Amy Lane's Blog: Writer's Lane, page 157

Sequels of Note

 Forgive me-- I'm crossposting like a fiend here-- I've gotten enough e-mail about these things to want to address them in every blog/website I can:-)  You'll find this posted in my website both on the front page and in the news page, so it will be accessible for a while:-)

I've been getting a lot of e-mail lately about sequels, and I'm thrilled.  So I thought I'd give you the rundown for sequels and my plans to write them, to save you all some e-mailing and me some replying (not that I don't love to hear from you:-)  So, here's the status (or non status) on sequels I'd like to (or wouldn't like to!) write:

The Locker Room-- No.  I'm sorry, I have no plans to write a sequel at this time.  For me, the end of The Locker Room was all about Xan and Chris having possibilities because Xan had grown into having a bigger life than the box he was locked into as a kid. Unless I'm bit by the major plot bunny of all time, the one that will solve world hunger and promote world peace, I think it's fair to say I want Xander and Chris's life to remain in the possible.  Honestly, from the letters you all have sent me, any sequel I would write would be a disappointment-- you all see them so happy.  
Keeping Promise Rock-- Yes.  In fact, although the writing of it was stalled by something else that is almost finished, I'm well in to writing the FINAL installment of The Promises series.  It's called Forever Promised, and it gives Crick and Deacon everything they've ever wanted.  No lie.  I swear.  Honest.
Gambling Men-- No.  Not unless the guys take up billiards, and at this point, it doesn't look likely. 
Chase in Shadow-- Yes!  Dex in Blue is already out, Ethan Gold is going to be next in line, followed by Black John and Tommy Bright.  So, uhm, yeah.  More to come there!
The Winter Courtship of Fur-Bearing Critters-- Yes.  How to Raise an Honest Rabbit and Knitter in His Natural Habitat have been greeted so warmly that I want to revisit Granby and Rance Crawford's little yarn shop one more time.  Besides, everybody wants to see how Jeremy is doing in his little house with Aiden, and to check on his recovery.  (Stop GLARING!  He had a karmic debt to settle!  Stanley was karmically clean--as innocent as a newborn lamb.  It wasn't HIS job to confront the bogey man, I SWEAR it wasn't!)  The next story has been tentatively titled (with the help of T.A. Chase, Goddess bless you, darling!) The Naked Alpaca Hats Band, and I'll be sneaking that one in sometime next year.
Scotty and Ryan-- It's a distinct possibility.  They're just too damned much fun not to!  
Clear Water-- I swear, I had a whole little mystery series planned when this one came out.  I still have plotbunnies for these guys, running up my legs.  The next time one of them crawls up my ass and calls out for my dragon to ride me like a porn star, I'm turning Patrick and Whiskey loose on the world again.  
Talker-- No.  They're happy.  Their lives sucked.  They've earned their little community by the seashore.  I want to think of them surfing and being happy forever.  
Country Mouse-- Yes.  Aleks and I have had the phone ringing (i.e. interruptions!) as of late, but we are well into City Mouse, and we want to keep writing it.  We love working together, but sometimes, real life just yanks on your chain!  But still-- we have plans for those boys!!!
The LIttle Goddess series--aka Quickening-- YES.  YES YES YES YES YES YES YES.  When I first "transitioned" from teaching to writing as my mainstay, (i.e., was yanked out of my classroom and threatened with all sorts of horrible things I shan't burden you with here!) I knew it was going to be a while before I got back to Quickening.  I wasn't writing for "fun" (it's never been that frivolous, trust me!) anymore, I was writing to feed my family, and to keep the promises to my older children of education and security.  I'm still doing that.  But in the last two years I've rediscovered that fantasy feeds my soul.  So I can't give a timeline-- and I'm sorry for that.  But I will not give up on the dream of writing this series, either. I'm still looking into publishers, and still pulling out the manuscript and adding to it when I've got a spare moment (not so much as of late) and I still have hope.  So yes.  There WILL be a sequel to Rampant.  I have faith.  
So that's pretty much it on the sequel front.  If there's a couple here I've missed, let me know, and I'll update this list again!

A brief prayer of gratitude

Food, a roof, and folks I love.

The Goddess is smiling, God's been good to me.

My children are healthy, my older ones are productive and hopeful and my younger ones are enthusiastic and curious.

The Goddess is smiling, God's been good to me.

My husband is kind, and he loves me for my flaws, and the kids are his favorite people too.

The Goddess is smiling, God's been good to me.

The dog made it one more year, and so did my grandmother.

The Goddess is smiling, God's been good to me.

Cats, yarn, and stories to love.

The Goddess is smiling, God's been good to me.

Friends in person and online love me and care what I have to say.

The Goddess is smiling, God's been good to me.

The thing I do for a living also sustains my soul.

The Goddess is smiling, God's been good to me.

I have hope for our world, for mankind, for the future.

The Goddess is smiling, God's been good to me.

I will have a moment today to be with my family, and I will know joy.

The Goddess is smiling.  God's been good to me.  May they smile on you too, so that you have much to be grateful for.  May you know joy.

