind his closed eyes, Craw’s anger, the displeasure of the first man who had ever known him and shown kindness, dissipated, and there was only Aiden.
Aiden hadn’t been kind, not at first, but when the boy had grown, he’d become even better than kind. He’d become a gruff bastion of safety. Nothing would ever hurt Jeremy while Aiden stood guard. Jeremy trusted that.
But that didn’t change what happened next.


“SH,” AIDEN whispered now.
Jeremy must have lost time.
“Craw’s not mad?” Jeremy muttered. He heard Craw being mad. He was outside the hospital room somewhere.
“Oh, he’s mad, all right.” Ariadne’s dry voice soothed like a balm. “But not at you. Honey, Craw couldn’t stay mad at you. Certainly not after what you did.”
“What’d I do again?” That was what he thought, anyway. All his words were what he thought. But what they sounded like was worse, like he was talking through marbles.
“You… dammit, Jer, you—”
“Don’t be mad!” Jeremy couldn’t stand it if Aiden, his safety, his wolf, suddenly turned all his fierceness on Jeremy.
And then, to his horror, something worse happened.
He heard the noise first, the rasping of voice in Aiden’s throat, the choked sound of breath that wasn’t cut free soon enough. He moved his head slowly to his left and Aiden’s face had blotched deep purple, and his chin was folded like fabric.
“Boy,” he said helplessly, and Aiden shook his head and buried his face next to Jeremy’s on the pillow.
His shoulders shook like mountains as the earth crumbled beneath them. Jeremy reached up with the arm he knew had not been broken, and scrunched his hand in that dark-gold hair.
“I’m sorry,” Aiden sobbed. “I’m sorry, Jeremy, but I’m so damned mad.”
Jeremy moaned in his throat. “But I didn’t talk,” he protested, feeling weak. “I didn’t let them get Stanley!” The little yarn seller Gianni had fallen in love with. Jeremy owed Gianni—dammit, Johnny—and Stanley was his lover. Jeremy had done Gi—Johnny a solid, that was all.
“I didn’t talk,” he mumbled again, hoping to reassure, hoping to make Aiden feel better. “You can’t be mad if I didn’t talk.”
“Oh Jeremy,” Aiden groaned, looking up from the pillow, so close Jeremy could count the sleepless crimson branches in his eyes. “Why didn’t you run? Three years, you had one foot out the door. The mob comes, all set to kill you, and you couldn’t rabbit away?”
Jeremy ran his tongue around his mouth, trying to find where his teeth were and where they weren’t, so he could talk better. “You deserve better than a man who’d run,” he said, hoping that wasn’t too garbled.
Aiden’s face crumpled again, folded, and he shook his head. “I deserve you,” he mumbled. “I’ve wanted you for so long—and now, I’m so worried.”
“Don’t be worried,” Jeremy told him, thinking his voice sounded more like his voice now that he’d gotten his teeth figured out. “I’m not the guy who’d run.”
There was more to it than that, he thought as his eyes closed. His face hurt—he thought he might have bandages on it, because in front of his eyes were layers of things that infringed upon his vision. His pretty, pretty face, the thing his daddy had always said was his moneymaker, and now it was damaged, probably beyond repair.
“You’d better not run,” Aiden choked next to him. “You’d better not run. We’re subletting that house, Jeremy. We’re putting your name on a paper. We’re opening a bank account, and you’re meeting my parents.”
Jeremy woke up enough for that. “Not when I’m not pretty,” he complained.
Aiden’s voice grew flinty, like it used to do when Jeremy tried to shirk his chores. “Fuck pretty,” he snarled. “Fuck pretty, fuck it to hell. You’re mine, and I love you, and we don’t care about pretty. You understand?”
“Yeah, fine,” Jeremy sulked. “You be pretty for both of us. I’m already too old for you. Now I’m not pretty anymore. That’s fine.”
At that point something in his body gave a big fat throb, and his head clanged timpani with it, and he moaned from pain, because just that suddenly, it was drowning out all the other voices.
“Here, Jeremy,” Ariadne said, fumbling with the little red button near his hand. “Don’t mind him. He’s worried, and he feels bad ’bout not being there.”
“Don’t let him do that,” Jeremy mumbled. “My bad. So many things in life I had to make right. Don’t you see that, boy?”
But the morphine was potent and quick, and Jeremy’s mind and body were soon sliding around consciousness in the liquidy viscousness of pain and drugs and the firm belief that he’d had this coming all along.


