Amy Lane's Blog: Writer's Lane, page 158

Bring out Your Swag!!!

Okay-- for the record, I'm going to cross post this one on both the website and the blog, because if it's on the website, it will be around for a while.

Anyway--

When I ordered swag for GRL, I ordered a LOT of it, because I didn't want to have to order ANY MORE for at least a little while.  I figure that if I order bookmarks or stickers as the books come out, I'll be just fine until next year.

Anyway-- the good news is, I've got lots, and while some of it is getting shipped off to St. Augustine for Old City, New Blood, and some of it might even make it to Romantic Times, I've got plenty left.  So, uhm, would anybody like my swag?

I've got stickers, activity books (and Mary found four errors I'd made in the activity book-- if nothing else, they're good to point at me and laugh!), book marks, crayons, and LOTS of pens, and purple dragon bags stuffed with all of the above.  (About the pens?  I was puzzled when the first batch arrived, because I hadn't remembered ordering them in Christmas colors, right?  Well, THIS WEEK, I got an entire box of dark blue Amy Lane pens that makes the OTHER colors NOT look like Christmas.  Anybody want a blue frickin' pen?)

Don't worry about postage, I'm happy to send stuff out.  Just contact me ON THE WEBSITE (you'll see the box) and give me your address then.  Like I said, I'm happy to do it-- and let me know what you want signed, too!








 

Zombie Day

It's inevitable, isn't it?

After what amounted to eleven days of travel (and I counted the two days I spent at home in the middle, packing and doing laundry and getting ready to leave again) the first day back would be a zombie day.

I napped, I edited, I picked the kids up from school, I edited, I communicated with people I needed to communicate with on the phone as I drove Big T to his job interview, I edited, and I went to the bathroom frequently so the cat could molest me, and then edited.

And then I cuddled for an hour with the kids, because we needed it.

And edited.

It's weird how work piles up up while you're working, right?

But it's also lovely how reality asserts itself.

If my head (which, in reality, is way too big for a hat just by virtue of fat and hair) was ever going to swell because of ego, nothing would shrink it quite so much as coming home:

From Zoomboy:  This cuddle is one-onethousandth of the cuddles you've missed.  You owe me a thousand more.

From Squish:  I like the T-shirt, mom.  Did you get one for Chicken?  She needs one.  Good.  You got one for Chicken.

From Big T:  Yes, I know you've been traveling for ten hours, but I really need to talk about why my high school crush is texting me two years later and how that gives me a free license for melancholy and angst.

From Chicken:  Where were you last weekend?  Because your texting was particularly shitty.

From Mate:  Yeah, I saw the pictures on Facebook.  Some of them were okay, but that white shirt wasn't particularly flattering.  You had three of them made special for promo, you say?  That's a different white shirt you wore for three days?  Oh yes.  I see now.  In all the pictures.  Oh.  Well then.  I guess that was smart.  But I still like the other outfits better.

From my Step-Mom:  Interesting.  I'll have to go with you one of these times.  (For the record?  That last one?  0.0)

And that's about it.  Like I said.  I'm relieved.  The world spins on, and I need to do my laundry and my cat won't stop molesting me.  Life is on it's way to returning to normal.

Of course, normal is relative, right?

I sort of got home right in the middle of release day, and I need to do a spotlight on something that actually came out almost a year ago.

Last year, for the Advent Calendar, I came out with a little novella that involved a grumpy alpaca rancher and his brand new neighbor.  Rance and Ben were really very beloved, and people wanted two burning questions answered:

A.  Were Jeremy and Aiden really gay, and were they really seeing each other?

B.  What did happen to Stanley, the snottly little man-slut that Rance threw over for Ben?

Well, although I certainly didn't plan for Rance and Ben's story to have sequels, but it seemed I'd already pre-written them, and that's what's about to come out both tomorrow (October 24th) and on November 14th.

How to Raise an Honest Rabbit is about Jeremy, no last name.  In Winter Courtship Rituals of Fur Bearing Critters, we know that Jeremy is an ex-con and a con man, and that he started working with Craw in order to find "honest work".  Oddly enough, although Winter Courtship was not angsty at all, I found that just setting this up gave Jeremy a certain amount of angst.  I tried to balance it out with both a rather droll tone overall and the character himself-- who is hopeful and quirky enough that I hope he'll make you smile, but there are moments in this one...

Well, they're not even very angsty, but they are so dear they'll make you tear up.  I still can't explain why, but they do.

I refer to this one as my Jeremy Bunny story, and when I saw this cover, that's what I called it-- my Jeremy Bunny cover.  I yearn to protect my Jeremy Bunny, and I hope that I do a good enough job telling his story that you yearn to protect him too.

The other story-- and this one is coming out on November 14th, so very very quickly--is about Stanley.

Now for both of these covers I got a wide variety of bunnies in mittens and sheep in sweaters (my request, but the incomparable Catt Ford put out the amazing art work and you can't blame her for wanting to just play with those wonderfully playful ideas a little bit.)  Anyway, I had to pick a spring lamb, because although Stanley laments that he is old, jaded, and used up at thirty-six (thirty-five!) he is, in fact, just beginning his sojourn, both as a knitter and a faithful lover, and he will discover that even someone as innocent as Jeremy Bunny has hidden reserves of strength that he's willing to give Stanley so that Stanley can have his own happy ever after.