Amen.

yes, Yes, YES!!!

So last week at soccer, there was an accident with the supply wagon when Mate was manning the snackbar, and we had a little of this:

Now don't get too upset, folks-- she's fine.  She had a black eye and a scrape across the chest, but all in all, I was looking forward to the end of the season.  Which was this weekend.  And the the weather looked like this:
Which sucked, because, as you can see, we were still out in it, playing soccer.  What REALLY sucked was that Mate was out in it all morning, setting up the field, because he's a board member.  So he looked like this:For about five hours.
  What REALLY REALLY sucked was that I arrived at the field with Squish, whom I thought had the first game, and looked for him.  And looked for him.  And didn't find him.  So I called him up and said, "It's a home game, right?"  And he said, "Yes!"  And I said, "Because she's out there looking for you, and she doesn't see you!"
And he said, "SHE?  It's ZOOMBOY'S GAME!  And it STARTS IN FIVE MINUTES!"  And then the inside of mom's head looked like this:


And then there was much confusion.We resolved the confusion eventually, and Zoomboy played for the win.  And Mate was like:  And THEN there was the next game.  The next game was Squish's game.  It rained even harder.  Squish went out for one quarter, and she came back looking like this:  And everyone was like, "Awww.... Squish, it's okay if you don't want to go out and play again!"  And her father and I were like, "Go out and play like all of the other drowned kittens out on that field!"  And Squish was like, "No." "Don't you want to play?"  "No."  "Your friends are all out on that field."  "No."  "You stay warmer if you move around."  "No."  "Oh, come on, sweetheart, toughen up!"  "No."  So, well, that was the end of that.  She played first quarter, and that was the end.  There was no celebration for the win, no cavorting with her fieldmates in the freezing cold, there was only the marrow-deep conviction that this entire attempt to play soccer had been a terrible mistake, and we were all fucked in the head.  I was sort of with her on that last part, but, well, don't tell Mate.Anyway, after all of that playing in the rain, 
 *happy sigh*  This is "Ethan" (okay, his real fake porn name is Aiden, but he's cute, and he got me through the weekend, and I thought he should get to come out and play a little on the blog.  He's the model I'm basing Ethan on.  He's really frickin' adorable.  Welcome to the family, Ethan!)

But Ethan has a point-- after all of that playing in the rain, it was time for post-game pizza and awards ceremony!  And, of course, for coach to get his props!  Which he did, after saying all sorts of nice things about his boys, and having all the parents say all sorts of nice things about him!




Of course, that wasn't the only pizza we had coming that weekend, but first, Sunday morning, there was the final round of cootie-geddon, which I don't want to talk about because, well, cootie-geddon.  How wonderful is THAT going to get?  (Actually, we're using this rather interesting product for cootie-geddon that smells like peppermint oil.  I sort of like it.  Yeah, we know I'm twisted, why?)  And then, after cootie-geddon, Mate and Squish had (what else?) a Kings game.




And then, after that, THEN there was pizza, round two.  And here, at pizza round two, we see Squish with her coach, who told the entire world that she learned a whole lot about coaching from Squish's dad, who coached her daughter (and Squish) last year in the U6 team.  I thought that was really nice, and when Mate and Squish coach and another soccer mom whom I adore (and who is another board member) all started talking shop, I was okay with that.  They'd earned it, and they were enjoying themselves. 
But that didn't stop me from texting Mary with, "Now that soccer is over, I have to admit, I am SO over soccer!"
And Mary sent me pictures that looked like this:

And all of these things made mom happy!!!!But that didn't stop her from wanting to go home and snuggle down with some of this.  I ended up writing instead, but at least I've got pictures!
This is Gordie, who loves to hunker down on Chicken's sweater in progress.
She says it's because he knows it's hers.
 And so soccer is over.  And hence, the title of the blog.  yes yes YES!!!!!  

So it's our birthday...

It was Zoomboy's birthday yesterday.  We did many things.

We brought cookies to school and then brought home empty boxes afterwards.

We went to three different places to find him a fish (which sucked, because I thought ALL places had fish and apparently there was a fish SHORTAGE at the one place where we go for all pet needs, and an explosion of road construction in front of the other fish place which was closer, but a perfectly respectable wall of betas at the third place.)

We stopped and picked up a cake and ice so we could take the ice cream cake with us to bowling and then it wouldn't be melted by the time it was ready for dinner.

We got home and set up the fish in a corner, where we can do our homework and see the fish!

We named the fish Greg, for Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

We went bowling with grandma and grandpa and our best Sam and his family.

We went to dinner at Wongs.

We opened presents and saw that mom and dad had gotten us Diary of a Wimpy Kid merchandise, including calendar, T-shirt, and action figures.


We went home and talked to our sister on skype and told her thank you for the Angry Birds hat that she sent from San Diego.

We fell asleep at nine-thirty, after trying to finish our homework in our new fish corner.

We were grateful.




And....

Of course when I woke up this morning, we were LATE!  Our dumb car is not starting these days.  mate has bought the part to fix it, but finding the time to install it?  Not so easy.  So there was that.  There was me, in my pajamas, checking the kids into school.  Late.