JEREMY DIDN’T even know his real last name. He thought it might have been the one his father had died with, but even that was sort of a crapshoot. Oscar had been telling lies a lot longer than Jeremy had—even his “original” name might have been a lie.
As far as he knew, Jeremy had come into the world conning people. He was reasonably sure his parents had grifted their way out of the hospital bill when he was born. His mother was a hazy memory of bangly earrings and the smell of scotch, and his father had been more impressed with Jeremy’s benefits as a partner in crime than as a son.
Jeremy had hurt a lot of people before he’d just up and decided to be honest. He’d cheated women and children, hardworking men, college students alone in the world. And as hard as he’d worked at Craw’s fiber mill, as much effort as he’d put into being an honest man, he’d always felt like it wasn’t enough.
Nothing would ever be enough to make up for the man he’d been before Craw had found him, an ex-convict panhandling on the streets of Colorado.
Nothing would ever be enough to earn the love of the beautiful boy he’d been smitten with from the very beginning, when it probably wasn’t right that Jeremy had even noticed his beauty at all.
So when Aiden had invaded his space, invaded his home, made Jeremy notice the three years of friendship and attraction between them, Jeremy had accepted it, because he had no choice. Aiden was his boy—as long as Jeremy could stand not to run, he was helpless to do anything but to fall into his orbit.
It had been a tenuous gravitational shift, at first. Jeremy had always circled around Aiden; from the first moment he’d seen the boy working in Craw’s mill, Jeremy had wanted to be nearer to him. But Jeremy was older, and dumber, and he was sure his soul had shriveled, a withered flower with roots in an oil spill, twisted almost since birth.
He was a bad man. Bad men did not deserve to orbit near the bright and shining sun that was his boy. It wasn’t until Aiden proved he had interesting shadows, dark spots in the sun, was a wolf and not a lapdog, that Jeremy even dared to dream.
They’d had a month, almost two, during which Aiden spent most nights in Jeremy’s little apartment. The past few weeks, he’d been there full-time, all of his clothes in boxes, new towels from his mother in the bathroom, his favorite cereal in the cupboards. Just a breath, just a taste of having Aiden there in his home, as his home, and then….
Well, Jeremy had debts to pay. When one of them called him up in a panic, Jeremy had to pony up.