A Knitter in his Natural Habitat is a slightly darker story than Winter Courtship Rituals of Fur Bearing Critters, although, again, I used a faintly ironic storyteller's voice that I hope takes the sting out of some of the sorrow.  (I will say this once--nobody dies!  There's some danger, and someone gets hurt in the third one, but he survives, and it's going to be okay!!!)  Anyway-- I'm interested to see what people say when they get done.  I loved all three of these stories (although, I have to say Jeremy Bunny is especially dear to me) and I'm wondering if they'll see that I planted the seeds of the darkness against the charming snow-colored first story in one or two little words.

So Honest Rabbit is out tomorrow-- and I'm falling asleep I'm so excited!  (Okay-- so Zombie day is catching up with me a little--I don't think that nap was NEARLY long enough.  Saying!)  But otherwise, I really AM excited about these two releases.  And, as people at GRL can tell you when they saw the bookmarks, I was ALL about squealing "OMG!  It's a BUNNY!  With MITTENS!" when people came up to look at them.  And, well, I"m sort of right there in the same place now!!!!

It's a bunny.  With mittens!  And a writer!  Writing in her sleep!  Ignore the second one, please--she'll make it to bed eventually!  But please, do give the first one a long look!

Greetings GRL 2012:-)

Okay-- in no particular order!

1.  Tonight I got to eat tasty cow.  It was a priority.  Trust me.

2.  Tom Webb really is as sweet as he seems online.  His Southern accent charms me to my socks.  I love him.  That is all.

3.  Andrew Grey is ALWAYS sweet.  I love him and I love his husband and I can just curl up in his smile.  That is all.

4.  Rooming with Ellis Carrington is a frickin' blast.

5. My lips are chapped, my hands are chapped, my face is chapped, my ass is chapped.  Did you all know Albuquerque is in the fuckin' desert?

6.  Some of the rooms here have phones in the bathroom.  Ours doesn't.  I don't know why this tickles me-- but it does.  You know which phone I'm NOT calling from, right?

7.  I did not do karaoke.  No one wants to hear me do Stevie Winwood.

8.  Ethan Day, ZAM, & Barry were hilarious.  I was honored to be up there with them, and felt very very outclassed.

9.  I read the terrarium scene from Dex.  Went okay...

10.  Nothing is more giggly than three people sitting in the same room texting each other giggly pictures.

11.  Damon Suede and Ethan Day are stretched REALLY THIN.  Having them even talk to me seems like a blessing from the gods.

12.  You NEVER get tired of hugging people.

13.  Ever.

14.  What this place needs is more quiet corners to sit and talk.

15.  I have to read WHEN?

16.  Oh shit!  What time is it now?

17.  Oh yeah... we're doing a presentation in an hour.  We SHOULD actually get into the same room together.

18.  Sayin'!

19.  I really need to quit after one gin & tonic.  Two definitely.  Three ABSOLUTELY.  Four is just too much.

20.  Ariel and I got to sit and knit for a couple of hours today.  It was lovely.  Never underestimate the value of knitting time.

21.  So many people--really sweet!  Really awesome!  Wonderful!  Fantastic!  Fantabulous!  Perfect!  Darling!  Kind!  Amazing!  Amazeballs!  Awesomeness!  Awesomesauce on epictoast!  Oh, holy crap, I'm running out of superlatives, but I love you all!

22.  Aleks Voinov?  Is a perfect gentleman-- and he dresses just like I always imagined Malcolm would, but he's much nicer as a person:-)

23.  L.A. Witt, Stephanie Grober, Brita Adams-- the whole Riptide gang was lovely to me at lunch, when I was about as spacey as spacey ever gets.

24.  My Dreamspinner people-- Ariel, Julianne, Margeuitte, Shannon, Anel, Venona, Shira-- I love you all, and you were my rocks tonight.  Thank you:-)

25.  Christopher?  Darling?  *giant hugs and smishes*

26.  Yeah...  did I already say amazeballs?  Bears repeating.




27.  Night all...

Blind Faith

Chicken will never forgive me for this picture.
Her teeth are whiter than this--the light just
SUCKED!  But she bought one of those
bunny clip things for her, and one for Squish.So when I was at yaoi-con this year, someone (who has no children or spouse) said, trying to make a joke, "So, why aren't you going straight from here to GRL?  Afraid your husband will let the house disintegrate and the kids run wild without you?"

Chicken was about to leave at that point, and it was hitting me that she was not going home with me as most of my molecular structure assumed she should have been, and I was not in the mood for joking.

"My husband is actually terrifyingly competent and really awesome with the kids," I said flatly.  "I'm going home because I need to see my family."

This person didn't understand (I didn't expect her to) but I know that most of you will, even if your family is all four footed, furry, and has an insane fascination for what you do in the bathroom.  (Yes, Steve missed me too, can you tell?)

