Busy day planned for today. Many chores to get done around the house. Whole big list of cleaning, vacuuming, etc. Becca will help.

Then I have to take Becca shoe shopping. For dress shoes. DRESS shoes. Not sneakers with skulls. Not scary goth-boots. Not combat boots. Dress shoes. Shoes that she can wear, yanno, with her DRESS. Which she will also have to wear for formal dinner night on the cruise.

She has been forewarned that if she gives me too much attitude about today's plans and process, which will include trying-on-of-shoes, that there will be no JitB for lunch. What I haven't told her yet is that if she REALLY gives me snark and lip and surliness, I may just get MYSELF a milkshake and drink it in front of her. Mua-ha-ha.

Battle of wills? THUNDERDOME? Stay tuned.

I can't be the only one who thinks the whole "fish pedicure" thing is effin' CREEPY. I can't be, can I?

Because, I mean, I would pay good money NOT to have swarms of little fish eating at my feet. They could hold my bare tootsies over the tank and say I better tell them where the secret plans are hidden or else, and I would totally talk.

If I was wading or swimming and felt anything like that ... or anything that I even imagined was like that, a tickle of underwater grass for instance ... I would shoot straight up and run across the surface like a cartoon character all the way back to shore.

In saner news: both manuscripts have been edited, a cover letter has been written, a marketing plan has been written (I didn't forget, L! I just been busy!), and I've got back-cover text so we can finally get Silver Doorway #6 to the printer. I also made an appointment to get my hair re-poofed next Friday.

Movie -- SWING KIDS. A good one. Very powerful. Did a nice job (I thought anyway) of capturing the sinister-compelling-pervasive-insidious-brainwash of Nazi Germany. Robert Sean Leonard can dance! A little bizarre to see Noah Wyle beat the crap out of Batman (Christian Bale in 1993). It startled me that Kenneth Branagh wasn't listed in the credits so I looked it up and found that he refused to let them credit him on account of he didn't think he deserved higher billing than Leonard and Bale.

The agency contract goes July 1st ---> June 30th, so the old year was up at the end of last month.

And this year we all got a raise! :: gasp! shock! faint! ::

And it is, especially compared to the skinflint nature of upper management, a startlingly hefty one. Not the additional-quarter-an-hour-or-so of years past.

In my case (at the capped out high end of the pay scale after being here eighteen years next month), it's a raise of $1.23 an hour. Almost fifty more bucks a week. Less taxes, etc.

Effective as of and retroactive to the pay-period beginning July 6th (which, thanks to the way they do payroll means the check that'll be showing up on August 1st).

Okay, so fifty more bucks a week is still peanuts when you factor in my 30-mile-each-way commute and gas and all. But this is fifty bucks a week more than I was getting before!

For writing on the company clock, even! :) Takes a bit of the sting out of still not having sold scads of books yet, because my hourly rate remains not too shabby!

Was just flipping through a catalog -- we get piles of them since Dottie and John's mail comes to our house while they RV -- and saw a shirt that said: "I am the Grammarian about whom your mother warned you." I know plenty of people who could use that shirt :)

Finished the most recent revision of THE REAPER'S CAGE, taking Patty's sage advice into account. Also caught some bloopers, the damn things, they're like fleas, you can bomb and powder and comb, but you still never do get all the little bastards!

Tonight I'll begin going through THE REAPER'S BRUSH, which Tim has read and scribbled some notes on -- his notes diminish the more gripping the story becomes, which in one way is good because I know the entire last half of the book is a nonstop rollercoaster ride, but in another way can be not-so-good because that makes it harder to spot the dangerous flaws in the track!

Then it'll be time to start this zombie story that's been in the back of my head -- shuffling, groaning, and persistent! -- ever since word came down about the call for subs that opens in a couple weeks.

Double XP weekend. If anyone wants me, you know where I'll be!

The thing about the Netflix queue, especially when you don't keep track of it, is that you never know what's going to show up in the mailbox next. I like that.

And things sometimes go in clusters thanks to their "if you liked" feature. So some time back I must've gone clicking around some more PG-friendly movies that Becca is too surly-goth to have gone and seen in the theater but that I kind of wouldn't have minded watching if the chance came around.

Got two of them this week. Sure, I don't pre-watch Graham Norton before giving it to Becca, but these ones I end up watching first ...

