Amy Lane's Blog: Writer's Lane, page 154

And Before I Forget...

 Okay-- looking back at my blogposts, I realize that I went from running screaming out of the damned hotel to "Hey, it was great, and look, ALLIGATORS!" to, "My family sucks!" and I bypassed some seriously fun moments.

Sorry about that!

But the fact is, between "RUN AWAY!" and, "Oh crap I'm back and I'm balls deep in balrogs!" there were a couple of great things that need to be recapped.

Let's start with Grammy.

Gloria Lakritz is one of my biggest fans, most stalwart supporters, and someone I'm honored to call a friend.  I've talked about her before on the blog, and always with warmth and admiration.  She runs her own business, and has spearheaded the PRG, and she is generally just an amazing pro-active person.

It was such--SUCH--a pleasure to meet her in person.

She and Stormy had the fortitude to spend the night in the Bird-Bates Hotel, and they did so just so we could meet.  After a brief "Hi!  OMG, does this place suck or what?" moment at night, we met the next day at the F.A. Cafe, and just talked.  And yes, I signed every book I've ever put out.

I wanted to cry--but in the good way.

I was just so overwhelmed with the complete and total awesomeness that is Grammy, and how strongly she's devoted to the indie pubbed and the small publisher.  Although the alligators were more spectacular, and the panels more mind-blowing, meeting with Grammy and having lunch with her and Stormy really was one of the best and most awesome moments of the trip.  It was one of the things I was most looking forward to, and one of the things I"m most glad I did.

Sorry I missed you with the first post, Grammy--but look at us.  We had a great time.

One of the other things-- and I owe this to Elisabeth Staab--  is that I lost my pedi-virginity in Florida.  (That's not a sentence you'll hear often.  Savor it.)  Anyway, Elisabeth was rooming with Mary in a nearby hotel, and she wanted to get a pedicure for her birthday, and so we ALL got one.

It was (excuse me while I get all swoony) FAB.  And I spent a lot of the week admiring my fat little toes, especially since they now had purple sparkly polish on them.  *purrs*  I'm gonna get pedicures a LOT from now on.  *nods*  Yup.  For one thing, it makes flip-flops look like a fashion statement instead of just disinterest in tying my tennis shoes.

And then there was this.  Now that I've been to a couple of airports, I'm sensing a theme in trying to dress them up again, make them look like high end fashion mall centers and not just some place to prop up your feet while eating a power bar.  Anyway, the Jacksonville Airport, which was teeny tiny tiny, had a VERY cool art thing going on with the window-- I liked it anyway.  And then I compared it to the one they've got going in the Sacramento airport, and I can't decide which one I like better--although, the Sacramento Jackrabbit really IS an odd mascot for an airport, until you realize that that's ALL that really lives out around the airport, for a couple of miles in any direction.

And after the trip, besides the, well, being ass deep in alligators and balls deep in balrogs, there was also a very nice moment of going to my parents' house.  Big T had been paid to work in their pasture all day--or, well, not their pasture, the pasture land across the street that they rent out from the neighbors for their horses.  Anyway, when they had enough to start the burn pile, we came over.  We'd been pretty busy beforehand-- the kids had gymnastics, and then we went to sort through my grandmother's things for keepsakes, and Mate was dislocating the tendon of his middle finger and getting a splint that allows him to make a rude gesture in the name of healing the abused digit.  See--we all had our duties.

But when we got there, the kids had a great time cooking wieners (okay, sausages, but wieners is fun to say!) on the pitchforks and posing for these pictures.  Notice how Squish is NOT suited for American Gothic, but Zoomboy is trying REALLY hard.

Anyway, that was Saturday, and then I had my meltdown with my family, so instead of blogging about all this fun stuff, I got bogged down in that shit instead.  I shouldn't do that.  I REALLY NEED to remember the fun stuff.

Including this.  This is the obnoxious little dog who was totally spazzed out at my parents.  He also got crated when I met with an old teaching buddy for lunch.  (She has since moved, and was in town for a conference.  It was GREAT seeing her again, and the whole family came.  NO little dogs allowed!)

Anyway, he's getting some much needed R & R here, tucked between my jacket and my shirt.  Because you can't have enough of that in your life.

Words Are My Church

So an interesting thing happened with my family.  I was asked (at the last moment) to write my grandmother's obituary, and for a whole minute, I was really proud.  This was something I could do.  I wanted to use a few brief words and paint a picture of my grandmother as an extraordinary woman.  I was in the middle of getting feedback (everybody wanted to change something) when my uncle took my words, completely rewrote them, and said, "Okay, how's this?"

And I was devastated.

Words were my grandmother and grandfather's playground.  They read, they played scrabble, they wrote stories.  Grandma worked in counter espionage during WWII, and her mind was sharp and literate, even til the end, when she would sit for an hour with a bowl of bananagrams and make word puzzles just as she saw them.  She loved my writing--she didn't give a shit which genre I wrote in, she loved that I had books, books in print, and that people loved them and reviewed them.  She'd once contributed to a book that sat in the Library of Congress.  She told me, with dancing eyes, that every now and then she got a teeny, tiny little royalty check from that, and, back before I'd published, I thought that was the absolute shit.  That was awesome.  I wanted to do that.

Nobody even thought of asking me to write the obituary for grandpa. That was fine--I wrote a tribute to him in the blog, and I'm still proud of that, but this was acknowledgment, I guess, from my family, that I could honor a memory and do it well.

The thing my uncle wrote was very ordinary.

That alone isn't something to hold against him (although I do, very much so, since that's what's going to press) but what I truly, truly am angry about is this:

He knew not what he had done.

Words were sacred to my grandparents.  They understood the power of a well placed word.  They were, as far as I know, the source from which my love of language sprang. They must be--it's either that, or I just popped, fully formed, under the base of a mushroom like any other changeling.