Just looking at him makes my chest hurt.
And he was SUCH a total sweetheart!I had a wonderful time at Yaoi-Con.  The people were first rate, I was there with my person and my daughter who was having a very good time, and other friends like Rhys Ford and Nessa Warrin and Shira Anthony and Venona Keyes who made every day a joy.  The fans were amazing--I'm always warmed by the kindness and humor and awesomeness of Dreamspinner fans and this time was no different.  Kat and Roget (and Roget's lovely and shy friend on the phone) I'm talking to you guys and others, and to the two guys who stopped by at the very end and bought something because you'd been dying to do that all day.  I'm talking to the fans who walked by mine and Mary's table saying, "Oh no--we have all of these on e-book already!" and then went to the other table, the one with the pretty sci-fi/fantasy covers and bought the place out, because they were willing to try other authors and do it with humor and enthusiasm.  I'm talking to the sweet (and heart-achingly beautiful) guy who modeled for Joan Chen and helped her with sales, and who kept coming over to our corner so his iPad could get signal, and who was so very accommodating about bending over just so because he knew we liked the view.  (The view was VERRA nice.  Saying.) It may have been in Long Beach (which was, in Mary's words, a perfectly adorable town!) but Yaoi-Con was just as amazing and fun and wonderful as it has been in past years.  *waves hi to everyone I met over the weekend*  It was awesome!  Can't wait to do it again next year.

Squish and I made pompom monsters last
night before spaghetti for dinner.  Can you
tell how proud she is?And now?  Now I'm on to a terrifying new thing (I am both an eager traveller and a frightened one--it's a very uncomfortable combination) and Mate is taking the kids out of school tomorrow to drop me off at the airport in San Jose.  (It's a two-three hour drive.)  I'm pitifully grateful for this.  The last two hours in the car aren't going to be pleasant, but they are going to be with my family, and I haven't spent enough time here to leave again.  Just haven't.

And GRL promises to be... breathless and thrilling?  Exciting?  Frantic?  There is a schedule on an ap called "Bloodhound" that is apparently like having a fairy godmother on your phone.  Except it's on your IPHONE, which I don't have--my phone is fairy godmother PROOF, and I've got a sheaf of papers that I'm highlighting so I don't miss my stuff.  *shudder*  The idea of missing something makes a nasty little pit in my stomach.  Hates it, my peoples... hates it!!!

So it's three nights in my own bed, two days getting the kids to school, and then back on a plane to another world.  The other world is going to be a lot of fun, but I have to admit to you, I'm not quite ready to leave this one.  That's why the sad song at the end.  I'm going to enjoy my trip, but I'm really looking forward to finding my way home.

We're here! We're here! (Doesn't anybody wanna give a cheer?)

Quick post from Yaoi-Con-- having an AMAZING time!  (All my pictures are crap-- it's inside, no natural light!  Sorry!)

I am here with my favorite peeps-- my daughter, my bestest bestie ever, and really really happy people who like yaoi and m/m romance and who enjoy talking shop and saying, "OMG, they're SUCH a cute couple!" and, in general, it's an AWESOME sort of place to be!

A really quick story, and then I have to run downstairs for breakfast--

We were all having discussions about our shuttle ride from LAX to Long Beach.  Mary's shuttle driver was bringing his niece in from Pakistan with his earnings because he wanted her to have a better life.  Nessa's shuttle was full of irritated conservatives in shorts and sandals, who were convinced that moving Long Beach twenty minutes from LAX was a leftist liberal plot.

My guy?

My guy was sort of awesome.  He was Latino, a father, a lifetime resident of the LA area, and one of the nicest guys on the planet.  But he asked me why I was in town, and we started talking, and he admitted, candidly and with delicacy, that he didn't understand what happened to gay people to turn them that way.

I asked him--still smiling, because, did I mention he's a sweet guy?-- when his first crush was.  Did he remember who it was on?  How old was he?  I said I remembered my first crush.  I was nine, he was the local day camp guitar teacher, his name was Gary, and he thought I was smart because I knew the song title of every song he knew, just from the first few words.  He laughed, and I said, "It's exactly the same way for gays and lesbians, except--"

"Really?  Their first crush is on the same sex?"

"Yeah.  Just as natural as ours was on the opposite sex, except for a lot of them, they're told they don't know it's a real crush because they can't be gay."

"So, do they know what causes it?  Is it something that happens to them or--"

"There's a chromosomal marker--it's something they're born with, like you have brown eyes and I have curly hair.  God made them that way."

He was flabbergasted.  "Really?  Really?  Why don't people know that?  You know what we need?  People need to know that!  That's important. We need education!"

I love that guy.  I really do.   

BINGO!

Okay, so months ago I decided that I was going to go both to Yaoi-Con-- which is this weekend-- and to GRL, which starts in a week.  Yeah, yeah, months ago, I knew it wouldn't be easy, but I'd deal, right?

Yeah.  You want to know what my head looks like right now?  You know those bingo cages, where you throw all the numbers in and roll the little handle and all the numbers are rolling around?  Yeah.  The little old lady in my head keeps turning that crank, reaching in, and pulling out a number.  Which number is it? Is it the, "OMG, which swag am I taking to which event?" number?  Is it the, "Oh fuck!  I'm sending this shit WHERE?" number?  Perhaps it's the, "Wait.  What was I going to take Chicken so she could meet me there?" number.  There's always the whopping freak out number-- the "HOLY SHIT, DREAMSPINNER'S STUFF HASN'T ARRIVED YET, AND I NEED IT TO SET UP OUR BOOTH IN L.A.!!!" number.  Or maybe it's a smaller number.  Maybe it's G2 or B6, because, well, fuck, why WOULDN'T they come up?  Everything ELSE is in there to be sorted, right?  I mean, I've got a box of swag ready to be shipped to St. Augustine for February, a box that I'm taking myself, somewhere in there I packed a box of Scrapbooking supplies (no, don't ask!) that I didn't acquire until Chicken's going away party and sent it to someone in Albuquerque (did I say don't ask?) and clothes?

