Day in the Life of an Idiot

I had a fair number of panels this weekend, many of which went very well, but a lot of my con was plagued by me NOT KNOWING WHEN THE LIVING HELL TO SHOW UP.

For instance, Friday--for some reason I got it into my head that my first panel ("Roundtable Discussion: What are You Reading?") was at 7 pm. I got dressed and headed out around 6:30 pm. I got there with 5 minutes to spare and started freaking out because I could not find a space anywhere in the hotel parking lot. I happened to see my fellow panelist, Bryan Thao Worra, walking up the sidewalk and so I shouted to him and asked him about overflow parking. I might even have said something like, "Well, I'll see you fifteen minutes. If not, you'll know I'm still hunting up parking!" I'm surprised he didn't look at me and say, "What are you talking about?"

Because our panel didn't start until 9 pm.

Bryan said that he'd heard that it was okay to park in the lot for the Wildlife Refuge Center, so I did, despite actual posted signs that said, "NO HILTON PARKING." I decided to risk it (spoiler: I was fine) and I dashed in, figuring I'd quick stop and register, because if I was late my fellow panelist at least knew I'd be on my way shortly. I'm glad I did, because in my manilla program participant packet was my schedule. WHICH CLEARLY SAID THAT MY FIRST PANEL WAS AT 9 PM.

Suddenly, I had almost two hours to kill.

MarsCON, I have decided, is a weird con. Don't get me wrong, I like it. I go every year. I kind of consider it the opener for the con season. But, given the situation with the parking lot, you'd figure I'd have no problem finding someone with which to pass the two hours hanging out. Nope. I don't know if it's the way the hotel is laid out, or the fact that I don't do much with the extremely popular musical track, or that the party floor is nine stories removed from the paneling area, or everyone else is invited to secret parties to which I did not get the memo/invite, or what, but I would NOT have guessed that this con apparently attracted between 900-1,000 people. I would have thought it was half that. The halls seemed empty.

This is also not necessarily a down side. I mean, it's nice to have a con that is not as overwhelmingly crowed as say, CONvergence. BUT, one thing that I told Minicon when preparing for my Guest of Honor gig there this year (in a matter of weeks!!), it's actually almost better to overbook me as a panelist than to leave me with huge swaths of time with nothing to do. As an extrovert, I really do feed off the high energy of a con. If I'm sitting and staring at the wall wishing I had a book, I crash. It's a lot harder for me to ramp back up to my "performance level."

So, I can't say that, by the time I actually sat down next to Bryan in the "Eagle's Nest" conference room, I was super peppy.

I did, at least, think ahead and prepared a list of stuff I'd been reading over the past few years. Bryan recommended a number of poetry books--like, full length books. Later, when i saw Bryan again, I thought to ask him a question that I should have at our panel, which is, is there a proper way to read a book of poetry? Are you supposed to just start on page one and power through? I've never done that with the few books of poetry that I own (granted at least half of them are Shel Silverstein). Mostly, I randomly pick poems and read them. There are Marge Piercy poetry volumes I own where I'm sure there are still dozens and dozens of poems unread, because I just never hit that page when I was leafing through. Bryan confirmed that that's totally how it's done, so I guess I haven't been missing some key to appreciating poetry all these years.

Because I'm a weird combination of extrovert and morning lark (opposite of you night owls), I went home directly after my panel.... oh, right, there was another reason I did that, too. I texted home at one point to let people know I'd arrived too early and wouldn't be coming home until after 10 pm, and I got a text reply informing me that our problem kitty, Inky, had peed all over the basement floor. Everyone was apparently very upset about this because Mason didn't see the mess until he plopped our brand-new beanbag chair right into the center of it. There was worry that it was completely ruined FOREVER. Problem kitty is also usually my responsibility, so everyone was mad at me for not being around to do the clean-up on aisle 5. (Before you assume the worst from my family, my responsibilities include one that I fail all the time. I'm supposed to pill our cat, because he has fewer accidents when he's consistently on his Prozac. My family rightly surmised that if he was peeing inappropriately, it was because I had forgotten to pill him. When he pees inappropriately when I'm the one who forgot to make sure he got his daily pill, it stands to reason I should be the one to deal with the fall out, as it were.) So, I rushed home to change kitty litter and to wrestle a pill into Inky.