To take someone else's words, mutilate them, and smear them out on the page like thought-jelly and call it art--another writer will understand my pain.  At the very least, it was a dick move.  At the worst, it was a real statement that my thoughts have no value unless they're digested through his brain first.

My grandmother would have gotten it.  She would have known that you don't do that to another person's words--not when you're working in a group.  That's rude, and obnoxious, and completely disrespectful.

My uncle didn't understand at all why I would be offended.  He'd just made the obit "more palatable".  I spent a day putting together information, boiling it down, choosing stuff to write about, embedding quotes.  That was a day to produce 595 words.  (I found out later that my uncle had a hard word limit---at the very least, that would have been good to know going in.)  Those of you who know me, and know how hard I work to put out 2,000 words at the very least, per day, know that I was doing some hard thinking, and some diligent work to make this perfect.  I would have cut, honed, word-picked and word-smithed to make this amazing, if only I had been given the chance.

But that's because I know that words shape our history, our ideas, our world.  The difference between a horrible experience and a funny story is all in the telling.  The difference between a citizenry and cattle is the understanding of language.  The difference between an old building and a church is all in the words.

So my uncle called to say he didn't understand why I was offended, and I wanted to tell him that he had kicked down the door of my sanctuary and shat in my temple, but he wouldn't understand.  The very act of co-opting another writer's work and regurgitating it as something less makes him almost incapable of understanding.  He simply wouldn't get it, and me?

I was at a loss for words.

Happy Valentines Day-- have some fanfic!

Okay-- so it's Valentines Day tomorrow, and I spent all day running around doing... well, unpleasant tasks.  Laundry.  Lawyer shit.  Son's dentist appointment.  My own dentist appointment.  Writing an obituary.  Taking a nap because, in spite of all the stuff I had to do, I was still recovering a bit from my trip.

Anyway-- but in the midst of this, I kept getting things.

Fun things.

Valentine things.


I got e-cards and e-mails chock full of different pictures--some funny, some obscene, and all appreciated for the heart of it.  And Mate sent me flowers.  Pretty ones.  Thoughtful ones.  Ones that made me very happy, when I really needed some help with that.

So, instead of musing on something heavy or trying to decipher all of the weirdness I'm dealing with, I'm going to give you a slash-fic valentine.

For fans of the show Sherlock, and fans of the show Warehouse 13, you'll enjoy this.  For everyone else, you'll be very, very puzzled.
But, either way, it's funny and it's yours.  Happy Valentines Day! Enjoy!


