Last night I went to go hang out at Tim's. It was a bit of an impromptu trip due to a miscommunication between my sister and I. Oh well. So I stop by and Tim's just getting done milking when he asks me if there's any new calves. I said I saw three, but he said that there was a heifer in the middle of birthing right then!! What!? I go down to the pregnant cow pen and I see a cow laying down... with a pair of hooves sticking out her backside.

Uh... there's feet sticking outta that cow... I go back to tell Tim this and he's annoyed that she seems to be taking her sweet time pushing the little one out. So after Tim gets done milking he goes in there to help her out, since it's been a few hours since she started labor and, like with human babies, if they stay in there too long after labor starts, it's bad. He loops twine around the two hooves sticking out and starts pulling. Momma cow isn't too worried about pushing; she pushes every once in a while, in between eating and nudging the other two expecting cows in the pen. Then he asks me to go and get a pink cane from the wall. I guess it used to be a pink candy cane, or some sort of old Christmas decoration; its origins are a mystery to me. He then ties the twine to the cane and starts really pulling on the calf. I ask if there's something I can do, since I feel kinda silly and useless standing there watching. Tim tells me I can come pull; and after a few seconds mulling it over, I decide What the hell! and take my coat off and get in the pen with Tim.

We're both holding onto the cane and pulling and the little calf starts coming out a little bit more. Let me tell you it wasn't as gross as I thought it would be, and any disgust I would have had vanished once the little muzzle came out and then more of the head poked out... and it blinked. Blinked. These two big black eyes looking out at the world for the first time, seeing these two crazy people pulling on a candy cane as its first conscious memory, and they blinked. Such a crazy moment!! I think I squealed about it blinking. I mean... to see this new life staring out at you... crazy. It took about five minutes tops after I got in there and helped pull, and after some good tugs and my excited urging of both momma and baby to push out, PLOP! went baby cow onto the straw.

A steaming, wet, shivering, knock-kneed and wobbly-legged pile of baby cow laid at my feet, not even 4 feet away. It was amazing. I don't think I could ever explain what I felt when I saw the little one come out. I was giddy and excited and just beside myself with strange emotions that I was just a giggly bunch of smiles. Tim checked and we just birthed a new little bull calf. Then Tim and his brother Daniel took the little guy into another pen with three other little calves who were born not too long ago, and took his momma to get milked so her milk could be fed to the four babies. I just stood there beside myself, trying to digest what I had just seen, what I had just done. Tim was laughing at me, because he does that all the time; not that he has to pull calves out all the time, but he gets to see new calves born a lot. While Tim went to go fed the cows and Daniel was tending to the new calf and momma, I stood there by the pen and just looked at him. I wanted to get a blanket or a sponge for him, he was shivering and wet and needed to be cleaned. He looked so small and helpless... I wanted to do so much for him. I had asked Tim what they were going to name him, but they don't name bull calves, since they don't really keep bulls around long. But I wanted to name him, and after looking at him for a while, I decided to name him Lobo. He had a patch of black on his forehead, that if you looked at it right, it looked like a wolf's head.

Yeah. The rest of the night I was just giddy. Even now I'm still giddy. I mean... I helped bring a new life into the world! I think last night was the first time I honestly felt that ever elusive "maternal instinct". As I watched Lobo try to stand up and "mooo" forlornly, I couldn't help but want to protect him, to keep him around. I know that he'll be sold soon, or sent away to become who-knows-what, (Tim jokes that they name bull calves "Hamburger", since bull calves aren't really useful to them on their farm, they go and become meat cows or something), and a hallow pit formed in the my stomach knowing that this little guy was just born, so much to learn and see and experience (not sure what all cows learn and experience, but it's out there!), but he'd most likely be designed to be a meat cow. I guess that's what parents feel towards their kids. I had that motherly protective feeling that I've never really felt before. I'm not a big fan of kids, I really don't want any of my own, but I do care about their safety on the basic level. Mostly my feeling towards kids is this: I think they're cute and sweet with that general "Aawww" factor in there; but I also feel that way towards my cats. I care about the safety of my cousins' kids, friends' kids, and even some of the more well-behaved kids at Barnes & Noble, but I've never had such an overt need to protect before. Strange feeling. Not sure if I like it, but it's not necessarily bad. I dunno.