In the back and forth with the kitty trauma, I ran out of minutes on my phone and so I also had to problem solve THAT on the fly at the hotel (it involved finding the business center and logging into TracFone)... it was, shall we say, an inauspicious beginning to my con. My only consolation (?) was that Bryan had had to deal with a puking puppy all day, too. (I don't know that that actually made me feel BETTER, per se, but at least my misery had company, as it were.)

So, that was Friday.

Saturday... let's see, I started my day off with probably the highest energy panel of the con for me, "Marvel Cinematic Universe." We talked a lot about "Black Panther," of course. We had two PoCs on the panel--Rob Callahan and a young woman named Kianna--so we were at least spared the awkward that is a bunch of white fans yammering on. Kianna had an interesting take on Killmonger (whom, it seems, is often misread by white people) and Rob talked a lot about the Indigenous response to the movie. That was probably the best panel of the con, for me.

Oh, but I forgot that my Saturday morning actually started way before that panel, when I was at home frantically making a powerpoint presentation because I realized when I got my schedule the night before, I was still the ONLY person on the "Manhwa/Manhua Explosion," and I thought, that as hard as it was going for me to fill an hour all by myself, I thought it would be even worse if I couldn't show visual representations of what I was talking about. I want everyone reading this to know one thing. I HAVE LEGITIMATELY NEVER MADE A POWERPOINT PRESENTATION BEFORE IN MY LIFE. Yet, the program is simple enough that I managed to cobble together ten or so slides before I left for the con.

I did, however, spend some of the downtime between the MCU panel (at 11 pm) and my solo presentation (3 pm) making more slides and genuinely TRYING to prepare... Even though I had no idea whether or not the room would actually have AV equipment that I could use. (Spoiler: it did. MIRACULOUSLY.)

So, I can't say that the "Manhwa/Manhua" panel was an unmitigated disaster, because I did attempt to mitigate it, but... I mean, there's a reason I prefer panel discussions. When there's at least one other person there, you have a CHANCE at a dialogue. I did tell my audience that I was not an expert, and that I had, in fact, proposed the panel because I wanted someone ELSE to tell me more about it....the other thing I warned them is that I could only talk about what *I* was reading and, frankly, what I read is SMUT. (Did I mention they put this in the "teen" track!?) But, the audience was sympathetic and somehow we limped through it.

My last panel was at 7pm and it was called "Writing Humorous Science Fiction and Fantasy." I... might not have been in the best head space for that particular panel. For one, I had had to kill a lot of downtime. Much of which was taken up by the other problem with the MarsCON hotel, which is they are in a virtual food desert. The Mall of America is within spitting range, but to go there, one has to be willing to leave their parking spot (or, I suppose, have enough time to hop the light rail.) There is a hotel restaurant, but the restaurant seems to always been chronically understaffed (I swear the SAME surly waiter who served everyone last year, served us again this year.) The hotel also has a kind of convenience store, but it's stocked with the sort of convenience store food that we have in this part of the country.... sandwiches wrapped in plastic that are fresh, but which have clearly sat around long enough for the various condiments to have made the white bread soggy and gross, you know? The con suite serves food, but it can not feed a multitude before having only pumpernickel as a bread option in the PBJ room.

I'd had lunch with Naomi, her family, Rob Callahan and his friend Jei. We braved the restaurant and heard a lot of cool stories about Jay's students (they teach at a Native charter school). I'd kind of blown my con budget on that --not that I really had one, but the food at that restaurant is not varied enough--or cheap enough--to warrant a lot of return visits, so I ended up eating a couple of hotdogs in the con suite. I will say? That hungry, those hot dogs tasted AMAZING.

Anyway, I found myself feeling a little... professional jealousy towards MaryJanice Davidson, who was on the humor panel with me. MaryJanice Davidson was someone who was hot when I first started publishing paranormal romances as Tate, and sitting on that panel with her gave me a stab of the classic green-eyes "why is SHE still publishing, when I'm not." That kind of threw off my game. Luckily, the panel was totally ruled by Ivery Kirk (Melissa Buren) who co-wrote a book with possibly the single greatest title for an erotica ever: TIMEBANGERS:One Does Not Simply Walk Into Tudor.