Jinksy and Dr. John
A Sherlock/Warehouse 13 Crossover fic
John squinted at the glowing object at the top of the pole he was bound to.  “Radio antennae, you think?”
“Yes, John, there are radio antennae that speak to snakes.  Everything I, as a man of reason, and you, as a man of science, have known is wrong and—ouch!”
The Burmese pythons that had wound about the two of them twisted a little tighter, and John, for one, found it was getting hard to breathe.  Their musculature was fascinating—or would be, if every ripple and pulse of skin and fiber didn’t creak John’s ribs just a fraction more.
“Perhaps,” Sherlock said, his voice subdued by lack of breath, “there is a rational explanation that I have overlooked for lack of information.
“Well, yes—but you can’t say those two agents—“
“Agents from what?  They never gave us a satisfactory explanation for—oolf—which department they came from—“
“Nevertheless, they did try to warn us that there were things we did not know.”  John knew he sounded peevish, but, dammit, the young man had been very intent about trying to tell them something without telling them something.  Sherlock may believe that simply made him an American, but John was positive he’d been trying to warn them—
“They were trying to get into your pants,” Sherlock said bluntly.
“That girl was far too young for me!”  John replied, stung.  She’d been barely twenty, and impudent as hell—he could have adored her as a younger sister, yes, but anything other—
“Perhaps, but the boy was not.  All of that ‘secret information’ you’re going on about was no more than him making eyes at you...auuughh… dammit!  If only he’d applied his charm to the bloody snake!”
“That’s not where we need to apply the charm.”  John’s vision was going black, and the warehouse where they’d discovered the diamond they’d been searching for was dim, but he still recognized the pixie-faced girl with the ripe red hair and full lips. 
“Claudia!” he said gratefully. 
“And Jinks!” Steven said behind her.  The young man looked more the worse for wear than she did—his clothes were ripped and he was bleeding from his sleeve.  “God, give some credit where it’s due.”
“Sorry bout that…” John gasped.  “So, wonderful, the two of you are here!  Do you know how to snake charm?”
“I’m sure he’s brilliant at it,” Sherlock sniped.  “The question is, can he silence this… this pole so that these two animals find refuge elsewhere.”
“That we can do.”  Claudia was disgustingly cheerful, even as she walked in front of John and added a wink.  “Especially the part about the snake charming.”
“Claudia!”  Jinks whined, but his look at John through his remarkably pretty blue eyes was hooded and knowing.  “That’s embarrassing.”
“But true,” she chirped. She got close enough to the pole to rest her hands on the snakes as she squinted at the top.  “Jinksy, do you think that top piece needs the whole pole, or do you think—“
“Yeah,” he said thoughtfully, standing on John’s other side and squinting up.  “I think the St. George Medallion was originally forged to go on a shield, right?”
“Right, which means we don’t have to get the guys off the pole…”
“We just have to glove and love the thing at the end,” Jinks finished for her, they high-fived behind John’s head.
“Oh God,” Sherlock muttered.  “If this were any more phallic, I’d need a body condom.”
“Abstinence seems to be working for you,” Jinks said dryly, and John snickered.
“You only laugh because you shag anything that moves,” Sherlock snapped, and John craned his head as far as he could in an effort to glare at the exasperating man. 
“Oh like you’d know about shagging!”
“So,” Jinks said, smiling at John, “what would he know about shagging?”
“I’d know it’s impossible to shag anyone when you’re being crushed by a giant snake,” Sherlock interrupted, and Jinks winced.
“Jinksy, flirt later, help me up now!” Claudia said, moving to Jinks’s side and winking at John too.  Jinks crouched and laced his fingers, his chest and arms straining as he lifted Claudia up.  She grabbed the metal pole, and looked down.  “John, Sherlock—where are their heads?”
“They’re not toxic,” Sherlock assured her, and John heard her huff of exasperation.
“Well not all snakes are toxic, but they can all bite,” she said reasonably, and John grunted as she actually stepped on the thick, writhing body that was currently constricting his very breath away.  “Sorry, John,” she muttered, right before placing her delicate foot on his shoulder.  He was grateful she was wearing light tennis shoes as her weight came to bear, and she grabbed the metal pole tighter as she used what she could to scale it.  “Sherlock… sorry…”  John heard Sherlock grunt and knew it was probably his turn to be used as a ladder.
“Are you really going to let the girl climb the pole?” John asked, trying to see her.
“Girls can climb poles,” Jinks said, still smiling with those remarkable eyes.
“Only if the poles are willing,” Sherlock said acidly.  “John, stop squirming around, you’re agitating the…bugger!”
“Sherlock?”
“Oh, geez!”  Jinks said, moving around to check Sherlock out.  “He got you there.  Right on the thigh.”  John could only imagine the playful smile which took some of the sadness out of the eyes.  “Trying to eliminate the competition, right?  One snake to another?” “Charming,” Sherlock grunted.  “John will be obliged to check out the wound when this little adven…ture… is…”
John’s vision went spotty on the edges, and he dimly heard Claudia call down.  “Jinksy, throw me the glove and the love!”
Jinks had a foil bag, and he swung it in a careful arc, whoop, whoop, whoop, and up!  It arced high and John craned his neck around to watch Claudia reach out a hand to catch it.  He could hear the cellophane rustling and then he saw a giant purple flash as whatever was in the bag ignited with the figurehead on the top of the mast.
The snakes didn’t fall and they didn’t slither away.
They disappeared.
John fell to his knees, gasping, and at his back he was aware of Sherlock doing the same. 
“Holmes?”
“Obviously I’m fine,” Sherlock grumbled, and John gave a distracted look of thanks to Agent Jinks of wherever as the man helped him to his feet.
“Yes, well, you’ll allow me to determine that.”
“It wasn’t bad,” Jinks offered, and John was momentarily distracted by that really nice pair of blue eyes before he returned his attention back to the angular man, on his hands and knees, gasping for air and grasping for logic at the same time.
“That’s what you think,” John muttered.  “The snake didn’t go limp, it disappeared!  That’s bound to cause difficulties, you trust me!”
Jinks winced.  “Yeah, it doesn’t pay to get too caught up in logic when you’re investigating certain objects in this world.”
Sherlock gave a strangled gasp, and John glared at Jinks.  “Shut your mouth!  Do you want him to have an aneurism?  It’s not like that fall from the building did him any good you know!”  John crouched down by Sherlock and grasped his shoulder.  “C’mon, it’s not that bad,” he said, trying to keep his voice brisk. 
“It’s fine,” Sherlock snapped, and John helped him back so that he was leaning against the pole.  Claudia had scrambled down from the moment of the purple flash, and she took Sherlock’s other side. 
“Oh, dear.”  John ripped Sherlock’s brown flannel trousers a little, and took a better look at the snake bite.  No venom, he ascertained, but the puncture wounds were deep, and they seemed to be… contaminated with a certain bit of dust.  The flesh around them was swelling and turning red even as they watched. 
“Ouch!”  Sherlock’s hand clutched John’s and John turned his palm up and laced their fingers temporarily. 
“There’s some sort of contamination here,” he apologized.  “I think maybe whatever…”  he grimaced, not wanting to wrap his mind around the logic of it.  “…whatever created those snakes, it got stuck in the—hey!”
Jinks had another cellophane bag, one he’d upended, and he was currently squishing purple goo all over Sherlock’s thigh. 
“That’s a little invasive!”  John protested.  “And not at all sanitary—“
“Oooohhhh…”  Sherlock sighed and gave a shudder.  “That’s good… that’s better than drugs…”
“And apparently medicinal,” John noted.  The red streaks were fading, and the bite marks were purging themselves of pus even as he watched.  He looked at Jinks and Claudia, both of whom seemed to have very little about them but weapons and lots of those handy little cellophane bags, and sighed.  He reached under his button down plaid shirt, his vest, and his blazer and yanked on his T-shirt.  He ripped at it, startling when Jinks lifted up his outer wear so he could rip a big strip around the bottom and fold it into a pad.
“Oh God,” Sherlock groaned.  “You can’t even wait to get him alone, can you!”
“Well, the big snakes are all gone,” Jinks said, maintaining his humor.  “I was hoping maybe he was interested in a little one.”
“I’m not interested in his snake,” John said, not even bothering to blush.  “I’m interested in your well-being.”  He folded the T-shirt into a pad and pressed it against the blood-smeared pale skin of Sherlock’s thigh.  Sherlock’s hand covered his, and John looked up and met those piercing blue eyes. 
“You could, occasionally, be interested in my snake,” Sherlock said plaintively, and John stared at him, open mouthed, until Jinks’s hand on his shoulder pulled him back to reality.
“It’s a shame,” Jinks said, and Claudia was next to him, shaking her head. 
“It really is,” she said.  “You haven’t had a date in two years, Jinksy!  For a minute there I had hope!”  She looked at John, her lips pursed in sympathy.  “Well, you two need a cab and a hotel room—“
“And an explanation?” Sherlock insisted, much to John’s relief.
“Nope,” Jinks said, straightening up.  “I might have told John, if our snakes hadn’t gotten crossed, but I’m thinking after that hotel room, the extra pole in here is going to be the last thing on your mind.”
Sherlock’s hand tightened on John’s, and Claudia pulled out her cell phone to talk to the cab company. 
“I don’t know about you,” Sherlock said, “but I’ve had enough of that metaphor for probably the rest of my life.”
John’s eyes crinkled.  “I don’t know,” he said, curling his hand around Sherlock’s calf.  “Maybe there’s still a few more inches left in it.”
“More than a few,” Sherlock said with dignity.  “Now help me up so I can call Mycroft and let him know his precious St. George antique has been destroyed.
“But it hasn’t,” John said, looking to the top of the pole where the cellophane still sat.
“I think a minor falsehood is in order,” Sherlock told him judiciously.  “And since I don’t plan on telling him what we’ll be doing in that hotel room tonight, I think he should be used to it.”
It turned out, John didn’t really care what Mycroft thought.  And there were more than a few inches left in the entendre of snake and pole.  