Oh holy fuck.  Why didn't the number with clothes come up earlier?  I have to pack CLOTHES?

*bangs head softly*

Oh holy frickin' Jebus, I don't even know what the weather's going to be like!  You think I'm kidding?  Remember that letter I wrote to summer in which I asked it to go the fuck away?

Yeah, Summer READ that letter, and took a look at my bingo balls rolling around, laughed herself silly and WENT THE FUCK AWAY.  And now, Fall is like, "Ta-DA, darling, you sent for me?  I'm here!"  And my wardrobe is like, "Fuck ME, you're WHAT?"

And of course the kids need to be fed/read to/cuddled, and I seem to have a deadline shoved in there, and a flight to LA, and because the gods aren't kind, a shuttle, and oh fuck, do we really need groceries and what was I taking to Yaoi-Con and what was I taking to Albuquerque and, oh yeah, I'm ART DOCENT today, because I needed to know more about Matisse, Picasso, and Cassat RIGHT THE HELL NOW!

*pant pant pant*

By the way, do you know that as Matisse was pulling away from home in the train, on his way to art school in Paris, his father screamed "You'll starve!" at the train? (Sounds like my parents.  I wonder if they're related?)  And that Pablo Picasso's mother said, "If you wanted to be a soldier, you would have been a general.  If you'd wanted to be a priest, you would have been Pope."  To which Picasso added, "But I wanted to be an artist, so I became Picasso!" (God.  Talk about giant ball balls.)  Anyway, now *I* know that, and I know that Maria Cassatt pained portraits because that's what women were SUPPOSED to paint, but she painted women and children being sweet to each other, and that's what makes her awesomeness.  Anyway, now *I* know all these things, and I know my daughter's class is made up of goofballs and that the teacher's aid screams too much and so does the sub and that the little kids like to beat up on girls which makes my theory of the political influence on domestic abuse sound SO much more righteous right now and...

OH holy crap.  My bingo cage is still rolling...

OMYGOD!  WHAT'S MY RESERVATION NUMBER FOR THE HARD ROCK AGAIN?

*pant pant pant*  Okay.  Sorry about that.  Spazzing down, repeat, spazz down, repeat, big redheaded woman pulling BACK from rampage...

Anyway, so here I was, being a big rattling bingo cage, and trying to spazz down, when Zoomboy comes tiptoeing into the kitchen.

"Mom," he said, scaring the shit out of me, "It got REALLY quiet in here!"

"I KNOW!!!!"  I wailed, and he must have seen something odd in my face because he RAN BACK TO BED which was, coincidentally, WHERE HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE IN THE FIRST PLACE!

*headdesk*

*bingo ball*  Oh, fuckadoodledoo... what was I supposed to be writing again?

BLACKOUT!!!

*whimper*  Aw fuck.


(Oh, hey-- don't forget the Dex Ficlet over on Mary's blog.  It calms me down knowing it's there!)

Apologies for the Deep End

Apologies for this one--it's going to be Autumn tinted melancholy, and I cannot seem to change it.

So my grandmother is in the hospital today, and although it looks like she'll pull through this time, the fact is, the woman is in her nineties, and pretty much, she's not going to go home again unless it's for hospice.

Now, I know you all and love you, and I know you're all going to send me love and hugs--and thank you. I need them, and I'm not proud.  But I wanted to put my finger on some specific things, so bear with me.

See, I've done this walk a few times.  I lost my first grandparent when I was fourteen, and the best thing about that is that Grandpa Rau relaxed in the last two years of his life, and suddenly enjoyed his son and this grandchildren, and when he passed, we were genuinely sorry, as, let's face it, we might not have been if he'd passed away two years earlier when he'd first gotten ill.  Between that moment and this one, and between Mate and I and step-grandparents etc, this grandmother will be the last of eleven grandparents that I've seen depart this mortal coil.

Eleven.

And I've loved them all (well, one of them was my step-mother's ex-husband's mother, and she was incredibly racist and I had never known her to not complain about anything, so maybe that was my one exception) and I've been with Mate because he loved his grandparents too, and I've come to a couple of conclusions based on this experience that I'd like to share.

The first is that men die before women.  Yes, I'm sure there are specific reasons for this, social, medical, testosterone-al, but mostly?  I think it's because men, having had the that sort of innate male confidence granted by a male-centric world, trust that Someone is going to catch them when they fall.  The grandfather's I've seen go, while not particularly religious, were serene and content in the knowledge that this was not the end, and that any unfinished business they might have left would be taken care of either in the afterlife or by someone in their own time.  Maybe it was a lifetime of having their dishes washed and meals prepared by a woman, or maybe it was just... I don't know, male simplicity, but the grandpas?  When they were ready to let go, they were ready to let go.