I ran into a friend, Jason, after the panel and I told him that what was especially weird about my reaction to MaryJanice Davidson was that it caused me to attempt to talk seriously about the topic of humor in SF/F.  Jason looked aghast and was like, "What? You?  I would have wondered where my Lyda was and demanded a refund!"  And, yeah, see, this is my con persona... and, of course, the one of the dangers of running into someone you long considered a rival (I was told I couldn't use DROP-DEAD GORGEOUS for a book title of mine, because MaryJanice Davidson was putting out a book that same year with the same title.) I think I was thrown too because sometimes you set up in your mind this kind of rivalry and the other person LITERALLY has no idea who you are. (Davidson totally give me a blank look when i said i wrote paranormal romance as Tate Hallaway).  

Anyway, so that one was kind of a bust, despite how cute and hilarious Kirk/Buren was.

Today was another WAIT, WHEN AM I SUPPOSED TO BE THERE days. Shawn told me that my first panel was at 1 pm today, and, since she'd been right about the 9 pm one on Friday, I believed her.  So, I'm sitting in my chair, cat on my lap, thinking about having a nice, relaxing morning when I decide to look at my printed schedule. Oh no! According to my sheet, I'm actually supposed to have an 11 am panel. I quick throw things together and rush out the door.  I get there, miraculously find parking in the lot, jump onto an opening elevator and arrive at Krushenko's at 11 am SHARP. Only, Eric tells me that the schedule has been changed. My 11 am panel was moved to... 2pm. 

Now, I could have stayed, but I'd already run out once to get Starbuck's so I thought, no, I'm going to go home, go grocery shopping, have a decent lunch and come back for my 1 pm panel.  That actually worked out really nicely. By chance, I even arrived at my house in time to introduce myself and Shawn to neighbors who are moving in across the street from us. I had a nice sandwich at home and headed back. Two panels in a row, in the same room, on similar topics.  The first was "Androids, AI, and Gender Theory" and the second was "Artificial People in Science Fiction."  My favorite fellow panelist (besides Naomi, of course,) was Justin Grays, who was on both.  Post panel, I instantly cyberstalked him and became FB friends, etc., like you do in this, the era of social media.

So, that was my con in a nutshell.  I think the only awfulness of the con was the audience member in the Gender Theory panel who wanted to insist on an old-fashioned and outdated (and now considered offensive) term for intersex people.  But, the panel dealt with the person quite gently, IMHO, but there are always some people who take the changing terminology as some kind of personal affront, it seems.  I mean, "Oops, my mistake, [use correct term offered]" is the easiest response. It's also okay to say, "I didn't know it had changed," once, but then go away and Google, for crying out loud. The panel is there to educate to some degree, but the topic was not changing terminology, so... time was wasted on that.

There were a few other awkward moments in the two Sunday panels, but, I think, for the most part, people were unintentionally awkward, instead of malicious... which I guess makes it a little better? I hope so, anyway. (For broad context, let's just say things get weird when white people try to explain away reasons for slavery.... even in the out of historical context and about why we might have clones.)

I dashed home after that, too, because WEATHER is supposed to be on its way.  In fact, Saint Paul schools just closed in anticipation of another afternoon storm tomorrow. (I imagine the superintendent does not want to deal with another situation like last time.) I think it's the right call, but if it ends up raining all day tomorrow and not snowing, people will no doubt say he was too hasty. Honestly, the poor guy can't win. I think it was smart to err on the side of caution this time, however.

Right, that's me to bed.  Hope you guys all had a good weekend.

i can't actually say it's been a slow reading week, since I plowed through the remaining 21 volumes of Pandora Hearts. I also read an on-line, one volume, one-shot yaoi called One Yen Man / 1-en Otoko as well as got through volume 2 of another manga called Bunny Drop last night, which I mentioned here previously (and I have volumes 3-6 on my TBR pile).

It's funny how, despite the number of pages that the above represents, I always feel like I've read NOTHING when I've only read manga.  That's kind of sad, because, obviously, graphic novels and manga are just as "real" reading as any traditional novel.  I don't really know why I buy into the idea that somehow they're 'lesser.' 