Reminds Me Where I Want to Be

So I left these people, looking sweet and adorable and fun, and came to Florida.

For the record, I like North Florida.

Not a soul here has not been kind, with a big smile and an earnestness to help.  (We will not discuss the Bird-Bates Hotel-- but even those people are nice.)

 To the right is our server at the F.A. Cafe--which, if anyone ever comes to the St. Augustine Beach to eat, you should know that F.A. stands for Fucking Awesome, and it lives up to it's name. She is kind, accommodating, and helped Shannon, my roommate and terrifyingly competent (and amazingly kind) DSP Wunderkind, find someone to help her clean her upholstery, as she spilled soda in her mother's car on the way down.

She also gave us the hook up on breakfast.  We like her!

To the left is Shannon (sorry about the red-eye, Shannon!)

I LOVE this woman.

She is funny, kind, and did I mention the competent?  If you ever want to get lost in an Amazon jungle, she'd be the one in the boots, the pith helmet and the cammies, ready to lead you to safety.  I'd follow her anywhere.  I'd especially follow her to a good restaurant, cause we found a few.

 To the right again, in the pink, is Amy Di Martino.

She really IS adorable.  We LOVE Amy.  Amy was the general liason and BFF to the makers of the con, Jennifer and Deloreanne. Amy is so much concentrated goodness and oomph, you just want to bounce with her, because she WILL make your day better.

Did I mention we LOVE Amy?

 This is sunrise on the beach.  It's really frickin' beautiful, and I got to be out in it.  I even had some headshots taken out there-- I'm hoping there's more beach in the shot than there is Amy Lane.  Cause, well, look at that sky, right?




 These are albino alligators.  Yeah, they're in cages!  Yeah, they're rare!  The St. Augustine Alligator Farm has two of them.

They also have these guys.
 They also have Maximo.
 Shannon came with me to the alligator farm.  We both agreed that anyone who writes M/M books or slashfic or works in the industry NEEDS to go see a creature named Maximo when there is an opportunity to do so.
 And here is a Provost Squirrel.  Provost means "pretty."  This particular squirrel IS pretty, and looks like a little tamarind monkey, actually.  Shannon and I also both agreed that this could be the one squirrel we would swerve to avoid should it try to commit suicide in front of our car.  And forgive the shitty picture.  I THINK this is a Provost Squirrel.  If I'm wrong, it's something with scales and fangs that will kill you as you sit.  Either way, don't stick your hand in that cage.


 This is something long and scary.  I think it was breathing.  By then, I'd had a cumulative attack of the heebie-fucking-jeebies and we decided to leave then.  We passed on the crocodile wing.

 This is our booth.  It looks very very pretty. I am particularly fond of seeing The Little Goddess books right next to Under the Rushes, A Solid Core of Alpha, and Talker.  
 This is me, Shannon, and Poppy.  We are looking very bright and happy.  It was early in the con.  We start looking more and more like the hags of hell the closer it gets to Sunday night.  (Okay.  Poppy was always a Southern lady.  Shannon and I freely admit to looking a bit worn.)

Kites on the beach.  Pretty.  We sat outside and watched them while we had our final discussion of Sunday.  And I'm kicking myself for not getting another picture between "Hey, we've set up the table!" and "Kites on the beach!"  Because the thing is, in between that, I sat on FIVE panels with Damon Suede.  Now, Damon is... well, he's a force of fucking nature is what he is.  He's like the the equivalent of three of those kites sailing in a smaller sky.  But I did panels and readings with him, and I think, (THINK) I may not have been completely out of my league.  I'm calling it a win!  And this is Lucienne Diver.  She's beautiful (of course!) and gracious and we had lovely conversations together.  We also sat a panel together, and fed her cupcakes.  She loves us.

 Sunset.  On the beach!


 Home tomorrow, to those gorgeous people above.  It's been a helluva trip!

Norman Bates Was a Lightweight Slacker Who Would Have Been Scarier With Birds

Okay.  I know what you're thinking.

You're thinking that getting an invasive pat down in an airport because one's maxipad apparently looked threatening on airport security X-Rays pretty much levels out the weirdness scales of bad travel stories, right?

Yeah.

I thought so too.

Of course, when I sat next to Michael from Mourning Heaven (minus the gay, more's the pity, cause he was terribly terribly cute, but probably also minus the tragic backstory, so Godspeed young soldier) I thought that was pretty cool.  Weird-- because, seriously, a town in Humboldt County with a population of less than forty was so very close to the scenario I'd painted that it gave me the shivers-- but, you know, considering I couldn't even make American Airlines cough up a seat reservation until the last fucking gasp, it felt like serendipity.  I was SUPPOSED to sit next to the fuselage and be confronted with the real person who represented the specter of the young character I'd completely fubared and killed off in fiction.

Anyway, my fictional real person disembarked, and I sat in Dallas thinking that, just once, I'd like to see the real Dallas and not the airport version, and then I was bound for Jacksonville.

Jacksonville has a very pretty skyline at night.

It's one of the few things I know.

Well... wait.