There was me, in my pajamas, looking at the sky and going, "Oh, please rain, please rain, please rain, because if it rains I don't have to feel guilty for not going to aqua!"

And then there was me, turning on the wiper blades, and going, "OH SHIT!"  Because Mate, who is a good mate, went to replace my old wiper blades.  Unbeknownst to him, the wiper blades that fit ALL minivans, do NOT fit ours.  Ours is SPESHUL.  Anyway, so there was me, in my pajamas still, going, "Please don't rain, please don't rain, please don't rain!" while I ran to the auto parts store to get new wipers.

The funniest part?  Well, there I was, in my pajamas and mismatched hand warmers (because I can never keep track of a pair and I've given up trying!) and my fuzzy hair and my morning eyes, trying to get more wiper blades.

The auto parts guy was skeptical.  "Here.  Let me see them," he said.  So we went out to the car and I turned on the wipers and the clashed in the middle and broke the one on the right further because they're too long.

Now this guy is in his thirties, and cute. He's got a bamf tatt covered by his long sleeved shirt, and while he's got short, buzz cut hair, you just know he's a badass, right?

So I turn on the car and the wipers clash and his eyes get big, and he says, "That is just frickin' odd."

Which is only hysterical when you KNOW what he was DYING to say was "That is just fucked up."

And thereyago.  HelLO plotbunny.  Damn, those frickin' odd wipers have done me a lot of service this way!

Happy weekend, everybody-- I plan to see the end of this soccer season off with two soccer banquets and our last two games.  Canyagimmehallelujah?  I knewyacouldamen!

A Knitter in His Natural Habitat

The Winter Courtship Rituals of
 Fur-Bearing Critters. Okay, back last December, I released a cute little novella about an alpaca rancher named Rance Crawford, and his sudden infatuation with his new neighbor, Ben.  I was rather proud of that sweet little story, and everyone was taken by not only Rance and Ben, but by the secondary characters as well.  And if I was a little surprised to get requests for the the story of Jeremy-- the ex-convict ex-conman-- and Aiden, his younger associate at the mill, I was stunned to get request for the story of Stanley.  Stanley was Craw's flirty little fuck-buddy in Boulder, the one who was always greased up and ready to go.  Stanley was a slutty little bottom to the marrow in his bones, with hair plugs, big blue eyes and an unexpected sweet spot (and not the one you're thinking about!) for the big, gruff rancher.

How to Raise an Honest RabbitWell, I wrote Jeremy and Aiden's story--and was stunned by how much I loved Jeremy.  My habit of rooting for underdogs prevails, and while some people are put off by Jeremy's country ways and small time patter, some people get that, at the heart of this guy who was used to swindling twenties off of young college students was a really sweet, really innocent guy.  One who needed gentling, and who needed Aiden to get all strong and secure on him, to make him be honest, and make him face the past, just like someone holding a rabbit is all strong and secure, at the same time they're being gentle.  Jeremy and Aiden did it for me-- they just did.  I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about Stanley, who was much slicker, much more urban, much more secure and much less vulnerable than my Jeremy bunny.

Turns out, Stanley doesn't really give a shit if I like him or not.  He just needs to flash his best ass (the one above the back of his thighs and below his lower back) at the right guy (the handsome delivery guy  that we met at the end of How to Raise an Honest Rabbit) and get his little old lady on and knit.  Stanley is happy, he is secure, and once he stops looking for love in all the wrong Jethro's, he's going to be just fine.

A Knitter in his Natural HabitatOf course, Johnny, his Prince Charming, has deep dark secrets, and all of the people he's only sort of known at Craw's ranch and alpaca farm are about to become much closer friends, and Jeremy a guy Stanley always thought had it all together is about to seem a lot more vulnerable for a lot of reasons, but Stanley?  Stanley can handle pretty much whatever life throws his way, as long as he's got his knitting by his side.

Hell, Stanley can even handle love.

Anyway, A Knitter in His Natural Habitat is out tomorrow.  Please don't read it as a stand-alone-- you'll be really confused.  But if you've been along for this sweet little knitting ride from the get go, I think you'll enjoy the hell out of it.  By the way?  For those of you wondering about the knitting project at the end?  Well, A. The only thing dirty about it is the color name.  And B.  The prototype that you see being knit in the directions has already been claimed.  Oh yeah.  Mary Calmes jumped on that with all the ferocity of a knitter at a luxury fiber sale.  Seriously.  If I hadn't been able to hold the knitting as my hostage, I would have been very afraid!

Seriously, folks-- I hope you enjoy the story.  And I REALLY hope you enjoy the covers by Catt Ford, because so far, people can't get enough of them!

Ukus are the Suckus!

Okay... the last two days... where to begin, where to begin, where to begin...

Let's start in a school bathroom.

Wait, no.

Let's start before that.

Let's start Thursday morning, as I was running around, tripping over laundry, thinking about laundry that needed to be done, looking at the giant pile next to my bed and worrying about dusting and all the shit I never do.