The grandmas?

Clung to life with gnarled vicious grips of fucking iron.  Every. Last. One of them.

And all of the women kept talking about the time they would get better.  My Grandpa Chaney had a moment of lucidity about a day before he died in hospice.  His vision sharpened, he looked at my aunt, and said, "I think I"m really sick!  You might want to call a doctor!"

Teresa said, "Daddy, I called him.  He said you should probably stay here."

"Oh, okay then.  We should do what he said."

See?  Acceptance.

My Grandma Rau was talking about when she could drive again, although she was legally blind, up until the week before she died.  (I still wake up in a cold sweat sometimes, wondering which idiot gave her a license.  If Grandpa Chaney could drive in his 80's after his second brain tumor, don't tell me it can't happen!)

So that's the first thing.  The women had their lists (ladies, you all know that list?) that they could not put down, the things they had planned to do, the way they had made themselves indispensable to the world, and the will to complete this list persevered even as the body was failing around them.  Both commendable, and in my case, reassuring.  I've been able to put that list aside to nap in front of the television for YEARS. Anyway, moving on--

The next thing I've noticed is that time travel is possible.

Every grandparent has gone back to the time when they were happiest and busiest and most needed in their lives.  You can tell, because they call for their children.  Grandma Flossie was constantly asking about Uncle Butch--apparently he was the one she worried about/worried about beating the most as he was growing up, and she kept trying to check and make sure he was there and okay.  She still argued with my stepmom, because, I think, they were both nurses, and there was that horrible, mother/daughter thing clicking in that made it impossible for her to believe her daughter was ever going to be as competent as she was.  Thank God my stepmom had be through this before and had seen the dynamic--otherwise her wounding would have been terrible to behold.  When I couldn't make it to see Flossie as often as I wanted, my stepmom was kind.  "All she sees is us, anyway.  We're the ones she worried about--in her mind, we're still babies."  And that is both touching and horrible.  Touching, because I want to go back to live those times when all my babies were still babies, and horrible, because someday, everyone who knew me as a baby will be here no longer, and I too shall have to grow up.

And the time travel leads to another curious and painful thing.

The children become children again.

Perhaps I will not.  I know that by the fifth go-round, my step-mother was very cognizant of the progression of death, and she was poised and sad and philosophical.  She told her mother where they were going and what they were doing and when she could no longer stay at home, and she did it dispassionately and with the understanding that her mommy could no longer take care of herself.  My aunts and uncles?  Until three weeks ago, when my grandmother took a tumble down the stairs, they had continuously refused to believe that their mother, the woman who ruled her kitchen with an iron fist, and who raised five children during the riotous rebellion of the sixties and seventies without hardly batting an eyelash when things got really fucking hairy, that woman, was too sunk into the misery of a failing body to assume responsibility for her own care.

I know that, for some families, this causes horrible, dissociative bickering at a dying person's bedside, because the children don't believe that their parents won't just snap the fuck out of it and shut them all up.  (And Goddess, I'm sure the hospital personal sometimes wish that would happen!)  But for the lucky families, it just causes a sort of numb surprise.  Wait.  Mom can't go home?  Is there anything we can do to make it better?  I mean... I know she's ninety-five but she's my mommy!  And that's painful and sad--but at least there is that memory, that fondness, that love--at least it's the love that's causing the confusion, because that's when the confusion can be overcome.

I think this may be harder and worse with the parents who grew up in the generation in which parents didn't speak to their children, and bonding meant a family stuck together when they didn't have enough to eat. There's an inability to see the person who controlled so much of your life as human, and fallible, and, ultimately frail, and mortal, that's hard to reconcile with the tiny, fading woman on the bed who really can't get herself up to go to the bathroom, no matter how much she insists she can because she doesn't want to leave her own home.  I'm pretty sure MY children will cheerfully call me senile and commit me to a home the very first time I forget I'm wearing pajamas in public, so, well, give it about five years.  (That's okay.  Mate and I will happily go to the old age home and play bingo, as long as someone makes us dinner.  We'll be the kind of senior citizens those places were made for.)

Another thing?

They may be dying, but they're still alive.  If they're lucid, and not self-involved bitches (uhm, there was that one grandmother, the bigot) they have been happy to ask me about the kids (and why I didn't bring them, which sort of blows my mind although it shouldn't) or to see my next knitting project or to hear what Mate is doing, or what I'm doing.  I think this speaks well of the human race in general.  It says our business is living, even when business isn't doing well.  That's one of the few redeeming human things that I cling to.

And speaking of clinging to?

Things go better when the children and the grandchildren have the courage to say goodbye.

I had to say it to my Grandma Rau, because if I hadn't, I'm firmly convinced that woman would have clung to life with gnarled fingers until they snapped off and something preternaturally horrible happened to that woman's spirit.  Pleasant?  Not always.  Indomitable?  You fuckin' betcha. The minute my uncle arrived to say it to my Grandpa Harold, he let go serenely and went to meet his maker with  smile.  If there is one thing my step-mom has taught me it's that you cannot change how you treated the people in your life in the three days before you think they're going to die and they die.  If you are at peace with the way you treated them--and dammit, you should be!-- then simply say goodbye.  When we went to visit my husband's mother, I kissed her forehead (lying at the 180 degree angle to her shoulders, because her spine was twisted so badly) and said, "I'll tell the kids bye for you."  Then I stopped, and realized Mate's mom and aunt we're listening.  "I mean hi for you."  She died the next morning.  I'm pretty sure she only heard the first one.  All of them-- even Mate's grandmother who lived across the country--hung on until the last important person that they loved came to say goodbye.