JEREMY WOKE up the next day actually feeling like a person. How did that happen? One minute you were free floating, a specter in a hospital bed, hearing people talk about you, drifting to escape the pain, and the next time you opened your eyes, it was you, in your body, anchored to the sheets by stuff that your body did.
“Aiden?” he murmured. Aitbhen. That was what it sounded like. “Jebuth thfuckin’ krith—when bo I ge’ my fhfuckin’ teef?”
Craw had a deep, growly bear voice, and his unmistakable laughter echoed over Jeremy’s head. “Today, actually,” he said. “You get fitted for them, anyway. You didn’t have any dental records, Jeremy. We had to wait until the swelling in your jaw went down to make a model.”
Jeremy remembered that. In fact, he realized that some of the difficulty he’d had talking actually had to do with his jaw still being wired shut.
“Whab bay ith ib?” Oh man, the more conscious he was, the worse he sounded. He felt like he could finally hear what he was actually saying instead of what he thought he was saying.
“You’ve been here for a week,” Craw said. “We’re going to take some plasters for your teeth and unwire your jaw. They’ll be changing the bandages on your face today and seeing if you need cosmetic surgery.”
“Aiden?” He had to work hard, but it sounded right.
“I made him go home today, Jer. He was dead on his feet.”
Jeremy closed his eyes in relief. “Good. He won’ thee me.”
Craw made a hurt sound. “Don’t worry about Aiden seeing you, okay? He’s always seen you.”
“When I wath preddy.”
Craw growled. “All the crap I gave that boy about you two being together and you’re telling me you’re going to take it back because of a little blood?”
Jeremy had been beaten, talking the whole time, so that guy beating him wouldn’t find Stanley. Suddenly meeting Craw’s eyes was not quite as hard as he’d thought it would be, that not-so-long-ago day when he’d listened to Craw and Aiden argue.
“We bode know ith more.”
And Craw, who didn’t know how to bullshit, shifted his green-brown eyes away. “Have faith,” he said gruffly. “Ben found me, Stanley found Johnny, Aiden found you. Have faith.”
If Jeremy could have talked more, he would have spun sunshine and rabbit crap about how sure, a man had to have faith, and maybe, under a sunny sky, he’d have enough faith for them all. He would have said that faith is a wonderful thing, but it was better to have faith when you had a plan of escape, and that once you had a way out, you could have all the faith you wanted.
But it was all a big, fat, painful, throbbing lie. Aiden would never forgive him for not calling for help, and Jeremy had no hope that he ever could. Jeremy could lie like a champion with his words, but his eyes—well, as a con man he’d had to squint a lot, because his eyes had been touch and go. He’d had to believehis bullshit to lie with his eyes.
And now he couldn’t use his words, and his eyes were all he had. He looked at Craw mutely, no con between them, just the painful, painful truth.
Craw nodded, and for a moment his lower lip trembled. “I’ll have faith,” he whispered. “That boy has always known his own mind and been strong about getting his way. He wanted you, I guess, and I admit, when I saw that it was real and not just you two bickering like you were married, I had second thoughts. But….” Oh no. Craw’s voice was wobbling. “Jeremy, we’ve been worried. They say you’ll probably be okay, but the lot of us, we’ve been worried. You’re our family, boy.” He swallowed. “I’ll have faith for the two of you.”
Jeremy closed his eyes then, tight, because they were burning. “’Kay,” he mumbled through a mouth full of missing teeth. “I’ll bind tum ob my own.”
“Good man,” Craw told him. Then the doctor came in, and unpleasant things happened with his mouth and dental tools, and in his head he was in Craw’s field with a piece of clover in his mouth, sitting on a rock in the sunshine, warm under the golden sky, teased by the breeze, watching Aiden herd the sheep.

I was going to take lots of pictures...

And then I didn't.  (Well, I took a picture of Molly, because she was a visiting dog, and she was so good, I almost wanted one of my own.  She even thought she was a lapdog, and she sat in her owner's lap like she belonged there, and she was awesome.)

But even though all I got were Molly and the alpacas, it was a still a wonderful day anyway.

So yesterday, reeling from con crash and grateful to be in a group of less than ten, Lynn West, Elizabeth North, her son Josh and I drove to see the "magic sheep" as Josh called them.  They were… well… magic.

The farm itself was just that.  A place where magic sheep ate.  The proprietor was unimpressed with tourists, but we just looked outside, went, "Oooh… magic sheep!  They're adorable!  Let's go eat!"

And then we did.

With a helping of Coldstone Creamery for dessert.

Alpacas = magic sheepBut it was a short and peaceful trip, and given the amount of driving I had done recently-- and had yet to do-- it was awesome.  And, of course, there was the company.

I know that I'm lucky-- boy, do I know I'm lucky--because I have worked for some miserable supervisors before.  If you recall, I was working under the iron winky of a number of people who actively wanted to fire--if not kill-- me during my stay in public education, and the further I get from that situation, the more convinced I am that it's symptomatic of the cancer of emptiness and shallow greed that plagues the education system and has always made its blood from the cleated backs of the basic teacher in the trenches. Because away from education, I've discovered that it's not just the students who are bright eyed and ready to learn and to invest in the promise of a glorious future.  There are some adults out there--some truly shining people-- who see promise in anybody who wants to try, and who see nothing ridiculous in the earnest fruits of a good heart.

Ladies and gentleman, these are my bosses.

I would spend a day with them searching for magic sheep or searching for proof of water on the moon.

It ended in a lovely dinner with a number of beloved DSP peeps, and it was a very good day.

And today, Julianne and I started home.

We are both…

Exhausted.

Shaking from con crash, mortally tired of automobiles, and really wishing we shared more than one or two overlapping musical tastes, we both conceded that we needed to stop in Redding instead of pushing on through to Sacramento.  Pushing on through to Sacramento would have gotten us there at 10:00 pm, which in of itself is not that late.  However, Julianne lives in Santa Cruz, and she wouldn't have gotten home until 1:00 a.m., and that's not healthy.  So we stopped, and it's probably a good thing we did, because neither of us are particularly sane atm, and we would not have been good people to have behind the wheel.