HOW TO EAT FRIED WORMS -- quite a lot of fun, actually. Much better than I expected. Believable enough and squirmy disgusting fun. I only dimly recall the book, though. I think Becca would like it.

NANNY McPHEE -- saccharine-and-lemon Mary Poppins knock-off, with a predict-the-dots plot. A few decent moments and performances, but overall forgettable. It did lack musical numbers, however.

I'm staggering toward the end of my five-night work week. Have to stay awake long enough to make my 10:30 massage appointment. After that, it's sleep and laundry pretty much the rest of the day. Chores and whatnot and spending time with Tim and Becca for the weekend (and ZOMG DOUBLE XP!!!). Lunch and a movie on Monday.

It'll all be worth it because by doing this Thursday overnight, I will have Sunday night off for a three-night work week next week ... and a three-night work week the week after on account of my CPR training ... and after that, the cruise! Six more shifts until Alaska? Yeah, that makes this all feel much, much better!

Tim told me that he bought something special while away, but he wouldn't tell me what it was or where he got it. I had to wait and see when they got home.

They got home. The "something special" was waiting for me when I walked in after going to that City Council meeting.

It's a Playmobil guy. A Playmobil Viking guy.

A FIVE-FOOT-TALL store-display model Playmobil Viking guy!

His name is Sven. He has a red beard, a horned helmet (not historically accurate, but I don't care), a shield, a sword. And did I mention, he's five feet tall?

How in the Hel they got this all the way back from Oregon in Tim's little car is nothing short of amazing. They must have done some creative loading of their luggage.

Forget being able to transport an alpaca in the back seat, like the ads for whatever model that was we looked at (Prius?) when car-shopping. Fit a five-foot plastic Playmobil guy in a Nissan Versa? That's impressive!

We'll have to post some pictures. I don't know where we'll put him ... my office is already too crowded ... but there was no way they could pass him up when they saw him at a sidewalk sale.

Got our copies of the "Items of Enchantment" Gathering Anthology yesterday, thank you Patrick!

Tim and Becca leave Ashland this morning to drive home. Since I never had those wild parties with all my boyfriends over, the house is in good shape. I even remembered to take out the trash last night before I left for work, since I don't usually beat the garbage trucks. It'll be good to have my man and my kid back. The cats will think so too. They've been very needy.

I'm hoping to be up and functional in time to attend a meeting at City Hall tonight. Watched the news I'd recorded and the lady who'd been sitting right NEXT to me was at the edge of the shot so I didn't make it on TV, not for that channel anyway.

Fic report: two entries from Star Amethyst's diary have been posted over in my incineratrix LJ, with two yet to be written. A Kid Eros (who dinged 40 last night!) fic has been sent to another player for approval and will hopefully be posted shortly.

Went to the meeting tonight at the local library to discuss the whole "sex offenders at McManus" thing.

It was PACKED. Emotions were high and intense. The attendees ran the gamut from the well-organized types who had done plenty of research into the background and details, to the histrionic "I have (fillintheblank) children omigod omigod!"

Three people from the Dept. of Corrections were there to answer questions about the basic system and treatment, but most of the specific questions, they buck-passed to the sheriff's department, local police, or the city council.

Guess what? Nobody from the sheriff's department or city council bothered to show up. The sergeant from the local P.D. who'd been scheduled to be there backed out at the last minute without telling the organizers, and sent an assistant "to observe" in his stead.

I kind of felt sorry for that assistant, actually. He stood there in his neat little suit, waaaaaaay at the very back of the room. Whenever the DoC people would say "but that's something your local police department would have to answer," a sea of heads would swivel and there'd be a wave of death-looks and weighty silence aimed at the poor son of a bitch.

Turns out that this is all a lot juicier than just the mansion being turned into a halfway house for junkie pervs. Turns out that the partnership behind the project has quite the history of slumlording for this type of clientele. Apparently there's a neighborhood in town where 48 of them are packed into half a dozen or so "boarding houses" in the span of a couple blocks.

A woman who owns a house there -- the last house on the block, and she introduced herself as "the hold-out who hasn't sold-out" -- informed the crowd that while it is true there are no schools or daycares within the allotted zone, there IS a school bus stop right in front of one of the sex offender "boarding houses."