So yeah. That was my excitement last night. I had been saying to Tim that I'd like to see a baby cow being born one day, since I'd seen 1 day old calves and even one only 30 minutes old. But I wasn't expecting to be part of the birth! Hehehehe. Craziness. Best night EVAR. And now that I've told my tale of baby cows, I must go and get ready for the day and wrap birthday presents for Tim's godson, Kolby; his birthday party is later tonight. I may even wrap birthday presents for Colin and Logan (my cousin Trent's two boys) whose birthdays are March and may respectively.

All righty y'all. Have a good afternoon and make sure you stock up on essentials if you live in the Midwest and MidAtlantic states. A blizzard be a'comin'!

So I'm gonna toot my own horn because I can, and because I deserve it. I just got back about 40 minutes ago from hauling my butt to the Calhoun Barnes & Noble to pick up an extremely hard to find (almost out of print) book that Tim wants to give to his godson for his birthday this coming weekend. We had been talking about it when we went shopping on Thursday but we couldn't quite remember what book it was, so I went to my dad's to find it since I was pretty sure we had it when Jenni and I were little. Sure enough we did, and I looked at Barnes & Nobles' inventory and there was only one in the warehouses, but the Calhoun store had one. w00t! I put it on hold for me and was busting my butt trying to figure out how to get there and pick it up before the hold time expired, as well as before this weekend. I figured out a plan, but it was risky at best.

See, today was the January birthday celebrations for my family (me and my cousin-in-law Becky), and that was being held down at her house in Eagle Lake, MN. (It's totally apparent that my family likes Tim, especially now that he taught them how to actually play their Wii!) Well, we didn't leave there until almost 7pm; dropped my sis and BIL at their home in Cologne at about 8pm, then got Tim home at about 810pm. Then I hauled ass to Calhoun Square, which is almost in Minneapolis on Excelsior Blvd. And that store closes at 9pm on Sundays. Oh, hauleth ass I did. And I made it there at 859pm per my car clock, 855pm per the announcement in the store. I am amazing!!! I creep up the counter and ask for the book on hold, and when the cashier asked if I was a Member, I said I was, but I was also a B&N employee. But I only had a pay stub from October... when we shop at other stores we need the most current pay stub. Crap. I said that if they couldn't honor that, I'd gladly use my Member Card. But the cashier called over the Manager and after a few seconds of debating, she said she'd allow it. I gave her a big bow and many thanks, then booked it out the store with my newly purchased prize in tow.

Because I am amazing. The end.

And I want to end this little random post with a little bragging about my Lovely Lumps, Kiera. She went to the vet on Friday to get her yearly shots so they're up-to-date for whenever I take Kiera to the groomers to get her undergrowth of fur tamed. Well, she had some clumpy lumps of fur that she wouldn't let me comb out at home so I figured the vet could buzz them off so that I can brush Kiera better than she had been letting me. So the vet and vet tech took Kiera to the back room to get buzzed and immediately I hear through the door: "Oh my goodness, that is the hairiest cat I've ever seen!" from one tech. From another: "She has so much fur! You could braid it or put little ponies and ribbons in it!" And yet from another: "You could do a mohawk down her back." I was in the exam room laughing at their reactions to my super poofy kitty. Kiera has a lot of fur, and no pictures could really show you how much she has, especially when she's a disheveled gremlin. Every time I take her to the vet or groomers, or even when people come over and see her, I always get a kick out of their reaction to seeing how big she is. True, she is a little heavy weight wise, but she's really big when it comes to the amount of fur she has.

After about ten minutes the vet and tech came back with a newly brushed Kiera. They told me that they didn't need to buzz her, she'd let them brush the clumps out fine. I told them that she was just scared and would let them do pretty much anything now. But when she's at home, she fights and gets feisty and runs away when I try to brush out the clumps. The vets understood that and then let us go home, not without fawning over my uber poof of a Lumpy just a little bit more. On another good note, Kiera lost 1/2 a pound, so she's down to 13 lbs, which is good. I know the vet would like her to be 10 lbs or less, and would like me to not leave food standing for the cats to eat whenever. But it's hard to have feeding times when my schedule is so random, I may not be home at the same time to keep a steady feeding schedule. Or I'm gone for 8-12 hours for work, so once the morning feeding was gone, Diesel and Kiera would be hungry for the rest of the day. So, I'll do the best I can with monitoring how much they get throughout the day and with indoor/weight control foods.

Okie dokie... I'm super tired and I have one of those 12 hour days tomorrow at the mall. I'll catch y'all laters.