But that does not mean we both do not mortally want to go home.

I can feel Mate's hand in mine as we sit kitty corner to each other.  I can feel the way Squish hugs-- all softness--and the way Zoomboy hugs--all angles and elbows.  The dog wants to lick my face and camp out on my boobs and I want to bury my nose in my beloved's neck and simply smell him--he bathes regularly, it's not a hardship.

I want these things so bad, even knowing that I have less than two weeks at home, and then I'm on a plane again.

And it's hard in this hotel room-- it's like this picture of the mountain.  It's a gorgeous shining vision, and even though I know there are pebbles and pitfalls on it, I still want to be there because these are the pebbles and pitfalls of my home, and it's right there so close I can almost touch it…

But it's at least another 15 hours away.

*sigh*

Anyway-- that being said, I should probably remind you all that I have a release out on Friday-- one I'm particularly excited about.

I'll talk more about Jeremy Bunny and Blackbird Knitting in a Bunny's Lair on Friday-- because that's when he's officially out, but seriously, I'm excited.  See, when we left Jeremy Bunny, he was hurt.  We saw him in the hospital, and then we sort of saw him recover.

But Jeremy Bunny had a hard past, and honestly?  The hospital was only the beginning.  But with the end of this book, the stories have come full  circle. That doesn't mean I don't have other sequels planned, it just means that the beginning of The Granby Knitting Menagerie is really very quaint and funny, and because: story, the end of Knitter in His Natural Habitat was really a little grim.  But this book takes that moment of grimness and turns it into redemption, and turns it into joy, and hopefully makes you laugh a lot, and hopefully also makes you sigh, because Jeremy and his boy (HA!) are are really one of the sweetest couples I've ever written.

I hope you think so too.

Amazing Days

 So, after three days of driving, Gin, Julianne, and I all arrived at the hotel.  We were happy, we were bonded, we were excited that we had made it and…

Mary drove up and suddenly they were in their rooms and we were apart.

I mourned.

But then Mary took me to her dad's house for dinner, and I was no longer in mourning, I was charmed, because her dad and his wife are lovely people, and they fed me chicken cacciatore to die for.  It would charm anybody.

That was a good day.

And then the next day, Mary and Jaime Samms and I took Mary's rental car to the airport, and then had a cab drop us off at Powell's books, where we saw everything from Star Wars Shakespeare to magnets with Julie Andrews on them singing "Look at all the fucks I give!"

Also in there, we met Andrew Grey, which was fortuitous because he was looking for someone to spend the day with, and we were just exactly the kind of someones he wanted!

With Andrew, we finished our spin around Powell's, and then we went out to lunch, and then we went to the Buffalo Clothing Exchange, and then we walked to VooDoo Doughnuts.  While we were walking around-- and there was a lot of walking around, we saw this advert for strippers, and I remembered that Mate told me Portland had a stupid number of strip clubs per capita.  As Julianne and I got in the car, in fact, he asked me if I remembered my ones.  So I stopped and took a picture of the strip club, so he could know that, no, I did not have enough ones, and I didn't go in. After that, we came back to our hotel room where people just kept running in and visiting until it was time to get ready for the yarn store.

While at the yarn store, JP Barnaby wanted a picture to prove to her fans that she was actually in a yarn store, because that is not a very likely place for JP to be.  I gave her my project to hold while she was getting her picture taken, and Elizabeth couldn't let her have that picture taken while she was holding the needles wrong.  What followed was this charming picture of Elizabeth helping JP knit.  Imma treasure this one always!

After that, we went to a restaurant in the sky, where I ordered too much steak, and actually took some back to the hotel to eat later, thinking I would never eat it, because there is too much good food in Portland.

This morning, it was go go go go-- we went to the presentations and then to lunch and then to the presentations, where Tere Michaels charmed the holy socks off of all of us while talking about secondary characters.  It was an amazing lecture, and very funny, and she should get a medal for making it funny, because I woulda sent y'all to sleep, I have no qualms.