"Grrrrr..."

"What?"  Mate asked.

I was almost in tears.  "Would you believe I fantasize some day about taking an entire week off just to clean house?"

"Well," Mate said, very practically, "just an hour a DAY.  How's that?"

I walked away, laughing hysterically, wondering where he thought that hour was going to come from.  I mean, I had a lot to do that day!  I was supposed to be the Art Docent for my son's class, and then go grocery shopping, and I'm trying to make a deadline and then Zoomboy had dance.

And that is the day I started to have.  I went to prepare to be Art Docent, reading up on imaginary animals and Chagall in the little volunteer prep room, with some guy who thought that listening to Rush Limbaugh rant about lazy minorities in a school with  50% Hispanic population was just a dandy thing to do.  (I asked him to turn it off and claimed it broke my concentration.  It did, but only because I was fighting the urge to throw the boombox at his head.)  I finished my preparation, moved all my supplies to my son's classroom, and then went to use the potty before I spent an hour running around helping kids paint imaginary animals.

While I was in the bathroom, which, by the by, shares a wall with my daughter's classroom, my cell phone rang.

It was the school.  (I shit you not!)  Squish had lice.

O.O

Anyway, I washed up, walked out of the bathroom, and caught her walking out of her room as she was on her way to the office to wait for me.  She was in tears-- the other kids gave her a hard time about the cooties, and I reassured her that we'd gone through this seven years ago, right before she was born.  Together, we walked up to the classroom where my stuff was and told Zoomboy's teacher that we couldn't make it to be Art Docent, and told her why, and then she did the oogie-oogie-three-steps-back, and Squish started to cry more.

We groomed Zoomboy for a moment behind a classroom, and we didn't see anything crawling (although after the mayonnaise treatment he got after school we did find a few eggs) and I left him at school to take Squish home and start cootie-a-geddon at my house!

We stripped all the beds, vacuumed all the rugs, sprayed anything our head touched that couldn't be thrown in the washing machines, bathed all the kids--including the nineteen year old with the 24" melon and the uber thick, long curly hair-- picked all the nits (well, not ALL of them since we didn't pass inspection the next day) and swept all the floors and sanitized all the hairbrushes and... oh hells.  I'm sure I missed something there somewhere.  (Seven years ago, the only way we got rid of these little fuckers was to buy this uber-thick, oil-based gel that took a MONTH to wash out of Chicken's hair.  By the time it was out, everything next to her scalp had suffocated and died.  I looked for that shit-- I did-- but apparently, they don't make it anymore.  Fuck.)

And the whole time I was cleaning the house and the children to the point of numbed brain exhaustion, I was thinking, well hell. This?

 This was God saying, "You want to clean the house?  Clean THIS, bitch!  KAZAAM!"

Be careful what you ask for.  Sayin'.  And hope we pass inspection on Tuesday morning, or I may just have to shave us all bald!

The Race for the Rowboat is Over!

Can I have my television back?  Please?

I mean, I'm awfully glad that my guys won and all (right down to our local representatives, which was sort of cool because THAT election came down to 200 votes.  It was like, "Hooray!  My vote really DID count!")

But seriously-- me and politics, not so much of a match, and I'm glad it's over.

Because we all know I suck at politics, right?

I had a sudden moment yesterday (of all days, right?) when I was forced to meditate on the nature of politics and my insistence that, should we all be on a sinking ship and I yelled, "Everybody into the fucking rowboat!" I would be rowing that boat by myself watching the rest of y'all drown.  Not because I wanted you to go, mind you, but because when I say, "Everybody into the fucking rowboat!" that seems to be the world's cue to make a sandwich, turn on the television, clean their room, pick up a book, or, really, anything besides getting into the rowboat, and, let's face it, getting people INTO the rowboat is all about what politicians DO, am I right?

Now there's a line from a song (posted down below) that says, "charisma is the key to opportunity."  Now, I've always believed that, but it's always scared me a lot.  Charisma is that thing that makes people want to follow you, right?  Well, the key to charisma is being absolutely positive that the thing you are doing is right and that the entire world SHOULD follow you because anything else is insanity.

The really scary thing about charisma is that if you have it, you very often ARE insane.

Think about it.  We just watched a BRUTAL political contest-- and although I'm pleased that my guy won, I'm not all that excited about how either side played this.  The thought of living in a swing state, like Ohio, and literally breathing the filthy sludge stink oil of political ads as intensely as those people did makes me want to vomit.  And party members had to have known that this sort of endless campaigning is its own sort of evil right?

But they had to believe, really believe that it was worth it.

That's charisma.  You believe in yourself with such force that people must believe in you.   They have no choice.

Have any of you seen American History X?  It features Edward Norton as a nazi skinhead who is paroled for killing two black men who broke into his house.  The scene where Norton kills the guys is chilling--not just because he's cold blooded and ruthless about it, but because he's beautiful--he is so absolutely certain that what he's doing is right, you'd follow him into hell the proclaim his innocence.  Contrasted with the second half of the movie, where he is uncertain and second guessing his every move, you almost want that part of him back.  Forget that he was a mindless screeching sociopath--he was beautiful and you want to be a part of that.