So this weekend I hung out with the boy. We played Jenga and made fun of infomercials Saturday night. It was a nice relaxing night. Then Sunday morning I woke up with this horrible sore throat and Tim was really concerned that I was warm to the touch, hot really. My throat was so sore that it caused me pain to swallow or eat. So after a quick breakfast, I went home to get some rest, per directions from Dr. Tim. Hehehe. So I did as I was told and dude... I was glad I did! As I drove into Chaska I started to feel fuzzy headed and really warm. I got home and my temp was 100.2*F and it kept climbing. Throughout the day it kept going up and I got more miserable. Of course, being a Sunday I couldn't get into a clinic to get seen, nor did I want to spend the $$ to go to an ER. So I suffered through the worst fever I've had in a long time, the highest it got was 101.7*. And all the while I was trying to drink fluids and stay cool, but my sore throat of twisted evil kept me from really drinking anything without sobbing in pain. Tim was a saint, telling me to call/text every few hours to update him on how I was, and when I didn't call him for 2-3 hours he called to check on me. I hadn't called because I finally fell asleep (my cell phone scared the crap outta me!) but I was so thankful he was checking up on me. Thank you, sweetie!

Monday I finally got into see the doctor and they got me in pretty quick because I guess they worried my symptoms sounded enough like H1N1 symptoms. They did a throat culture to check for strep, which came back negative, so the doctor gave me some antibiotics (amoxicilin) and steroids (prednisone) for my throat. The amoxicilin for the infection that was causing the swelling and fever, the prednisone to ease the pain and swelling so I could actually eat and talk without pain. It was hard explaining my symptoms to the doctor when I could barely talk because when you talk, you generate saliva, and you eventually have to swallow said saliva. The doctor's reaction to my expression of pain every time I swallowed was heartbreaking, really. The doctor said that they'd also let my throat culture do its thing over night, because they just ran a quick strep test, and they'd call me with the results Tuesday (today). They never did, so I might call them Wednesday to see what happened with that.

Now I feel fantastic. Not even two full days on my meds and I feel lovely, like I wasn't death-warmed-over barely 24 hours before. Fever went down to basically normal, throat is just a bit sore (I can feel it when it's getting towards the time for my next dose of prednisone), but I can eat and swallow and talk without being in serious pain or discomfort. I also think that having two days off from work and spending most of those two days sleeping helped a lot too. So I think after my week and a half of meds is over, I should be back to normal. Although it was funny that I was at Tim's when I got sick, so now his family (jokingly) demanded to disinfect the whole place and when Tim ate the chips I brought over Saturday his brother asked if those were okay to eat. Hehehe. But I guess they were also worried for me, especially when I mentioned that I probably have the flu. Not piggy flu, not Spanish flu, not stomach flu (thank GOD), just the "seasonal flu", which was what the doctor said I had. Since I don't have the full-body-hit-by-a-Mack-truck-body-aches that come with H1N1, I just have the flu. I just get to keep taking my meds, drinking lots of orange juice and water, and eating my nummy applesauce (which I lived off of on Monday when I could barely eat).

Tomorrow I have an on call shift at Barnes & Noble. If I don't work, I'm going to go to Target, then organize my room a bit. And once that's done, I'm hoping to get some writing in. I'm not sure if I'm going to get Magic & Destiny done by March. Especially when I lost two good writing days to fever induced delirium. But I have a plan. I might start the first chapter or so of Book Three: Magic & Blood to hopefully get the creative juices going. I'm not going to shoot for March anymore, I'm just going to have to break down and email North Star Press and let them know that they can expect Magic & Destiny next year, or fall by the earliest---if they want it then. And maybe I'll have most of Magic & Blood done and I can get that out right away. Oh well.

Well... it's late... I hope the prednisone will let me sleep tonight. Got to bed @ 4am last night because exhaustion just set in finally. So here's to sleep! See y'all on the other side.

This was my first Stephen King book to ever be read, so I wasn't sure what to expect when I started reading it. I was lead to believe it was a zombie book, and to quote one of the reviews in the front of the book: "If any writer is capable of producing the Great American Zombie Novel it would have to be Stephen King..." (The Washington Post), so I had high expectations for a zombie book written by Stephen King, the undisputed horror master! But sadly these were squashed, for deep down, it was not a true zombie book.

The book starts off with our main character, Clayton Riddel, in Boston, and he sees people who answer their cell phone at 3:01pm just suddenly go apeshit crazy: attacking people, smashing their heads and faces into walls or plate glass windows, all that fun stuff. Sure, the people who got zapped by the weird cell phone Pulse turned into crazy psychos or they were lost in some weird, unexplained trance, but they were not TRUE ZOMBIES. They didn't die and come back to life to feed upon the flesh of the living, although some did attack and feast on other "phone crazies" or "normies" throughout the book, but they were not dead. So minus a few points there. And the rest of the story is how Clay and a rag-tag group of survivors, or those who weren't on a phone at 3:01pm, try to make it up to Maine to see if Clay's wife and son survived the chaos. And along the way, the "phone-crazies" are evolving and showing strange new powers and abilities that just make things more weird and left-field than truely scary.