Speaking of my my TBR pile, on it is a graphic novel called Skim by Marika Tamaki / Jillian Tamaki, a traditional novel called The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North, the second collected volume of Bitch Planet, Bitch Planet: President Bitch by Kelly Sue Decconnick / Valantine DeLandro, and a graphic novel The Stoneman Mysteries: Book One by Jane Yolen, Adam Stemple / Orion Zangara.

We'll see how much of this I get through in a week.  I need to at least get though The Stoneman Mysteries since I told Twin Cities Geek that I'd review that one for them.  Adam is, of course, a local author and Twin Cities Geeks likes to highlight the local interest stuff whenever possible.  

Meanwhile, I still have a pretty intense case of the blahs.  I blame the weather and the Nazis.

It's kind of grim and rainy out again this morning.  I spent almost two hours at Hy-Vee this morning.  That's the last time I go THIS LONG without doing my basic staples shopping. On the other hand, our pantry is now stocked with All The Things.  Ah, tomato soup again!

Mason is supposed to have a baseball game tonight, but I wonder if it will be cancelled due to weather.  As the person who will have to sit on the cold bleachers, I really, really hope it is.  If not, I'm bringing not only a PARKA, but also a thermos of hot chocolate.  Maybe some blankets, too.

This weekend is the March for Science.  I'm looking forward to it, because I have not been very good in the last few weeks about keeping on top of my congress-critters and local legislators. I think the last thing I did was the town hall, and there's still SO MUCH stuff to fight.  Still, I try to remind myself that this is neither a sprint NOR a marathon; it's a relay race. It's okay to hand the baton to someone else and let them run with it for a while. 

I depressed myself listening to the results from the Ossoff race in Georgia, especially the news of the midnight hour (almost literally) voting machine "glitch."  I can't help but feel that we were robbed of a straight-up win. The truth is, we'll never know, but the doubts will ALWAYS linger, especially since he had a clear lead before for the "corrupted" memory card was found. Shit like that makes me lose faith.  

I mean, yes, there was a groundswell movement. Yes, he nearly did it... but, what's that going to matter, if people start to worry that their votes aren't being legitimately counted? And, Georgia isn't the only place. We never even got a decent recount of Wisconsin, Michigan or Pennsylvania, despite best efforts.

ARGH.

So.... I've been reading a lot of comic books.  I've been working my way through the Hugo nominated graphic novels. So far, I read Ms. Marvel: Super Famous (Vol. 3), Black Panther: Nation Under Our Feet (vol. 1), Vision: A Little Worse Than a Man (vol. 1) and  Vision: Little Better Than a Beast (Vol.2), and Paper Girls (Vol 1.).  I started Montress: Awakening (Vol. 1), which has been interesting so far. The only one I haven't tried to get is Saga (Vol. 6) because I suspect I'd need to read the other 5 volumes to know what's going on. Pretty much everyone says I should be reading Saga, anyway, but I'm not and I'm being obstinate about starting it for some reason, probably the whole "eh, but all the cool kids are doing it, so it can't be that great." After all, I finally got around to trying Bitch Planet, and I could have done without.  Not at ALL what I was hoping for there and absolutely NOT worth the hype.

I have all the Hugo nominee novels at home, but I have not been able to really get into any of them.  As I was telling a friend of mine the other day, I go through these periods where I read a LOT of novels and other times when my brain can only handle shorter, graphic stuff.  I've been in that second phase lately.  Like, I'll sit down with a book in my lap and two seconds later I've set it down and wandered off.  The thing about graphic novels is that in two seconds, I've read half of it, so it's no as much a strain to continue on for however many more seconds it takes to finish the thing.

I also haven't been able to write much.  I'm THIS close to finishing the latest installment in my long-running Byakuya/Renji fan fic, but I just haven't been motivated to keep on with it.

I blame Trump.

I've been terribly neglectful of Tate's WIP on Wattpad. I updated today, finally, after a several month hiatus.

There a lot of reasons I let the work languish. The first and foremost is that I felt like the story had gone off the rails some time ago. It's super easy for that to happen when you're writing like this, out loud, as it were, in front of an audience. Normally, I tend to write everything away from the public eye, so, when I make mistakes or go down a rabbit hole, I can pull myself up and revise before anyone is the wiser (besides my writers' group, of course.) Not being able to do that this time stymied me. I knew it could, and, while I normally don't worry overly much about looking like an idiot in front of a crowd, this tangle fed into my general sense of failure.