There are some other things I know.

I am not a person of instant action.

I am very much aware of that.


But see, there's this joke, a kid's joke, about two lion hunters.

Bob says to Bill, "Bill, I want you to go down to the bottom of that rise, and I'll flush out the lions.  When they run by, shoot them!  But you can't move.  No matter what you do, DON'T MOVE."

Bill says, "Okay.  I promise upon my honor I shall not move."

Bob does his part, and after he risks life and limb, there is NO ONE to shoot the lions he scares into the clearing.

After a few moments, Bill comes running out, screaming.

Bob says, "What the hell are you doing?  I told  you NOT TO MOVE!"

And Bill says, "Okay, I know, I promised.  But when the pterodactyl came out of the jungle and made a nest in my hair, I stayed.  And when the gorilla came out and started throwing me against a tree like a basketball, I stayed.  But when two squirrels ran up my leg and said, 'Should we eat em here or take em home--I RAN!"

So, two very nice girls-- let's call them Shannon and Amy (because seriously, those were their names)-- once visited a castle by the sea.  And they were told, "You will stay at this castle and meet and greet people and enjoy, and our only request is that you stay AT THIS CASTLE."

And Shannon and Amy said, "FRICKIN' GROOVY!"  Cause they were easy that way, and a castle by the sea sounded like a good deal.

But at two o'clock in the morning, the two girls drove a Subaru Imprezza screaming from the one castle to a near by Regency Inn castle, and threw themselves upon the mercy of the kind night clerk so that they might stay the night at the Regency Inn castle.

And the other people around them asked, "But girls, what are you doing?  We told you not to move!"

And the girls said, "Okay, the broken closet door and the black mold were scary, but we stayed.  The wrecked wall and the breaking sink were scary, but we stayed.  The lack of internet and the door that WOULD NOT LOCK were scary, but we stayed.  But when the cockroach, the sugar ant, and the moth all walked across the spooge stain on the sheet and said, 'Nope, not one of ours,' WE RAN LIKE HELL!"

So, as this story can illustrate, cockroaches and spooge stains in a hotel room CAN spur Amy to instant action.

And did I mention the birds?

See, I should have known it was going to be interesting when we checked in and the foyer was balls to the walls bird cages.  Not hygienic bird cages, either.  Just... just... lots of parrots and parakeets.

And now those birds are all alone by in the castle by the sea, because Shannon and Amy got the motherfuckinghell out of there before the cockroaches could make off with their computer equipment and psychosomatic itching could reduce both girls to sad and scratchy mess on a dirty rug.

So, anyway.

Like I said, you'd think the invasive pat down because of the maxipad shadow on the X-ray was bad enough.

Apparently, not in castle by the sea.

Foregone Conclusions

Mate:  You know, this new Ninja Turtle show is pretty good.

Me:  Right?  The dialog is fairly entertaining.

Conclusion:  Maturity is for the weak





Me:  Yeah, the Art Docent lesson plan called for oil pastels and watercolors.  I had them make dots with markers instead.

Squish's Teacher:  Oil pastels and watercolors?  IN A CLASS WITH THIRTY FIRST GRADERS?  *retroactive panic pant*  Yes-- I think the dots idea was a much better idea.

Conclusion:  Just like when I was teaching high school, the official lesson plan has no connection with reality.

Me:  The dog has been crapping every morning when I take him outside for his walk!

Mate:  That's great!  Apparently he's been crapping in other places in the house in the afternoons and evenings!

Me:  Shit shit shit shit shit...

Mate:  Pretty much.  Yes.

Conclusion:  Potty training a small dog isn't for the faint of heart.


Zoomboy, in front of Mate's friends:  Mom, you've got a booger.

Me:  STOP PICKING MY NOSE IN PUBLIC.

Zoomboy:  Hold still, I've almost got it!

Me:  GO AWAY!

Zoomboy (grumbling):  Fine, but I've almost got it.

Me (to Mate):  Is it gone?

Mate (handing me a Kleenex):  No.  A little to the right.  You taught him that you know.

Conclusion:  We do not always know what it is we teach.

Me, to Zoomboy's Class, as I'm teaching about pictures of trains:  Yes, when Zoomboy was little, we took him to the RR Museum.  He threw a tantrum and woke up in the middle of the night crying about the trains.

Zoomboy (and I can't confirm he thought this):  You had better send me away to school like Chicken, woman, or I'm gonna hit you with the therapy bill.


Conclusion:  Karma WILL get you, whether it's trains, children, madness, or all three.



Friend Wendy:  So, can we see your new clothes?

Me:  Uhm...

Mate:  Yeah, let's see your new clothes.

Me:  Uhm...

Mate:  There's certainly a LOT of them.

Me:  Uhm...

Mate:  They look good and all, but, well, that's a LOT of clothes.

Me:  The jeans had POCKETS!  And SNAPS!  And POCKETS!  Like jeans for REAL PEOPLE.  *wail*  I had to buy them.  I just had to.  It was a moral imperative.

Conclusion:  Yes.  Big girls really will pay a fortune to feel like the cool skinny kids with real pockets.


Fraud guy on phone:  So, we need to know if you charged $X on amazon.com.

Me:  NO.  We most emphatically did NOT charge $X on amazon.com.

Fraud guy:  Excellent.  We'll send you paperwork and a fraud claim number, and you can be reimbursed.

Me:  Thank you so much!  Goodbye!

(and as I am hanging up the phone)

Mate:  Squish... what are all these games doing on the Kindle?

Me:  Games?  How could she order games?  We were out of WiFi distance most of the time she had it.

Mate:  NOT WHILE SHE WAS AT HOME PLAYING IT.

Me:  OH HOLY GOD.  SQUISH!  VIDEO GAMES?  We could feed a small country for that!!!!