Another woman who lives near the McManus mansion had put her own house up on the market some time ago. Now, the market here has been floundering, so it had been on the market a long time ... and then just the other day she heard from her real estate agent that since word had gotten out about the plans for McManus, she'd be well-advised to trim $175,000 off her asking price.

Also turns out that one of the slumlord partners has been caught in a past lie about claiming to be associated with a well-reputed nationwide group of rehab facilities. Said group has a provision against taking sex offenders to its program. Said group has also denied ever having heard from this particular person.

As regarding the McManus mansion, thus far there is one sex offender living there, who moved in on July 4th. Neighbors are by law supposed to be notified 14 days in advance. Neighbors got their notification TODAY. They were, as you might imagine, a little upset at the meeting.

Further, there was an incident over the weekend wherein this sex offender had an altercation with a bicyclist who was passing the house. Story goes that cyclist pointed at offender, offender stormed out of the house and punched cyclist in the face. Several neighbors witnessed this. Police were called. No arrests were made. No report was filed.

Maybe it'd seem that punching someone in the face could be considered a violation of that whole "terms of release" deal ... but the Department of Corrections guy who actually HAS this sex offender on his caseload shrugged it off with the rationale that if the local police hadn't seen fit to arrest him, there wasn't much HE could do.

I wasn't the only one who had known nothing of this until that report on the news this past weekend. I read the local paper, too. I'm interested in the house and concerned about the issue, so I think I would have remembered.

So, it's all looking pretty ugly. There were three different news crews present with cameras. One of them was close enough to where I was sitting that I could have kicked the cameraman in the shins. I recorded that channel's 11:00 broadcast to see what they aired (and maybe a little to see if I can spot me in any pan-across-the-audience shots).

It went from 7:00 to almost 9:00. At the end when things were breaking up, I did approach one of the ladies from the neighborhood association. I gave her my card, told her I was a writer, and offered my services if the plan of action called for letters, newsletters, and the like. I'm good at that kind of thing.

There's a regularly-scheduled city council meeting on Wednesday evening, and by the sounds of it, several people are planning to show up and avail themselves of the "comments from the community" timeslot on the agenda. The officials can't be bothered to come to us? Okay-fine. We can go to them, and be even more irate when we do.

Swiped a new icon and now I forget who ... oops ... thank you, person from whom I swiped it!

(Edit: it was eidna, seen on the comments over where shinga has posted a great essay about "That Guy," which, if you've ever been exposed to any sort of fandom, gamer or geek subculture, you've probably met at least once)

This week is a long one because I'm working Thursday night as well. And a lonely one seen as how the hubby and kid are away. The cats spent most of the weekend being extra attention-seeky, with at least one of them always trying to be on my lap. I'm sure they were none too pleased with me when last night I up and LEFT them and came to work. They'll either snub me or mob me when I get home.

This week is also for ficcing and revision. To kick things off, there's a couple memos from Glinda Royal over in my incineratrix, and I expect to have a Star Amethyst diary entry posted tonight.

Movie -- VANTAGE POINT. Wow. Damn. That was one well-done thriller! Proof that Hollywood can do something good every now and then, which is kind of depressing because it makes the rest of the crud they churn out seem all that much more cruddy. I am awestruck by the intricacy, urgency, pace and cleverness. Won't say more because there's no real way to without spoiling. Just ... damn ... fantastic stuff.

So there's this house a ways from us. On the route of Tim's usual morning walk. A huge old Victoriam mansion. The McManus House. Green. Slightly decrepit in a "Haunted Mansion" sort of way.

It's been up for sale several times since we've been here, most likely because each successive new owner finds out just how much renovation it would actually take.

It has been our "if we won the lottery!" daydream ever since we first saw it. My private spin on that would have been to turn it into an Art Chicks colony (Jen and Kyt and Steph would come live with us and pay their rent in artwork!) and writer's retreat and have a giant library and game room ... lure Mom to move up ...

Well, I saw on the local news just now, it's been sold again. And the guy who bought it is fixing it up. All good, right?

Except his plan is to turn it into housing for the sex offenders and addicts nobody wants in their community.

Read the article here.

I am very disappointed now.

Our hamster, Rex, has gone to that big golden wheel in the sky.

She joined us on July 30th, 2006. So it was almost two years, pretty much the extent of the usual hamster lifespan.

We had noticed lately that she was in declining health, limping sometimes, seeming like she was having trouble seeing, difficulty getting around.