Yeah, I know I'm not a failure, but as I said to someone who poked me for an update on Wattpad, Precinct 13 and its universe is a particular trigger for my... well, for lack of a better term, depression around writing. I've been on the verge of being clinically depressed, so I don't mean to use this term lightly. There should be a word for the behavior that mimics depression but isn't quite it... because that's how I sometimes get around my Tate projects. I _want_ to do them, but when I think about finishing Unjust Cause/writing an e-book or e-novella, and even when I work myself up into a bit of excitement around various ideas, when I finally sit down to write... my first impulse is to crawl under the covers and not come out.

It's very unlike me.

Normally, I'm very self-motivated. I would not have gotten as far as I have in writing if I weren't. So, I don't know why I have this block and, as I've said in numerous other posts, I've determined that this is the year I push past all that.

I wish I knew what worked. I started to type that it helps me when people ask after projects, but what's funny is that that kind of thing only works when it's STRANGERS (fans/readers/FB friends/casual acquaintances/con friends) asking. If you're my relative (or gods forbid, my wife) asking, I double-down into a weird, bitter resistance-- a very 'don't tell me what's good for me' kind of attitude.

Well, regardless, the plan is to get over THAT.

This weekend I had another sparsely attended Loft First Pages. This one was writing "fan fiction" and was supposed to be a teen event, though I ended up having an adult sit through it (I tried to tell the folks on my FB feed that they should come, even if they were grown-ups!) The First Pages are generally hard to do because the way they were explained to me, at least, you're meant to show up in a state of unprepared preparedness. The Loft wants the experience to be walk-in, drop-by, and flexible. So, while there is a general theme, I'm supposed to be ready to go whatever direction that the participants want. Luckily, I teach all the time, so I can lecture on a lot of writing-related subjects without too much prompting. However, I always end up feeling like I'm flailing around since, at least when I teach, I do quite a bit of prep work or at LEAST review some things other people have said on the topic. This time I knew I might have one student since a friend of mine told me her daughter was planning on coming, so I had done a bit of research into "common fan fiction mistakes." I based my rambling on that.

It still felt like rambling, though.

But at least I had people this time.

I also read all of MY REAL CHILDREN by Jo Walton over the weekend. I powered through that book, which is very unusual for me since I'm slightly dyslexic. It's a funny book because it's not action-packed in any stretch of the imagination, but I found it weirdly gripping. Maybe it's just because Jo Walton is such a good writer. I loved her Small Changes series and this is very similar in that there's a strong alternate history vibe going through it. Now, I'm on to THE BOOK OF STRANGE NEW THINGS by Michel Faber.

I also gardened in between the bouts of rain. Now we've got a forecast of FROST, if you can believe it.

Shawn and I discussed whether or not we're "officially" done with winter or not this morning. I believe I'd been in the "eh, I still think the snow is pretty" camp, until we got stuck, spinning our wheels, at the intersection of Summit and Snelling.

Now, I'm officially done.

Thing is, I probably would continue to be the "meh, winter is okay" camp, if PEOPLE WEREN'T MORONS. Because as we were very clearly struggling to get going several people thought it extremely clever of themselves to go around us.  This was stupid for a couple of reasons: 1) I could have easily gotten a sudden burst of traction and sideswiped them as I fishtailed, 2) they made me tense, thus making it even harder to do the tricky work of trying to get the car in the right gear and move slowly enough to get going, 3) their random pulling out in front of me could have also resulted in a crash if I'd had a sudden burst of uncontrolled sped.

The only satisfaction I got was, after I'd had a chance to back up a bit, I was able to get moving and the MORON who was next to me, hoping to go around, got stuck.  Ha! Ha! Ha!  I gave her the one finger salute as I pulled ahead.  It was deeply satisfying.

Shawn and I spent the rest of the drive wondering why the roads SUCK SO MUCH still.  Do they no longer put down sand in this town?  What is the deal with the snow plows that seem to hover about an inch over the asphalt?  If they're hoping this will save on wear and tear on the asphalt, they're wrong.  The few places it is clear to the ground the streets are riddled with potholes.