So what have I learned, boys and girls?  What has all this taught me, as middle age looms larger than my middle?

Live your life with all of your loved ones in such a way that all you have to say when you walk out the door is "Goodbye!  I love you!"  No matter what befalls you after that moment, no matter if you are a mommy or a baby, the departed or the left behind, you can trust that the list of things that you have left to do, left to address, left to make happen, can be set behind if you embrace your faith in the universe. Life is that simple at the end.  Goodbye, I love you!

There is always hope that you will meet again, but if not, everything you need to say is in those four little words.

Head Letters

And it is once again time to play "what's whacked in Amy's brain!"  Today's version is brought to you via letters I've composed but have never sent.  Please, if anybody sees themselves in the the intended recipient, feel free to respond!


Dear blue-haired old gal who just swerved right, left, and right before finally settling on the left hand turn lane as she allowed the light to turn yellow and then red while only 25 feet from the line:

Sweetheart, you seem like such a such a sweet and darling senior citizen.  Why, oh why, must you suck skeezy monkey balls in traffic when I am running late to pick up the children from school?

Looking forward to your answer!  Just sayin'.  

Amy



To the helpless critter who met his maker as Steve's best night out ever:

Dear bird--

Since the out of doors is your natural habitat, and the in of doors belongs to my fat housecat, what on earth possessed you to fly into my house, perch on my curio shelf and tempt poor Steve to the madness that followed?  That's okay, little bird.  I forgive you.  Especially because, after settling you gently in a tree after capturing you with a cup, I think you fell out of the shrub and to your death, but after all that trouble to save your cootie carrying little keester, I didn't have heart to look down and see if you were still twitching.

Should you come back in another life, and a cat decides to chase you?  STAY AWAY FROM THE FUCKING LIGHT!  

You'll thank me when you live.

Amy



To the young supermarket employee who gave me a helping hand today--

Dear sir,

There I was, pushing my cart into the store, when suddenly all the wheels locked up.  The lock went away in a moment, and then, when I'd started throwing crap in the cart and it was halfway full, that fucker went full on prison lock down on me.  So I pushed the cart, wheels locked, down the aisle, while it made that obnoxious "NNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGNNNNNNGGGGHHHNNNN" sound.  

Everybody at three check stands turned around to look at me.

"I'm sorry!  It suddenly locked up!  I know, I know, it sounds horrible!"

And there I was, talking defensively to strangers, when you left your spot in line, where you stood off-duty, just trying to buy lunch, trotted around the end register, and brought forth the magic electronic wheel unlocker.

You didn't even pause as you helped me out, and you probably had some place to go.  But thank you.  Seriously.  Seriously.  You are my hero.  And we can shoot the cart if you need to!

I mean it.  

Amy


To my son, who stuck his head between my head and my hands as I was tying something on his sister's dress.

Dear son,

Of course I popped you in the chin.  Keep your head out of my way, darnit!

Still love you!

Mom!



To the cat:

Dear dumbass,

I bet you think you're real fucking funny, typing some bizarre Twitter post and then hitting "Tweet".  When people stop buying my books because they think I'm sniffing fertilizer and dragon snot and have lost my ever-lovin' mind, we'll be sure to cook you up for food first!  

Don't try to suck up to me, I mean it.  Stay off my computer, or you're what's for dinner.

And hold still while I scratch you behind the ear.  You're irritating me.  

I AM NOT YOUR SERVANT!

Amy


To the weather that's taken this climate shift to heart:

Dear Summer, you obnoxious prick!

As I sit here in my kitchen wearing my bra and my shorts, sweltering in the EARLY OCTOBER HAMMER FIST OF HELL, I would like to remind you that in SOME places, climate shift means SHIFTING DOWN.  I'm just saying.  You have outstayed your welcome, now please move your lazy blistering ass and go the fuck away!

Just remember, 

Hot fat women are UNDERDRESSED fat women, and nobody wants that.  

I ain't playin'.  HOw much of my cleavage do you want to see on a daily basis?

Don't let the stench of my sweat pits hit you in the adenoids on the way out, and by no means stop and fondle the exposed cleavage.  

I didn't like you that much in the first place.

Amy


To the OTHER season,

Dear Autumn,

Ditch the hot summer twinkie, catch an express pony, rent a canoe, and get your moderately temperate ass out here to my state.  Jesus, I make sweaters to honor you, you'd think a season could show a little fucking appreciation.

Get moving, dammit, or I'm changing my allegiance to Spring!

Amy


To the distinguished and cute as a button silver fox in the sheriff uniform who was hunting for banana yoghurt with me this afternoon, also in the grocery store:

Dear sir:

HELLO Plotbunny!  I'll be seeing more of you, oh yes I will!

Don't worry.  I'll be kind.

Amy



To the makers of Fructisse Nutrise:for you!