But it's when he's uncertain and second guessing his every move that he shows wisdom and compassion and forethought and empathy and all of those very human values that we should give credence to in our own species.

But it doesn't make people want to follow him, does it?

And that side of leadership is the side I've always been a fan of.  I am really great about embracing my faults and my human imperfections, and about acknowledging that, hey, I'm no one to follow.  My strategy in the classroom was to make education intrinsically valuable.  The kids weren't doing it for me (although very often they did do it for me, if that's the dynamic we had to form to make them achieve what they needed to) they were doing it for themselves.  I couldn't scream them down-- I'm a silly looking woman with a Minnie Mouse voice.  I had a baby face until I was forty, and I'm a terrible clod!  It's hard to inspire awe and fear when you're tripping over your own trash can three times a day, and the damned thing was never moved!  So I would make success--and good behavior-- something they could control, and invite them to see why it was to their benefit to control in my class, and I have to say, it worked a lot more than it should have.  Giving them a choice-- calming down and having me help them or continuing to talk and being left to their own devices to succeed, for instance-- often made them see that they were powerful.  It was something I loved doing.

But it didn't exactly put my own power at the forefront, did it?  And how could I do that?  Looking back on it now, I think of all the ways that situation deprived me of power--all of the humiliating, soul-crushing ways.  The two principals who made my schedules more difficult when I asked for maternity leave-- that comes to mind.  The asshole (and department head) who did the impression of my vibrator during lunch or who yelled at me about feminine hygiene in the middle of the quad-- that was a winning moment!  The vainglorious prickweenie who wrote me up for calling him dude after locking me out of my room for half-an-hour.  OMG-- there's a moment in self-actualization, isn't it?  The times students failed and I was pinned to the wall with ways I could take back the one power I did have, because somehow, in the many chances I gave kids to succeed, this kid refused to take those chances and it was all my fault.  What about the four years running that the administration publicly harangued all the teachers about how badly our test scores sucked without ever, once telling us that our entire population had changed, and we'd gone from a school with 58% of our students eligible for free and reduced lunches to 98% of our students eligible for some sort of government assistance.  God, nothing makes you feel more powerless than assuming all the woes of the world really are your fault, and having some jerkoff in an office with the numbers to back it up, right?

And that's just my old career-- let's not even talk about some of the personal powerlessness that being the parent of a special needs child gives you.  Or having a pinball brain in a Hot wheel track world!

So yeah.  I was used to being powerless.

And I'm not anymore.

In fact, given the strength of my convictions, I might even be said to have a little bit of charisma.

It's something I need to remember--especially when a member of my writing community is asking something of me that I can give.

Yesterday, I was on the phone with someone who has a lot of pull, and, yes, a lot of charisma.  In an effort to make me feel comfortable contributing some time to the union cause, he started heaping praise on me--and I started to crawl out of my own skull in an attempt to get away from it.

It was horrible.  I felt it happening.  I even knew why it was happening when it was happening.  Suddenly I couldn't focus on the conversation, and whereas I was usually happy and fun and even charming when talking to this guy--he's one of those people who invites happy, fun and charming-- I was suddenly spacey and flaky and shy.  It wasn't his fault-- he couldn't have known.  I was so used to being powerless that when someone told me I had some power, my first reaction was overwhelming terror that I couldn't live up to this.  How could I?  I'd spent my past career--hell, I'd spent my life-- living with all of the reasons I was an irredeemable fuck up, a goofball, a flake and a ditz.

I couldn't possibly have the redeeming qualities that would make my voice important, could I?

Thinking about it rationally-- at what I've accomplished, at the people whom I admire who also think I have something to say, it seems only right that I use some of my time and ability to give to my writing community.

But it's hard to think about it rationally when your first instinct is to make light of your accomplishments before someone else does.

About two years ago, I posted (and it's one of my better, more iconic posts) a blot titled "I Do Not Write Porn."  It was there that I referenced all the times when I first started writing that I referred to my books as "trashy vampire novels" or "housewife porn" in order to be self-deprecating, and how my friends who had read my books got angry and upset when I did this. It was their reaction that allowed me to take my writing seriously, and to stop diminishing this thing-- this weird, amazing thing--that I do with words that, for them, made the world such a better place to be.

I think I'll take a lesson from that here, and try to remember it the next time someone wants me to lead a charge into a rowboat.  Yeah, sure, some people may choose to pick up their remotes and go down with the ship, but if there's at least one other person in the rowboat with me, its worth the blisters from rowing like hell.  

A Little Thing at a Time

Is it the mustache making him talk so much?*  Imagine a large woman, stomach distended, sprawled on the couch and burping delicately while she's looking at a giant empty bowl of Halloween candy, saying, "Well, THAT happened."

Yeah.  That's me.  My stomach will never be the same.

*  Voting on propositions in California often feels like a hidden, high-stakes game of Guess That Scam!  Guess wrong, and someone snags your money for no apparent reason.  Guess right, and the same thing happens, but it goes somewhere you don't hate.