Also, as Mason and I were leaving Great Clips this afternoon, I noticed there was a cop car with its lights on at that same intersection I was stuck at.  S/he was either directing traffic or there had finally been an accident there.

No surprise.

Oh, and in other news, Susan is still alive.  In fact, I can see her right now dancing around at the top of the tank munching up the tubifex worms I put in for her lunch.  I had to change a bit of the water in the tank, however, because she is NOT FOND of the sinking pellets she's supposed to like, and they were sitting on the substrate looking ready to rot.  So, I sucked them up and gave her a tiny little water change.  I don't want to change the water too much, because I'm now fairly convinced that Susan is helping condition the tank.  I'm hoping, given some time, I can actually introduce some other fish.  As it is, I'm so, so happy to see Susan every morning, it's almost sad.  I (whispers) even did research on dojo loaches, so... yeah, I'm officially in love with her. naomikritzer said, when she was over, that Susan reminds her of a mermaid, the way she wiggles her long, flowing tail.

The other thing I've been doing is updating my deviantart page with all my juvenallia (stuff I drew when I was young and foolish); that's been fun.  I'm still trying to find my Marvel stash. I know I have some pictures of Gambit that I drew when I was in college, but damned if I can find where I've put them.

It's made me what to draw again, though, and that's fun.

Have I told you guys what I've been reading lately? I'm about three chapters into Haruki Murakami's 1Q84.  It's a novel that was translated from Japanese, and it's... trippy.  It's starts with a young woman whose name is 'green pea,' Aomame who is stuck in traffic on her way to an "important business meeting."  She takes the advice of her taxi driver and ditches the taxi to go down a service staircase in order to hop the subway and make it to her thing on time.  Only, as she leave the taxi, the drive makes some cryptic remark about how "there's only one universe, you know."

Well, clearly, there isn't, and our heroine somehow ends up in an alternate one.

But that's really not clear except on the dust jacket.  Because the second chapter is from the point of view of a crappy wannabe novelist named Tengo, who looks like a linebacker and whose salient personality trait seems to be that he's haunted by vivid memories of "someone who is not his father sucking his mother's breast."

F*ck I hate mainstream fiction.

I may be giving up on it soon, but, just when I was ready to, Green Pea busted out and assassinated someone.  And, I was like, OKAY, I'm in!  So, I don't know.  It's also dauntingly gigantic at 925 pages, so we'll see...

I was considering calling this post "Because I SWORE I'd Start Earlier Today." And then I was going to complain and whine about the fact that I didn't get a chance to start on my WIP yet because I was ever-so busy promoting a new interview that came out from SF Signals this morning.

Egads.

What is *wrong* with me?

Because, you know what? I'm a doofus if I'm going to complain about the fact that AN INTERVIEW CAME OUT IN SF SIGNALS AND IT'S ALL ABOUT ME!!!

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2013/01/interview-with-lyda-morehouse/


Honestly, it's a very, very lovely interview. Paul Weimer does his level best to keep me on topic and not looking like a total asinine moron. (It's a fine line, you know, between being terribly clever and a jerkwad... and I do love to dance along that high wire!) I make a reference to it being awfully early to get all existential, and that's because this interview was conducted by e-mail and, inevitably, I'd be answering around six o'clock a.m., having gotten up before my family to get some fanfic writing in before the day started in earnest. Imagine me answering Paul's questions with a black-and-white cat stretched across my lap (and one arm), coffee beside me, and the gray light of dawn peeking through the window behind the loveseat -- upon which I'm sitting covered in a pile of blankets. I'm sure my answers will make more sense that way.

In other more mundane news, I finally got around to cleaning out the small, ten gallon fish tank in which Thor and Loki spent their last moments. My final job with that is to scrub the rock bedding as best I can before refilling the tank and letting it begin cycling. I'm considering the idea of adding a few live plants again. I've had good/bad luck with those. Currently, in the only occupied tank, the thirty gallon, I have a lovely aquatic plant I don't know the name of because I got it from my vet when they decided to dismantle their office fish tank. That's been THRIVING. I should really learn the name of it because I should get _more_. The problem I've had with aquatic plants in the past is that many of them are as difficult to keep as fish. Some of them need an extra boost of CO2, others want specialized light fixtures, and so most of them DIE A HORRIBLE DEATH AT MY HANDS.