Dear Hair Dye Company--

I think you should know, I have mixed two of your, ehrm, more flamboyant shades, and the result is something I'd like to patent as "Pop-yer-cherry Red."  What do you think?  Will it sell?  

Well, I'd suggest your model be younger and cuter, but the color?  I'm sayin'!

Amy

DEX!

Is out tomorrow! !  Which is awesome, because the tension is killing me!

Seriously-- I had so much fun writing Dex!  Maybe it was because Sidecar made me flashback to my youth (and therefore feel old) and Mourning Heaven was just so emotionally raw, but Dex?  Dex made me remember being young again, and fucking up and realizing that I had a little bit of time to get it right.  Dex and Kane are all about reclaiming their innocence and realizing that it was never really lost in the first place because innocence is more than sex, it's the way you see the world and trust the people around you, and they'd never really lost that.  And maybe it's that infectious enthusiasm of being young that makes me so nervous about this one.  I want people to like my guys!  The adult Amy, the one who's put out a few books, is perfectly sanguine with the fact that people aren't always going to get her guys.  (Seriously--someone wrote a review on Winter Courtship of Fur-Bearing Critters criticizing my use of the word "sheep fur", because no one she knew thought that was funny.  I actually refrained from responding to that review in order to point that all of my friends thought that was fucking hysterical and odds were, I'd like those people better anyway.  Frankly, I'm considering that restraint a hallmark of maturity on my part.  I turned forty-five today, so, well, Happy Birthday to ME!)  But, well, the less mature Amy-- she gets nervous, and she wants everyone to like all her guys (even though the adult Amy keeps saying that's not possible!) so, well, I'm gonna be all nerves.  Because these guys are important to me.  They're young, and they fuck up, but by the end of the book, they've got the rest of their lives to sort it out, and even then, they've got a plan for the afterlife that they're both amenable with, and they're gonna run with that.

I love this book very much a lot, and I hope that you do too;-)

And in other news?

*  Well, there's the birthday thing today--my stepbrother called, and we both remembered that we used to be young, and, well, that made me feel old.

* I almost created a major disasticle with my hotel reservations at GRL, and, even worse, with someone else's, and the fact that I managed to scale that back to just a kerfluffle is making me feel like maturity may have it's bennies.

*  Mate played three softball games yesterday after coaching soccer, and then slept a lot today after counting his boo boos, because Mate turns forty-five tomorrow, and, well, boo-boos rack up when you pass forty-four.

*  Big T scared the holy crap out of me last night when he forgot to call me and tell me he was going to be late.  It's the first time he's done something like this, and part of me is proud that he's finally getting around to worrying us stupid, and part of me says if he ever does that again, I'm braining him with an alarm clock.

*  I'm not quite caught up with all of the stuff on my desk, and I don't understand why it's so HARD to write when I'm texting Chicken just as much as I used to talk to her when she was here.

*  Squish is enjoying the holy hell out of moving into her big sister's room.  She's been putting all her clothes away in the drawers and sitting there and playing.  The incidences of screaming coming from their shared room have diminished considerably, and that's good.

*  Zoomboy is missing his people so badly he hasn't slept in a week, and that's bad.

*  And today, I remembered two stories that need to be shared, and I shall leave you with those:

A.  So, before I took Chicken to San Diego, I stocked her up on supplies.  Toilet paper, shampoo, feminine protection-- you get the idea.  Well, Chicken and the Target guy ended up flirting, after having bonded over Pokemon of all things, and it was cute to watch them.  And then, in the middle of the cuteness, the guy started handing me $5 gift certificates that came as rebates because, well, I bought a lot of feminine protection.

"Wow!  This is cool!"  I said, taking the third one from him.

The guy nodded and said, "Yeah--it's because you bought a lot of--"  And then it occurred to him.  He was flirting with a pretty girl while he was ringing up her maxi pads, and now he was pointing out that he'd handled the maxi-pads to her mother.  The kid turned red, looked down at the bag in front of him and said, "This.  You bought a lot of this!"  And then we both politely ignored what "this" was and they continued their flirting.  But the squashed-possum look in his eyes was priceless, and I shall treasure it always.

B.  And two things happened on the way to San Diego that deserved note.

The first one was that we were trying to decide if we'd gone too far down 5 south (almost impossible, we know that now) and we were feeling sort of lost, when our only responsibility was to drive a straight line.  We were in the middle of cursing my damned GPS and squinting into the darkness wondering if that cursed freeway ever fucking ended, when her phone rang.  It was her room assignment guy making sure she would be at the orientation the next day.  She hung up, and I got frustrated with her.

"Why didn't you ask for directions!"  I wailed.

"Because he doesn't know where we are either!" she snapped back, and then we realized what we'd just said and giggled for ten miles until we saw the next road sign.

And the second one happened about an hour after that, as we were approaching San Diego.  She'd fallen asleep, and had been that way for about ten minutes, when I saw a sign and needed her to wake up to navigate.

"Chicken!"  I said, "Wake up."

And then, as she flailed about on the passenger seat, she OPENED HER DOOR!

As soon as it was open, her panic subsided and she clenched it shut, staring around the darkened car with big eyes.

My eyes were also big as I scanned our surroundings for the next place to get off and shut it.