Anyway, after that, we came to our rooms, where I finished the editing for The Bells of Times Square, and then sent it to beta readers and agent.  YOu guys all remember the ending from Titanic?  Yeah?  Well good.  Because I only want to write that ending once.

And after a snack in our room, we got gussied up and then met for the DSP cocktail party, where these two beautiful women whom I love deeply and sincerely were headed.

It was a fantastic party, but Mary and I had to run away early-- we hadn't had dinner.  Of course, once we got to our room, we realized we didn't want to leave, and that we had enough snacks--and, yes, the leftovers from the night before which I'd forgotten about-- that we didn't.  We did what old people do.  We watched television, talked briefly, and now, I am doing what I would do at home:

Writing while my work-wife sleeps.

So guys, could you keep up?

Cause I don't think I can, and I was here for all of the amazing days.

I can't wait until I'm home, and I can tell Mate and the kids all about them too.  I bought them lots of souvenirs at Powell's, because, as always, in spite of the madness, home is my favorite place to sleep-- but I've got four or five nights to go!

On the road again...

Okay-- so the deal was, the family and I went on vacation last week, Saturday to Friday, in San Diego. You saw that.  We went to the zoo, we went to the ocean, we went to the movies--all was fun, and then the ride home in which I overdosed on water additives and saw sound.

Then, we had two days-- Saturday and Sunday-- during which we did Easter, hid eggs, cleaned the house, dyed eggs, took my mom out to lunch, came home and cooked dinner, then hung with children.

Then I packed to come to Portland for a writer's conference at Dreamspinner that starts on Thursday and I can't wait to be at--and, yes, once again, there is driving.   This time, I'm driving with esteemed editor, Gin Eastwick from Canada via Germany, and friend and DSP Goddess, Julianne Bentley.  We're in Julianne's car, and she's doing most of the driving-- mostly because I think I scared her a little, which, well, we're all still alive.

Anyway--

So, some things I've learned from the last time I chatted, in which I had learned not to overdo it on the MiO:

*  There is no good way to travel on your period.  Yes, world, I said it.  Now you know.  Saying.

*  That being said, traveling with smart, funny, interesting women is always a good time.

*  Watching Julianne discover a roadside attraction is like watching a kid discover the circus.  Gin and I would go out of our way a hundred times over to see her drive through a tree again.

*  Driving through a tree really is cool.

* Hwy 1 is beautiful-- but not to be hurried through.

*  If you don't like the weather on the Northern California coast, wait five minutes-- it'll change.

*  Rain + windy road + twilight = stressed out driver.

*  Don't try not to eat chocolate or red meat when you're on your period and on a road trip.  For sweet fuck's sake, something's gotta give.

*  I could listen to Gin talk for ours-- she has a Canadian accent, and it's been semi-neutralized by Germany, but every now and then it sneaks out and attacks me with joy.

*  Glass beach is cool on so many levels-- from tide pools to rounded glass to the big something that might have been a tractor that turned into a rock formation.  Dudes… go.

*  Confusion Hill is confusing on many levels, not last is why we visited.

*  Holy Jebus… did I forget to buy a brush when we stopped at the pharmacy?  (This is not necessarily something I learned, but something I just remembered while typing on the blog.  Oi.)

*  Snoring gets you a room to yourself.  It's not fair, but, well, it happens.

*  There are NO, I repeat NO gas stations between Ft. Bragg and Cave Junction-- that's like, sixty or so miles.

*  If you're traveling down a dark, windy road, and there are no gas stations for sixty miles, the last thing you want to see is a road called "Butcher's Knife."  Hello, Sam and Dean, come save us now!

*  There is no such thing as internet on Hwy 1.  Just kick back and enjoy the scenery.  There is plenty of that!


*  When in doubt on a road trip, sing!  (With any luck, someone will sing as beautifully as Gin does, and she'll take over :-)

*  There will always be some music you can agree to.  There is no way there's not.  It's a statistical impossibility.  Play mix tapes until you find it.

*  Even after spending an enforced week with my family, plus a family holiday, I still miss them fiercely.

*  Even after spending an enforced three days w/ Julianne and Gin, I'll be thrilled to see them even more at the Dreamspinner Press conference.  We arrive in Portland tomorrow!