And some can be crazy expensive.

So maybe I'll try doing a little research into plants before I start up that tank again. I have this dream of a super-lush, fully organic tank with zippy little tetra or white mountiam minnows happily darting through the underbush. But usually, in reality, what I get is a tank full of rotting plant matter and a huddling bait-ball of terrified/sick fish.

Worse. Fish Mom. Ever.

Today, I also finally broke down and purchased a bad of de-icing pellets because OMG, THE FREEZING RAIN, PEOPLE. Seriously, this is Minnesota. We're supposed to have EITHER freeing OR rain, not a combination of the two. Luckily, my often annoying morning radio DJs told me stories of their icecapades, so I was able to warn my family that the stuff that looked wet was actually SHEER ICE. We managed to make it to work/school with only one incident. I was trying to stop at a stop sign on side street when a school bus came barreling through at high speeds. I skidded to a stop about three inches from them, while they blasted through blaring their horn like I was the jerk. I didn't even raise my finger, though, because, you know what? I don't want to ever hit a school bus, so I'm just f*cking glad I was able to actually stop at all.

Yikes.

So on Mason's advice, I'm now hunkering down and not going anywhere for a long as humanly possible.

I am such a weirdo.

I think that pretty sums up everything you might need to know about me, but I was thinking specifically of the fact that, unlike almost every other writer I know, I ADORE the revision process. I think it's the sense of accomplishment I get while I'm going through each page. In front of me today is a big pile of paper. It's a completed (if somewhat flawed) story. I don't have to figure out how it's going to end any more. It's written. I may, in point of fact, need to utterly CHANGE the ending for the novel to actually be any good, but I have a spare, you know?

I like that feeling. A lot.

Even though I know that when I get through this round of revisions another one is on its heels (or waiting in the wings and other such metaphors) -- around and around until publication.

But, you know, I've taken my first stab at it. I hit something. Now I just have to make sure my aim is true and I hit home.

Which is kind of a disturbing image since last night I had a really awful nightmare about discovering a serial killer had been to my house while I was away. And then I became a strange sort of magical-yet-evil house spirit myself who continued the killing spree. It was particularly disturbing because it's one of the first dreams that I remember taking place in THIS house, exactly as it's laid out. Usually, I have a stock stand-in metaphor for my house. It's partly my parent's house combined with this one with bits of other houses or apartments I've lived in or known, and a hotel (or a museum). But it's always generally the same place that my subconscious has dubbed "my house" even though it looks nothing like the place in which I currently reside. So besides being creepily violent, it was also very specific.

Banish, banish, banish!

Luckily, it's incredibly beautiful outside today and I have something I'm looking forward to doing in front of me. I'm sitting on the porch with the windows cracked open. There's coffee in the pot and a cat perched on the head of my chair behind me. The thing that's going to be hard is to stay indoors, when what I really want to do is start mucking about in the garden (even though there's still patches of stubborn snow in our back yard.) We're going to expand Mason's veggie garden this year. I really want to try growing lettuce. The seed catalogues all have these cute little individual serving size minature lettuce varieties and I just adore them. I want to see them growing in neat little rows in Mason's garden.

Ah, hurry up summer!!

I'm in desperate need of motivation. The thing that usually kicks my butt, a looming deadline, isn't working the way it should. Normally, at this point in the novel, I look at the calendar and realize I only have a month and a half to finish the book and I start running around like the proverbial headless chicken and then I buckle down and get serious.

I'm not chicken-running or getting terribly serious.

This is not good.

Add to that that Mason is on Intersession break and it's been warm and welcoming outside. We keep trying to build a fort. My folks bought Mason these nifty little snow block makers. Imagine sand pails, except with snow. At any rate, this time last year we'd made a fort large enough that Mason could look out a window at eye-level. This year, we build and build, but when we come out the next day, it's puddles and melted brick shapes. I'm not used to that in February. It's supposed to be almost 50 today. That's above, folks. In Minnesota. In February.

Unnatural.