Overall, the book was a good read, creepy in a lot of places, but not really scary. Unless you think that this could happen, since how many people now have cell phones? I mean, really, just go to Target or your local mall and just sit and watch the people walk by, counting how many have cell phones. Do you have a cell phone? Some weird terrorist attack could work through the cell phone transmitters and cause chaos. Really, that's the only scary thing of the book, how reality-based it is. I'm not sure how true-to-life the "phone crazies" could be, but one never knows.

I'm not sure if I'm okay with never knowing what exactly caused the Pulse to happen. I guess the point of the book was to show how this horror affected one man and the small group of survivors he travels with; and in their struggle to survive, they never really get into a situation to figure it out. No government base or agents to stumble upon to get answers. Kind of like Shaun of the Dead, we never know what causes the zombies, we just see one Brit try to save his family and friends. I liked the book, got bogged down in a few places do to lack of action or scariness, but overall, good read. I think I may read Pet Cemetery next, which I hear is scary as shit.

On my rating scale, I give it a good 7. Not fantastic, and I wasn't as scared as the hype surrounding Mr. King led me to believe I would be upon reading one of his novels, but still good. Hopefully the next King tome will be scarier.

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything, but I guess there was nothing worth posting. Until I went hunting on the interwebs and found some awesome web comics for you:

Last Blood is a fantastic comic by Bobby Crosby about vampires and zombies and humans. But the fun twist about this vamp/zombie story is that zombies are really blood-starved zombies. It's fun, violent and bloody, sexy, and the art is amazing (drawn by Owen Gieni). I spent the last hour or so reading it from the beginning and now I'm all caught up and I want more. I don't think it's updated since September, but I think that's because he's working on another webcomic, to be discussed next. Bobby Crosby is an amazing writer, as can be witnessed in his other web comic, Dreamless. Dreamless is about two people, a young American woman and a Japanese man who are linked by their dreams. When one is sleeping they can see what is going on in the other's life awake. The story takes place in the years leading up to WWII, so you know that's going to be a big point of conflict for the characters. It's really good. I highly recommend it. Dreamless is written by Bobby Crosby and drawn (painted?) beautifully by Sarah Ellerton, whose past and current works can be found here at Seraph Inn. I'm in the process of getting Inverloch in print format, and I can. not. wait for when Phoenix Requiem is available in print. I'd also like Last Blood in print, too. (And I just checked, it's available for sale here) I'm just a sucker for comics, I suppose. It's a new goal of mine to make it to one of the big comic cons sometime in my life, like the San Diego Comic Con or maybe even the Chicago Comic Con (Wizard Comic Con?). I would certainly get my uber geek on there.

Speaking of comic cons, and cons in general, I'm super stoked for April, when Anime Detour comes back to town! It's going to be back in Bloomington, MN at the Bloomington Sheraton Hotel (really close the the MOA!) April 23-25, 2010. I'm super psyched! We're going to have a big group and two joined rooms this year, and I'm totally going to wear my Kagome costume this year! And I'm going to work on dropping some weight so I rock that cosplay! And I think that next year I'll rock FallCon again in St. Paul, since I'll have some books to sell and I'll resurrect my Bargain Section comics to peddle to the masses.

Okay, that's enough pimpage for now. I'm going to go snuggle in bed with the latest issue of mental_floss magazine and read before sleeping in hardcore tomorrow.

Oh, forgot to do the Next Books I'm Gonna Read Pimp List:

Soulless by Gail Carriger
Crimson and Steam by Liz Maverick
Edge of Dawn by Patti O'Shea
Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines

March and April are going to be big release months for me, too. In the Darkest Night  (O'Shea) comes out 3-30-10, the second in the Tattoo Shop Mysteries Pretty in Pink (Karen E. Olson) comes out 3-2-10, and Changeless (Carriger) comes out 4-1-10. Of course most of the books I'm reading are in series, and the beginning of series at that... so I'm going to be busy for a while.

Okay. Now I'm going to bed to begin my hardcore sleeping.

I got an email today from someone at the Friends of the Saint Paul Library stating that my book, Magic & Madness, has been nominated for a 2010 Minnesota Book Award!