Mate:  AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

(A few minutes later, after a painful, tearful talk with Squish about money and stealing and asking for permission and why she isn't going to be playing with her iPod or going shopping at the craft store or getting new clothes for a good long time)

Mate:  This is all my fault.  I should have blocked the kids buying stuff like I did on their iPods.

Me:  This is all my fault.  I should have known all those games weren't free.

Mate:  You thought those games were FREE?

Me:  You blocked their buying stuff on their iPods?

Both of us:  FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKK....

Mate:  I'm going to bed.

Me:  I'm going to knit.

Both of us:  I'M SOOOOOOO SORRY.  fuuuuuuuuuucccccccccccckkkkkkk.

Conclusion:  Parental controls aren't only for the weak or the inattentive.  That shit gets REAL, real fast!

Musing

Okay, went and saw Muse last night and I had my mind effectively blown.

The band has been around for a while-- long enough to have a big repertoire and a REALLY diverse following.  They were fun on stage, but the fourth and fifth band member was really their lights/effects choreographer-- DAMN.  Just... DAMN.  I've got no words.

It was amazing enough to keep me from knitting.

Which is saying something, because I was knitting through the entire opening act.

Now, I do love to knit, but I don't usually try to do it during a rock concert--for one thing, I like to stand up and dance.  But Arco Arena does NOT lend itself to dancing--at least not my section of it--and much love to Band of Skulls (the opening act) but their lights and sound was designed not to overshadow the main attraction.  They were enjoyable, but, well...

Okay, see, I'm meeting people next week, and it's always nice to bring gifts--it's sort of tradition.  So I finished a gaiter and asked Mary, "Would this be okay for Elizabeth?"  She said, "Give Elizabeth the pretty yarn you bought her in her color that you said you'd never have time to knit, and give the gaiter to MEEEEEE!!!"

I said, "Uhm, okay..."

And then she texted me later and said, "Wait!  It's Ellis's birthday that week!  You MUST give the gaiter to ELLIS!"

And I went, "Hey!  I have no time, lots of yarn, and scads of boundless ambition!  I can make her a gaiter between now and then, I KNOW I can!"

But, well, you know.  I had things to DO during the week.

So I texted Mary in the middle of Band of Skulls and said, "If I fuck up the first couple of inches of Ellis's present because I'm knitting during the opening act for Muse, should I rip it out or call it a design element and explain how it gives the garment character?"

She said, "She'll love it!"

I said, "With or without the fucked up part!"

She said, "She'll love it!"

I said, "But will she think the fucked up part is funny, or will she think it's lame?"

And Mary said, "She'll think it's funny!"

I said good-- and then I texted her this picture.

And she texted back, "Good God, woman, are you really knitting there?  GO HOME to knit!"

So I'm going to hope that "She'll think it's funny!" thing is still in place, because it's a biased rib pattern, and sometime in the middle of Wanderlust I added two stitches and reversed the direction of the bias.

But as soon as Muse came on, I had to put the knitting away.  The music was GREAT and the lights/effects were so prevalent that even though I was knitting in the dark before, if I'd tried to count a 5x5 rib during the course of the main concert I would have given myself a seizure.

I LOVE rock stars.  I love that they can look directly into a camera, sing something torchy and gut-felt, and every woman in the arena thinks about sex.  And the guys don't worry that every woman in the arena is turned on, because odds are good the girl isn't going home with the lead singer of Muse, or the Killers, or even The E-Street Band-- she's going home with her husband or boyfriend or girlfriend or wife, and SOMEONE'S gonna get lucky!  And the rock star?  He's just in the moment.  He IS the music.  His entire being is that collection of notes and power and sound vibrations and electricity that make up a song and lightshow--he's TRANSCENDENT--and he pulls us up with him!  It's holy, the way good music can raise a crowd into pure physical joy.  It's like one of the sacramental bennies of being a human being.

So, well, yeah.  I enjoyed the holy hell out of the concert, and, as always, plotbunnies were fucking like silly in my head, getting ready to give birth.  We'll see what they pop out!

And, in writing news, I updated my website in a couple of places, but I was given a couple of honors that I'm sort of proud of, and you can read more about that HERE if you'd like to.  And also, there's a... well, it's not a contest, it's sort of an "award"-- people are voting for the best m/m romance writer this year, and they had it narrowed down to five.  I was lucky enough to be in the top five, and pretty damned impressed with the company I was keeping, but this voting in public thing is BRUTAL.  It's like, "Well, screw winning-- would be nice just to not be embarrassed!"  (I'm sure I'm not the only one of the five of us thinking that, by the way.  Did I mention a certain brutality present in the process?)

Anyway, if you'd like to vote-- for any of us, because Harper Fox, Kaje Harper, Jordan Castillo Price and Abigail Roux are AWESOME writers and totally deserve your vote-- go to THIS LINK HERE and leave your choice in the comments.  And again, congratulations to all those nominated-- like I said, I'm in some pretty damned amazing company:-)

Oh yeah!  And I'd forgotten until I loaded my pictures, but I got some new swag for the upcoming conferences-- I'm bringing about fifty of the key chains to Florida (and some new bookmarks for Under the Rushes, too!) and that's always fun.

Mixed Blessings

)Especially with all of the awesome superhero movies out there, there's a lot of fun talk about, "My superpower is..."

And I have to admit, I've been blessed with a couple of them myself.

*  Allegory--I have the gift of naming-- I won't deny it.  Children, characters, stories, pets-- I can name things.

*  Random encounters--I have the gift of running into people at odd times.  I've had some of the best moments with my relatives in lines for movies or stuck at the same stoplight in different cars.  I shit you not.  I've told you about meeting old students when standing at an intersection at two in the morning.  I once saw an old friend come in at a half-marathon when I was at the finish line waiting for my husband to come in.  Unpredictable, and most of the time only useful for feeling good about myself--but sometimes, once in a while, I have an idea it's coming.  I couldn't tell you WHO, but I'll have the idea that SOMEONE I know will be where I'm going.