*  We went to visit my grandmother in the hospital today, and, as I mentioned in my Halloween post, Zoomboy has become the boy who won't stop talking.  I'm starting to enjoy it.  It takes some of the burden off of me.

*  Saw Looper this weekend.  Am in AWE cause it was written so damned well.  Am also feeling very young and hip, mostly because the people behind us (who were about our age) DIDN'T GET ANYTHING ABOUT IT.  Example?  Joseph Gordon Levitt's character abused a futuristic drug that was dropped into the eyes.  Made sense to me-- clean, no mess, easily absorbed into the delicate eye tissues--but the hangover face in the morning was killer.  About a quarter of the way into the movie, right before the character went into withdrawals, one of them said, really loudly, "WHAT'S WITH THAT STUFF THEY PUT IN THE EYES?  MAYBE IT'S DRY IN THE FUTURE."  I turned around (in teacher mode, I guess) to say, "It's drugs," and Mate stopped me, shaking his head.  Maybe he thought I was going to state it rather strongly, as in "It's drugs, ya morons!" or maybe he was afraid it would be like feeding a cat and they'd ask us stupid obvious questions throughout the entire rest of the movie.  Either way, he stopped me, and we were treated to their delightful commentary for the rest of the evening.  When it was over, and Mate and I were jaw-dropped in admiration at such a seamless thematic endeavor, they said, in total disgust, "Well, I guess it was a good ending," and Mate and I just shook our heads.  God, I usually feel stupid and clueless about life in general, and I've given you all a first hand look at what a complete fuck up I am capable of being, but for the first time ever, I felt a little like Sherlock Holmes (the wonderfully slashy BBC version.)  "What's it like, not having a brain that functions like mine?  Is it harder to breathe?  Do you have to remind yourself?  Are colors different?"  *shakes head*  Am remembering why it's better to be smart than popular, any day of the week.

Is Mom seeing red?  No, just her knitting.*  Of course, to highlight what an idiot I'm capable of being, I should tell you what happened before we went to see the movie.  Mate and I had dinner beforehand (some place without a tablecloth, as Mate has categorized most dinner places in our comfort level) and we finished with about an hour to spare.  As is traditional, we often park the car at the movie theatre and sit and surf our phones or knit, and talk.  Sometimes, if the day has been particularly long (and this one was--started with soccer, moved on to cleaning the house for hours) and the movie is late, we'll cop a nap before we go in, and we both did this time.  So, nothing makes you feel more impotent and useless than lying in the middle of a half-nap, listening to BAD Christmas music and being incapable of leaning forward to forward to another song.

*  Have once again seen soccer reffing at it's worst.  Can I just ask when elbowing, clotheslining, and straightarming became de rigeur in the U8 girls teams?  And (referring back a few spaces) I'm so stupid about seeing it.  I'm the idiot parent screaming, "MAKE THAT KID STOP DOING THAT!" at the top of my lungs.  (Yes--if any of you were out in Antelope at ten o'clock Saturday morning, that was me.)  Of course, Mate is more circumspect.  "I'll bet," he says in full on analyzation mode, "that kid has older brothers and sisters.  That's probably the only way she can get the ball, and nobody's stopped her yet."  And at that point, the kid straight-armed one of ours again, and I screw the analysis and screech, "STOP HER!" again and he walks to the other side of the field and pretends he doesn't know me.

*  The good news was, after the soccer game, we had a rousing game of Roll-Down-the-Hill.  Captured in photos--it was great!

Interspecies non-con yarn porn. *  The outside cat wants inside again.  She just sits there, bitching at us, until we open the door and look at her.  Then she screams the cat equivalent of "HELL TO THE FUCK NO!" and the whole process starts again.  We actually like this cat-- but she thinks we suck.  And Steve WORSHIPS her--she's like queen of the kitty ghetto.  *rolls eyes*  Steve's such a wannabe.

*  Oh yeah-- have had to tell Chicken the sad news that her sweater is no longer virgin wool anymore.  Gordy, that shameless fucker, violated the damned thing IN MY LAP.  I have pictures.

So THAT'S two figgots and a dik!*  Re: Swag-- I'm running out of the bags.  Don't worry-- still have plenty of bookmarks ready and pens as well, and I'm going to start simply making bookmarks with every release so I always have some ready.  But eventually I'm going to get a request for a bag and I'm going to have to say I'm out.  So far everyone's been nice about "Send me what you've got!" and I've been thrilled to do just that-- I just thought I'd let you all know.

*  Re: Swag again-- oh yeah!  It was two figgots and a dik!  (Literally 50 packages!)  I'm impressed with myself--but then, re: the entire rest of this blog post, I've set the bar sort of low.