I almost wonder if my lack of motivation has to do with the fact that, in a money-saving effort, I've been making coffee at home. I'm not sure I make my coffee as strong as the folks at the Coffee Grounds do. I'm here at the coffee shop today, so I'm hoping that their coffee will perk my brain back up to freak-out stage.

I need that.

Mason and I have earned another private lesson at kuk sool wan. I'm going to ask Nikki Jo Kyo Nim to help me with my kicks. I realized the other day at the adult class that my body/brain has forgotten the side kick and I have never quite gotten my brain/body around the roundhouse or the tornado kick. Though I'm torn because I LOVE working on form.

In other news, the dojo may be moving. Apparently, they've been having a lot of trouble with their landlord and, of course, the light rail will be coming down University starting this Spring that will mess things up for them even more. They're hoping to move within a mile or so of their current location, but whatever happens we'll keep coming. We may not be able to walk in the winter, but we'll still attend. As I told Nikki JKN last night, we'd keep coming even if (God forbid!) they moved to the suburbs.

Okay, well, I need to go. Mason is anxious and we need to go pick up Eleanor for our women of Wyrdsmiths Wednesday.

Unbelievably, Mason is at school today. We had to fight blinding snow-filled winds, stupid drivers, and slippery streets to get him there on time. I also had to delay getting my coffee, which made navigating the above that much tricker.

It's also COLD. Our first minus degree (F) day this winter.

My cough still lingers, but after a very rough night it's a bit more productive and less painful. I think I shall survive after all.

I spent yesterday nursing my cough, writing my murder mystery synopsis (and then sketched out a paranormal police procedural) and watching the roofers my crazy neighbors hired trying to battle the snow and wind as they ripped off the layers of gunk and dropped it all over my yard. Which was then instantly covered by snow. They worked well into the storm, until 2:30 pm, and I'm absolutely certain there are buried tools and roofing materials still in the yard, now under three inches of snow.

What some people will do, eh?

Mason was absolutely giddy this morning to wake up to see all the snow. Everywhere there are those huge piles where the plows toss everything. He kept saying, "Oh, I'm SO going to climb that after school!" and then letting out one of his maniacal laughs.

Also, I need to get some video uploaded to the YouTubes, because last night I captured on film our gerbil, Bee, leaping up on to the wire mess cover, hanging upside down, climbing across it until her little arms can't take it and falling off. What's weird is that she'll do this over and over. And I think I accidentally encouraged this daredevil behavior by giving them seeds the first time she did it. But it makes for pretty funny video.

I also promised a review of BONESHAKER (Cherie Priest), but since it's so new I think I may just leave it with a "you should read this book." I should say that I'm neither a fan of steampunk nor zombies, and this book has both, yet I was quite engaged all the way through. I'm now FINALLY reading HALF A CROWN the last book in Jo Walton's still life with fascism series, or whatever she calls it. I already have a sense of foreboding and I'm only fifty pages in.

I'm cold. I'm typing with gloves on. In about ten minutes, I'm going to go back to the bedroom and hide under the blankets until spring or my book is done, whichever comes first (it better be the book, since it's due in 18 days.)

I'm also thinking that I could eat. I could bake six million cookies and eat them all. Then I'd be warm AND fat.

The book is going well, thanks for asking. I'm struggling a bit with the actually sitting down and writing it part, but then, I always do. I wrote a scene that amused me last night, and that always makes this insane part at the end a bit more worth it.

Tonight, I'm going to go to the library to pick up the last HIKARU NO GO. It finally came in. Yay!

Mason is doing well. Yesterday he had his annual urology test and doctor visit. He has hydronephrosis in one kidney, which we actually discovered in an ultrasound before he was born. We've been monitoring it ever since. The doctor seems disappointed that it's not gotten noticably better, but, according to him, it also hasn't gotten noticable worse. Mason thought the ultrasound was pretty cool, but ticklish as hell. He liked getting out of school for a bit (the appointment was at 8:15 am and we got him to school only about 20 minutes tardy), was sort of grumpy that he missed most of "independent reading time." (No surprise, his favorite part of the day.)

Did I mention the cold? I'm seriously considering abandoning this place and going to sit in a warm coffee shop. The only problem with that is that I'm already very distracted from writing and going there could make it much, much worse.

The dishes are here, though.

And it's [bleeping!] cold.