*  Witchiness-- but only a teeny, tiny small amount of it, and only in the saddest of situations.  Maybe it's seeing so many grandparents grow older and pass on, but for the last couple, I've known as I've left--just known.

Alas, I seem to have passed that last one down to my daughter, and the first one seems to have deserted me, but we'll get to that.

Let's continue.  As with all superheroes, there is an ANTI- superpower-- a kryptonite to Superman's superpowers, a heel to Achilles' strength.  In my case it's this:  It is impossible for me to keep a secret from someone I love.  I once went to elaborate lengths to hide my husband's Christmas gift from him as I was getting out of the car from a shopping expedition, only to brag about how I'd managed six different places including the Sunglass Hut within 45 minutes at the mall.

Uhm, there really IS only one thing you can buy at the Sunglass Hut.  Yeah.  He wasn't surprised.

Anyway-- so there you go.  My superpower/superweakness, for your perusal.

Now, these are pretty tame superpowers by any stretch of the imagination.  They are.  It's not X-Ray vision.  I can't fly.  I can't even lose weight.  I can name things and run into people without medical assistance needed-- go me!

But sometimes these superpowers can lend an extra... uhm, piquancy to my already odd way of looking at things.

To wit:

I saw my last grandparent on Monday.  Yes-- my last one.  It didn't take a genius to know I was seeing my last grandmother for the last time-- she rolled over, said my name, asked me if I'd been in an accident (?-- she's witchy too-- I was a little freaked out about this, and in a minute, you'll be too,) and then fell asleep.  My aunt Carol told me this was a good day-- she woke up and knew me.

When I left, I said "Goodbye, I love you,"-- because we've already discussed this, that should be all you ever have to say to someone when you leave--but I knew.  I thought I might visit on Sunday, but I was pretty sure it wasn't going to happen.

I cried all Friday.  Yeah, I was writing a sad part of my book, but although I often tear up at sad parts, I don't usually sob, and sob so hard I can't see what I'm typing.  I thought, "Hormones?  Exhaustion?  The stress of saying goodbye to these characters anyway?"  There were reasons, right?

But nobody called.

So on Saturday, there I was, driving down the road in a part of town I usually do not frequent.  See, the kids and I were in North Highlands, going to gymnastics, when my husband called me and told me that he was going to Folsom with his buddies after football, and he wanted us to meet him for pizza.  For those who know the area, it's like being asked to journey from East L.A. to Beverly Hills, except without the two hour commute.  Anyway, we get to pizza and the kids decide they want to go home with their dad.  So I was alone in the car, popping a zit in the rearview mirror (that's embarrassing by the way--but not as embarrassing as having that thing waving to people when I get out of the car!) when I realize the woman in the passenger's seat of the car next to me is my Aunt Barb.

So we roll down our windows and chat for the duration of the light, and then go when it turns green.  (Yeah-- some of these superpowers run in families.  You may have guessed.)

So I was thinking they might try to pace me, so we could chat at the next light, but for a moment, they trailed behind.  Suddenly, they catch up with me, and tell me to pull over so we can talk.

So they stop, I pull ahead, and there we are, looking like people who just had a fender bender, sitting on the side of the road.

And that's when they tell me grandma died.

0.O

I mean,

o.0

I mean,

0.o

Really?

We cry a little, we hug, we say we said our goodbyes to her, we remind ourselves that she was ninety-one years old, and they tell me that they didn't want to call me and give me the news over the phone.  My aunt Teresa was probably on the way to tell us, but she didn't have to now.  I could tell the kids in private.

And then we got in our cars and drive away.

Well, I figure, why not?  Their superweakness is obviously the same as mine.  They see me.  They know they have something big to tell me.  They think, "Well, won't Amy feel bad if we see her and she finds out over the phone later?"

Right?

Anyway, I get home, and the bizarreness of the whole thing is still ringing in my head, and I post it on Twitter, because, well, it's bizarre, and Twitter is a good place for that shit to resonate, right?

And then it hits me-- oh FUCK!  Chicken's on Twitter, and I haven't TOLD HER.  So, if she's on the computer, I just effectively told my daughter ON TWITTER that her great grandmother died.

So I texted her instead.

She was at IHOP with her friends.

She texts, "Yeah, I knew, I think.  I was weepy all yesterday."

So, well, there you go.  Family superpowers and family kryptonite and how sometimes the twain shall meet.

The only thing missing is a name.