Last night before I went to bed, I checked on her and she was curled in the litter outside her hamster-house, breathing shallow and twitching. I figured that she would be gone by morning. And sure enough, when I got up, she was.

I've seen to her final arrangements. She's now in a cardboard Harry-and-David holiday gift box from the "12 Days of Christmas" Tower of Treats (the box has two turtle doves) and buried beneath the big evergreen in the backyard.

Goodbye, Rex. You were a good hamster.

Today, at 6:09 PM Pacific time:



My first-ever City of Heroes character, Incineratrix, attained the ultimate goal of level 50! The only one of my heroes to make it that far!

And it only took ... what ... 42 and 1/2 months? When I already have three villains at 50? Just goes to show that I'm fundamentally more villainous than heroic, I guess!

Plus I had a massage (ache!) and am eating tuna casserole (yum!) and then I'm going to bed (zzzz!)

The Gathering 2009 - Early Registration Special
Hey, Gargoyles fans!

The early registration special for The Gathering of the Gargoyles 2009 lasts for just one more day! Pre-register for the convention by July 11, 2008 and get a full package that includes membership, banquet, and a t-shirt for only $100, a savings of $30 off the combined price of those items purchased separately! Membership alone is $50, and a supporting membership that can be upgraded at any time is only $20. Starting on June 12, 2008, the prices increase to $120 for the full package and $60 for membership alone.

For online registration, please visit: http://www.gatheringofthegargoyles.com/g2009/

(swipety-swiped from Patrick and everyone else who swipety-swiped it from Patrick)

Spread the word, folks!

(Which of course means the wordmeter thingie is acting up :P)

But I did it, I finished. In nine weeks again. That's pretty damn good. That's amazing-damn-good given how much trouble this book was being for me the first time around. I set it aside for a while there, then scrapped the old draft and started anew. I was able to get a real handle on the characters and what I was hoping to accomplish. Realizing and accepting that this is the first of at least two was a tremendous relief. I no longer had to fret about cramming everything into one book. Whew.

MURDER GIRLS, Week Nine
Previous total: 91,221
Current total: 104,560
Goal: 100,000

Got a postcard from Gettysburg the other day. Guess who sent it? Yup. My dad the rabid re-enactor :) Hardly ever hear from him, but when I do, it's usually battlefield-related.

Tim and Becca leave Friday morning for a week in Ashland with his folks and sis. Just gonna be me and the cats. I plan to make tuna noodle casserole and eat off it the whole time.

They CAN have cake; I brought the leftovers of the super-sticky-sweet maple walnut cake to work and the residents scarfed it up in no time.

Seriously need to get my hair cut and poofed anew. Maybe I'll color it too, go auburn or something, what the hell.

I really hate the Mentos gum commercial where the guy's sitting by the water cooler. That is disGUSting. Yet the company is a big Comedy Central sponsor, so I am stuck with that same ad at least four times a night.

HELLBOY -- predictable cartoonish fun, amusing enough, hadn't seen it before but Tim was interested in watching the new one and I wouldn't want to not know what was going on :)

DARK WATER -- predictable formulaic meh, not bad, not good; anyone considering it would be better off watching THE RING instead.

FUTURAMA: BEAST WITH A BILLION BACKS -- entertaining if not as good as BENDER'S BIG SCORE; many great/poignant little moments throughout (mostly from Bender and Zoidberg).

Horror author Brian Keene dishes the cold realities and hard truths that anybody who hopes to make a living as a writer really needs to read in this here essay.

It will no doubt depress the ever-lovin' shit out of you, but if you can come away from it still thinking, "ouch, but damn, it really is what I want to do anyway," then you've probably got what it takes.

Goal for this week -- finish first draft of MURDER GIRLS.

Goal for next week -- edit THE REAPER'S CAGE and send to Patty.

Goal for the week after -- edit THE REAPER'S BRUSH.

Goals in between all that -- site updates for the Squirrelman books; back cover text for Silver Doorway #6; update submission record and do e-pokes where applicable; write zombie story; catch up on CoX fics; do Ellis-work as needed by Tim.

Why is it that the time in between working on books always seems so, so much crazy-busier???

Goal for first week in August -- enjoy cruise and just think.

Goal for rest of August -- finish up all those other goals and edit MURDER GIRLS.

Goal for September -- start new book.