Oh, That Spider Was Real

We have a black widow living in a bolt hole by our garage stairs.  Everyone knows about her, she just hangs out and picks low-hanging flies.  I'm not squeamish about killing her, but the thing is, whenever one of the kids sees her, they scream and tell me, "Mom!  There's a spider here!"  And then she disappears into her bolt hole.  And, well, I'm not really big about sitting in the garage with a shoe, waiting for her to come out and meet her unmaker. So, we're all careful not to disturb her when we go down the stairs, and we just bide our time and wait, patient as a... well, you know!  And honestly, it would be GREAT if she would kill a few more flies.  Ugh.  They're all coming inside to die now that it's gotten cold outside.  Their life cycles are way too long!

And speaking of obnoxious...

Zoomboy and Squish went trick-or-treating last night.  We didn't get pictures of them, because it was dark, but we DID get pictures when we went on Saturday, (you saw the one of Squish!) and that was cool.  But trick-or-treating this year turned out to be something of a revelation.

Squish was not feeling well-- her ear tubes are swollen with the weather and allergies, and she was trying to be a trooper, but our usual in-your-face Squish was just a little droopy last night.  So, well, her brother took his chance to prove how much he's grown in the last couple of years.

Now back when we were getting him assessed for ADHD, the pediatric shrink said something interesting--and, it's something that, out of context, sounds really heinous, but which actually turns out to be true.  He said that being a kid w/ADHD is particularly tough because your parents are always riding your back to focus, your teachers always think you could do better if you tried, and you often HAD NO friends because you were obnoxious!

I was skeptical at the time-- Zoomboy didn't say anything to anybody-- was really not particularly obnoxious.

Well, that was second grade.

Welcome to fourth grade, where obnoxiousness abounds.  Trick-or-treating with Zoomboy this year went like this:

Kids, up at door:  Trick-or-treat

Victim of candy mugging:  Oh, aren't you all dressed up.

Squish: Thank you.  Happy Halloween.

Zoomboy:  Yes, I am a pirate.  I have a bag for my booty-- get it (turns around, wiggles tush) booty?  And I had a parrot, but it was missing a leg, and it was a fake parrot, but see?  I still have a hook.  Do you like the way I'm carrying my booty bag, on my hook?  Get it?  Booty bag?  That's my sister, Squish.  She's a cat.  We have a real cat at home, two.  One of them is my sister's cat, he's Gordy, but there's my mom's cat too, that's Steve, and she's a girl cat, but she's got a boy's name.  Steve keeps trying to carry off the fake parrot with only one--

Mom, calling to kids in mortification: Say thank you!

Kids: Thank you!

Mom, to helpless victim of candy mugging:  Happy Halloween!

Dazed and helpless victim:  Happy Halloween!  Good luck!

(I have no idea what that last part was for, do you? )

Now see, this sounds funny-- and to some extent it's HILARIOUS.  As we were trick-or-treating, Big T got home, and Mate left him home to dole out candy while he joined us in the trick-or-treating.  I told him to just follow the sound of Zoomboy's talking, and he did--and was mortified along with me.  But to some extent, Zoomboy missed a lot of things in his monologue, and that's too bad.  For example, there's this conversation we had with a parent waiting for his children to return from their own muggings:

Zoomboy:  I am a pirate.  I have a bag for my booty-- get it (turns around, wiggles tush) booty?  And I had a parrot, but it was missing a leg, and it was a fake parrot, but see?

Parent:  You had a bird?

Zoomboy:  Yes, but it's missing a--

Parent:  You mean like this bird?  *peels back jacket to show a tiny live parakeet cuddling on his shoulder*

Zoomboy:  Yes, but mine's fake, and it's missing a leg, and I still have a hook.  Do you like the way I'm carrying my booty bag, on my hook?  Get it?  Booty bag?

Mom:  IT'S A BIRD!  OMG OMG OMG-- DID YOU SEE, ZOOMBOY?  HE'S GOT A BIRD!  (There was not so much shouting with this, but there was considerable jumping up and down, flapping hands and cuting out!)

Zoomboy:  Uh-huh, it's a bird. That's my sister, Squish.  She's a cat.  We have a real cat at home, two.  One of them is my sister's cat, he's Gordy, but there's my mom's cat too, that's Steve, and she's a girl cat, but she's got a boy's name.  Steve keeps trying to carry off the fake parrot with only one--

And then there was this one:

Zoomboy:  I am a pirate.  I have a bag for my booty--

Nice Man Who REALLY decorated:  Did the skeleton work?  Did you like that?

Zoomboy: Do you get it (turns around, wiggles tush) booty?  And I had a parrot, but it was missing a leg, and I couldn't bring it.  But look--

Me:  I didn't see the skeleton work, really.

Zoomboy:  I still have a hook.  Do you like the way I'm carrying my booty bag, on my hook?  Get it?  Booty bag?

Nice Man Who REALLY Decorated:  Oh no!  It's supposed to go like this when you reach for the honor bowl!  *reaches for the honor bowl outside and the crystal skull starts lighting up and bouncing and making scary noises*

Me:  THAT'S AWESOME!

Zoomboy: That's my sister, Squish.  She's a cat.  We have a real cat at home, two.  One of them is my sister's cat, he's Gordy, but there's my mom's cat too, that's Steve, and she's a girl cat, but she's got a boy's name.  Steve keeps trying to carry off the fake parrot with only one leg!