I Ran Out of Toilet Paper

Seriously.  I ran out of toilet paper.  The family had just enough to get them through this morning.
Now this is an unusual thing for me-- I am usually the uberqueen of overstock, but not in this case.  In this case I. Ran. Out. Of TOILET PAPER.  
So, well, that was something I had to do today.  
I also had to get the kids to school and get the dog to the vet to get his nads clipped.  
Getting the dog to the vet to get his nads clipped was really important.  See, yesterday, he was left alone --which was not my fault.   Okay, it WAS my fault, but it was sort of out of mercy.
See, what happened, was, my friend Sonjia (aka Sam's mom) called up because she thought her car had run out of gas in the middle of an intersection.  The car had not, in fact, run out of gas, which we discovered after I stopped to fill a gas can for her and then poured into the car in what felt like the middle of a very busy street.  Anyway, after getting her 4 yo boy across that busy street and into my car with my kids, we ended up waiting for an hour for the tow truck and her inlaws to arrive, and in the meantime, the CHP showed up and used their handy-dandy shove-everything grill to get her car out of the intersection, and in the end?  We were gone for an hour and a half, with the dog in the car with the kids.  
So when we had to go get Big T from the bus stop, I decided to leave him alone for twenty minutes, and, as we all know, this is a BAD THING.  So after we walked in the house, I picked him up to reassure him that no, his people had not been sucked down a black hole and he was so excited he attempted to both hump my neck and stick his tongue up my nose at the same time.  For the record?  It was an uncomfortable moment for both those involved and those witnessing, and while it's a good thing I didn't have to use a tissue because, well, the toilet paper thing, well, it was just a good thing his vet appointment was this morning.  
So to get to the vets on time, I had a plan.  I told the kids I was going to take a shower.  I would be in the shower for twenty minutes.  They were under one obligation.  They needed to get dressed.  They NEEDED. TO. GET. DRESSED.  That was it.  We'd have time for breakfast, hair combing, and medication, if only they would BE DRESSED when I emerged from the shower. 
Well, Zoomboy got dressed, and then proceeded to play with his sister until I got out of the shower and she was still in her jammies and we had five minutes to go (because me, not so good with the time, yanno?) and I yelled.  Yup.  I yelled.  In fact, I yelled at the children so loudly, THE DOG PLOTZED.  On the couch.  
I did it.  First I planned to take his nads away, and then I scared the shit out of the dog.  Literally.  And made Squish cry, but she got over it.  That dog's NEVER gonna be potty trained.  We're gonna be buying carpet diapers forever.  
So I got the kids to school, late, and wondered when we were going to get our SARB letter because, hey, they're NEVER on time, and then got the dog to the vets.
The vets have a demon kitty.  
Yeah, sure, they say he's an Egyptian hairless, but he wouldn't let me get a picture of his sunken, demon-yellow eyes.  So, while he loved on me, loved on the receptionist, and loved on my phone while I was taking the pictures, I remain convinced he was not a heavenly creature.  But that's okay-- I'm a pagan, heaven is overrated.  The truth is, petting him felt like petting a warm blooded, stubbly snake, or a REALLY BIG shaved scrotum, and while I wouldn't tell HIM this (because, did I mention?  He was a total love?) the fact was, I missed fluff while this cat was attempting to seduce me with his giant scrotum body.  I mean, I get it-- his entire ATTITUDE was fluffy, but, well, fluffy can't always be boiled down to attitude.  Sometimes, it has to be an honest to God tactile experience, and this cat gave a different tactile experience, and I think it would take some getting used to.  Not that he wouldn't be a wonderful pet, and a very rewarding one (his purring shook the counter) but they had another cat there, an orange tortoiseshell, and I'm firmly convinced the second one was just so they could bury their hands in his fur.  
So, after that experience, I arrived at Safeway.  
And I texted my friend and GRL roommate, Ellis.  
"Dear God, I am at the grocery store without a plan, because we ran out of toilet paper this morning.  I. Ran Out.  Of TOILET PAPER."
To which she responded: 
"ABORT ABORT ABORT-- Run in, get toilet paper, get out, do not, repeat do NOT attempt to shop! You will spend $200 there and STILL have nothing for dinner!" "I'll just get staples," I reassured her.  
Yeah.  Famous last words.  
So, at the end of the day, as I sat down after doing a load of laundry to finally do my actual job and, yanno, write, I felt compelled to text her with the truth:
"Bad news:  Spent $350.  Good news:  $50 of it was in toilet paper.  #dontjudgeme"
Of course, Ellis, being a petite 105 lbs. of awesome, would not DREAM of judging me.  
I leave that for you all to do!

Just a Thought

*  This is Helm's Peep.  Seriously, enough said!  *dies*

*  On all those crime dramas, why don't serial killers ever come back with a hangover and some advil?  Why does it always have to be with a vengeance?

*  And why are they so pissed off on television anyway?  I mean hell, they're getting serious press!

*  What kind of woman lets her grade school children watch Titanic?

*  Is it bad that she enjoyed the solid half-an-hour of "I need you, mommy!" after the sobfest at the end?

*  Oh, tiny dog, I now know why you didn't need to be walked today!  (Hint: That's not chocolate!)

*  How much time can a time suck suck if a time suck could suck peeps?

*  When the dog is sniffing at places we're walking by, is he identifying his friends?  "Oh, Jimmy!  There you are!  I'd recognize that piss anywhere!  And oh, *sniff*  that must be the Samoyed with the nice tail!  Think she'd give me some?  And omgLOOK!  It's CRAPZILLA!"

*  If we could train the dog to sleep with the kids, do you think they could all be trained to sleep SOMEWHERE ELSE BUT OUR BED?

*  It's hard to stick to a diet when my brain is consumed with the ever-present dialog between steak and chocolate.  Steak is winning at present, but chocolate has made a good case.

*  Everyone wonders why the dog loves me best.  Here's a subtle hint: It's because I take him out to pee most often, and he THINKS THAT MEANS I LOVE HIM.

*  I just had a FB chat in German.  My human translator was awesome, but do you think Bing would like a thank you note for offering help on the side?

*  You know you've done good when your publisher sends you a contract along with the e-mail, "I hate you!"  Yes.  Angst achieved.  I've made someone cry.  I'm gonna go eat chocolate now in remorse.  #notsorryevenalittle  #wellmaybeforthechocolate

*  Jack Reacher is a kick ass hero, both in the books and in the movie.  But in the third book he's 6'5" tall, 250 lbs. of sheer muscle, and was described as "a condom stuffed with walnuts".  I'd like me some of that, even just to slash.  Jack Reacher, watch out-- there's a man out there for you!

*  I saw The Last Stand last night, and while it was typical gory Swartzeneger, complete with exploding brains and squishy sound effects, it was also solid action entertainment.  Of course MY favorite part was when the Hero in Need of Redemption gave a manly hug to the Deputy in the Red Uniform through prison bars.  HelLO plotbunny!

*  I'd like to declare the nap that will follow this blog post as part of my creative process.  And any knitting that comes with it.

*  And once again I'd like to thank Steven Spielberg for Jurassic Park and a movie my kids can watch that I can analyze and say, "Yeah.  It stands up."

*  Off to go snuggle with dog and sleep.  #Ineedthis

*  May we ALL have a happy and productive week:-)