"Interesting choice," I said, staying calm.  "I'd love to know why you did that!"

"I have no idea.  I woke up and spazzed out.  I do that."

"Awesome.  Just like your father.  Good to know.  Be sure to tell your roommates so you don't scare the shit out of them either."

"Will do.  Can we get off at this exit?"

"Yeah, yeah, hold your door shut a little while longer."

And then we fixed the problem--but I did not have long enough to give her hell about that, cause now that we're all alive and everything, it was funny!

And that's it.  Dex is out tomorrow, did I mention it?  It is.  And I'm excited.  And I hope you are too!

Oh I done drove five-hundred miles...

Okay.  I drove.  It sucked.  I'm serious.

I dropped Chicken off in San Diego-- we arrived Monday night, and I was reminded of the sleeping habits of the young.  We got into the hotel room and I set everything down and put on my nightgown and brushed my teeth and my hair and set up my computer and plugged in my phone and set my alarm and...

And by the time I wondered how I was going to wind down for five minutes so I could go to sleep?

Chicken had crawled into bed fully clothed and crashed.  OMG.  I'm surprised she remembered to take off her shoes.

The next morning, we got there, got briefed on rules and regs (which her roommates immediately broke that night--she texted me with, "All that stuff about not drinking or smoking was BULLSHIT!" and I'm like, "Well, you managed to use your good sense in high school, I'm going to trust you here!") and then moved her boxes in.  I was going to ask her if she wanted help unpacking when she turned to me and said, "Time to go!"

I was like, "But--"

"No, no, I'll be fine.  You need to go, mom, I'm gonna bond."

So I hugged, cried, left, held it in until I found my way back to the hotel in the strange city, and THEN cried even more.  Then I realized, oh horror of fucking horrors, the obnoxious brat had FORGOTTEN HER PHONE CORD.  I'm not even playing.  There it was, right where it had been plugged in that morning.  So after all of that angst and crying, the next morning, I dropped off the phone cord.  And four bags of groceries, since, after kicking me out and assuring me that she'd get food, she had Chick'n'Biscuit crackers for lunch.  I included a giant box of white chocolate macadamia nut cookies as some sort of passive aggressive revenge.

And between those two visits, I went to Rhys Ford's house (she's a lovely writer-- has a new book, Dirty Secret, coming out, huzzah!) and talked to her and her sister and generally enjoyed chatting about sci-fi with my brethren.  (I cannot thank them enough for this evening--it was fun and normal and I got to pet their crazy assed dogs and I needed it after the drama of ditching my baby in an alien place.)

And then?

And then?

I drove five hundred miles.

It was horrible.  I-5 has not improved with age.  Government water restrictions have sort of screwed the farmers on this stretch of land, and the results aren't pretty. The boredom got so bad, I actually bought an e-book, and the only thing of remote interest to me was Elliot Gould, narrating Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep.  All I can say, is damn, did Phillip Marlowe slap a lot of women around.  And he wasn't that fond of homosexuals for a guy who seemed to have a voice-fuck thing going with the ultimate bad guy.  And that sometime, I'm going to have to listen to the last three CDs, cause I'm sort of curious to see what happened to Vivian Sternwood-Regan's husband.

Oh yeah.  And Elliot Gould is A. A fucking genius, and B. Could put a hyperactive first grader on a double expresso into a dead coma.  I had to turn him off for some Bruce, or I might have found out what happened to Mr. Regan's--the trip really was that fucking long.

Oh-- but for all of the longness and the boredom and the are-you-fucking-kidding-me-this-is-my-view?

Yeah.  I still ran into weirdness.

In the same rest stop, I ran into this sign:

And for those of you who read Keeping Promise Rock and thought I was bullshitting about the snake thing, NYAH FUCKING NYAH!!!!  (No.  That wasn't very mature, but are you SEEING THIS?)

And I also ran into a perfectly lovely woman, dressed nicely and nattily in a pair of black lace up ballet shoes and a matching set of capris and tasteful tank, with distinguished silver hair, blue contacts in her blue eyes, a demon cat from hell, and a sign that said, "Going to Woodland.  Need a Ride."

o.o  0.o?  0.0

I tell you, if the cat hadn't been crazy, (or she was crazy and made the cat sound like Tengu the black demon from hell) I might have let her hitchhike.  As it was, I could only see the headlines:

 Gay-Romance Writer Disappears on Death Trek Home.  Husband Wishes He'd Bought The Damned Airline Ticket NOW, Doesn't He!
Yeah.  Sometimes an imagination is a curse.  In this case, it meant the nice (crazy?) woman had to find another ticket home.  And so did Tengu, the black demon from hell.  But I did buy her food from the vending machine, so that was something.
Anyway, I'm home.  I've got the work pile form hell piled on my laptop, Zoomboy had a doctor's appointment AND a dance lesson today, and *zzzzzzzzz*  Sometime in there, I've got to finish Chicken's sweater, so I can put the pattern in A Knitter in His Natural Habitat.  Hee hee hee...
Wait 'til you see the cover for that one!  
Oh yes-- if you check out the tabs on top, you'll see that I ended up all over the internet, pretty much when I was unable to access it to see.  The big one--the FUN one, for everyone who likes it when I get all teachery on your asses, is right here: At Cup of Porn