Nice Man Who REALLY Decorated:  I was hoping the kids would like the decorations.

Me:  THEY'RE AWESOME!  And I love the spiderwebs and the giant pumpkins and the crime scene tape and the--

Zoomboy:  That pumpkin is really big, it's the world's biggest pumpkin, I bet it won a prize.  Did your pumpkin win a world's biggest pumpkin prize?  And look, you had spiders and spiderwebs and that skeleton thing and we only took one candy from the honor bowl, that was right, that's what mom said and--

Nice Man Who REALLY Decorated:  *sounding overwhelmed*  Well, I'm glad you liked the stuff.  OH.  That spider was real.

Mom: *sympathetically*  Yeah, we've got a few of those too.

Zoomboy:  And there's a house down the way that's got a loud voice and it SCARED ME TO DEATH and that skull was pretty cool but it didn't SCARE ME TO DEATH, and I think my sister wouldn't have gotten candy, because she was CRYING she was so scared.  And last year, she ran away CRYING from that house because it SCARED HER TO DEATH!  But they didn't have an honor bowl, they had a scary woman come out and--

Mom, to Nice Man Who REALLY Decorated:  Thank you.  Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, y'all-- ARRGGGHHH!!!!!

(*note-- I will be mailing out swag tomorrow, just so you all don't think I forgot or bailed.  It's all set and ready to hit the post office... I sort of wonder if I should warn them or something!)

Pimp, Dik, Bumfit, FIGGOT!

Well, THAT happened.

Seriously--

About five years ago I bought a bunch of bookmarks and thought, "Oh joy!  I have swag!" and offered them up to the world.  For about three years, I got a request for those bookmarks maybe once a week.  It was fun.  I signed them, I sent them, I thought, "Hey!  Someone out in the world knows who I am, and that's sort of cool!"

So on Friday, I put out the alert that I had swag available, expecting that same leisurely, once a week pace.

My nearest and dearest have assured me that I'm not very bright.  They've also assured me that my head needs to be examined.  Thankfully, they're also hopeful that postage is a tax write off, and we're going with that, because I have no idea how to set up a pay-pal account to make people pay me for postage.  If I ever do this again, I may look into it, but until then, I'm going to use a little faith.

How big did this runaway train get, you ask?

Well, let me tell you about my Saturday before I answer.

Saturday, we had two things to do.  First there was soccer (and we've only got three more games left per child, HUZZAH!!)  And the second one was sort of cool.  My parents have an RV, a really NICE RV, and they take it places, like you do.  Anyway, one of the places they take it is about an hour north of here, near Jackson, CA--and this place does Halloween up right! Almost all of the RV's decorate, and people go outside and dress up--the adults are almost ALL dressed, and they hand out candy, and trick-or-treating is EVER so fun and easy!  And the kids could dress up and have a BLAST!

So BEFORE we went to that event, a friend of mine e-mailed me, and said "I want to count like an English shepherd!  Yan, Tan, Tethera, Pethera, Pimp!"

o.0

O--kay... really?

So I looked it up!  And YES!  English shepherds still use a Celtic/Welsh amalgam to count--yan, tan, tethera, pethera, pimp!  Sethera, lethera, hovera, covera, dik! Yan-a-dik, tan-a-dik, tethera-dik, pethera-dik, bumfit!  Yan-a-bumfit, tan-a-bumfit, tethera-bumfit, pethera-bumfit, FIGGOT!"   ISN'T THAT COOL?????!  It's especially cool when you count in FIVES!  When you count by fives, you say, "Pimp, Dik, Bumfit, Figgot!"

So there my husband and I were, driving down to Jackson (up to Jackson?  Sideways to Jackson?  Out in the middle of bumfuck Egypt on the WAY to Jackson?) and I started telling him about English shepherd counting!  And he got really excited too, because he uses a base 8 system, and when he asked me what was bigger than a figgot, I said, "Nothing-- because then you have a score!"

He was impressed!  "It's a base twenty system!" he exclaimed, and suddenly he was explaining how base eight and base sixteen works, and how it would work with a base twenty, and I was cracking up.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

"Well, you're the engineer, and you're all about base twenty, base eight, and all of that math stuff that has me sort of glazing over, and I'm all about, 'Pimp, dik, bumfit, FIGGOT!' cause it's hella funny to say!!!"

And we laughed for a good long time.

And the whole time this is happening?

I'm getting e-mails, and when I was at home I was addressing packages and signing swag and getting more and more and more overwhelmed and there's still requests coming in and I need to buy more envelopes and...

Yeah.

So how much swag am I sending out when I get paid, you ask?




Well, it's more than a figgot and a bumfit-- in fact?  I think it's gonna be two figgots and a pimp!





Oh yeah-- and for our musical moment?  Locomotive Breath is for the feeling of releasing a juggernaut you hadn't anticipated.  Jet Airliner was playing on my iPod this morning, and I keenly felt that one-- I didn't want to get on a big ol' jet airliner again for a very very long time, and Squish didn't want me to either!