Geeking out will commence in T-5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

*le squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!*

Yeah, that was a total surprise to me! I'm not sure how that happened (your guess is as good as mine!) (though I think someone at North Star Press did the nominating... or maybe one of those people I gave a free book to at the MN Authors Convo in September...) but never mind how it happened, but it happened! Wow! I could be an award winning author! Holy bookmarks, Batman!! The finalists will be announced January 30, 2010, and then the winners will announced at a big Gala in St. Paul in April. How kick ass is this!?

And to top it all off, I had a lovely night out with the boy, which included seeing a cute Christmas play w/ his godson in it, a deep but needed conversation over bacon cheese burgers, and driving around Norwood-Young America looking at Christmas lights while listening to Neil Diamond, ending with making fun of commercials and news anchors curled up on the couch. I really needed this night more than I realized. Love you honey!!! =^_^=

Well, my puter is being dumb, apparently the virtual memory is low (?????) and Windows is working in the background to fix it so everything takes for-ev-er to load, so I'm going to head to bed. I have to work tomorrow, then go to a Cheap Ass Gift Exchange thingy with some friends later tomorrow night.

I'll keep you updated on anything more about the nomination! *le squee!*

The washer/dryer are in the midst of being set up in my house as we speak. I'm very excited, I can finally do my own laundry in my own house... after living here since August. Wooo! I'm very pleased. However, the delivery has been a little FUBAR. First, I get a phone call at 930am this morning that the delivery time is between 12-2pm and they'd call when they were 1/2 hr away. What? I was told 1-4pm. Oh well, no biggie, I guess. Well, knowing me and how I am, I wake up late and am sluggish to get going. Well, it's noon and no call, so I figure I'm safe to take a super uber quick shower. Okay. Shower done... step out all wet and drippy...

ding-dong

Shit. Doorbell.

So now I'm scrambling to get dry enough to get dressed. Then my cell phone goes off. Double shit. I scramble into clothes and get the phone and tell them I'm home---I was, uh, just in the middle of something and couldn't answer the door. So I answer the door in dripping hair and wet-splotched clothes. Awesome. Idiots. I was so close to snapping at them that "I was told you'd call 1/2 an hr before..." but whatever.

So now my washer/dryer is 95% hooked up and I'm more excited than annoyed right now. Once they leave, I'm going to Target to buy new Energy Efficient detergent, since my washer is one of those eco-friendly ones. Well, I had to go to Target anyhoo. And when I'm out, I'll get a celebratory burrito at Qdoba's, then off to dad's to still collect my detergent and fabric softener stuff. Yay! I'm stoked!

I may just wash everything I own twice.

I have four weeks at most to get "immediate and consistent" results for Member Card numbers, email captures, and gift card sales, or I'm gone at Barnes & Noble.

Yep. I may get fired in 4 weeks because no one wants to buy a Member card for $25 (um... economy still sucks) and people are paranoid about giving out email addresses (they don't want more spam!), and no one's thinking of getting gift cards yet because it's just November or they're going the cheap gift route this year (see aforementioned economy note).

Never mind that I've put in 4 years of my life into this job. This job has driven me insane (literally, there's a file somewhere), caused insomnia, mental breaks, anxiety attacks, and depressive states, but I still came back after every episode because I love my job. I love helping people find books, telling them about my favorite authors and books, and seeing the joy on a little kid's face when they get their own book in their own bag and carry it out of the store. Never mind my great customer service skills, dedication to the company, rapport with customers and fellow employees. Never mind that.

I may not have a job in 4 weeks because I can't get the insane percentage of Member card transactions corporate has declared we must get in this economic shitstorm. And never mind that one week were I got  .97% I was on customer services and barely touched the register.

Whatever. Fire me and the numerous other employees at my store who do their job well and get it done right, who are trustworthy and have been with the company for 1+ years. Fire them and hire people who may or may not live up to what you demand out of your employees. An interesting note: Out of the last crew we hired for the summer, I think only 5 stayed? And we had hired about 7-10? A lot of them just stopped showing up for work, or just didn't hack it for some reason. Yeah. Have fun hiring about 15 new people and keeping maybe 6? Maybe. That's a nice gamble my store, and Barnes & Noble likes to play. I hope all those new hires work out (sense my bitter fiery sarcasm?).

So yeah. Fuck you, Barnes & Noble. I'm going to hit up Target and see if they're hiring. Because I sure as hell know I can't meet those insane standards for numbers they believe we can get. No matter what new way I phrase the same old questions, I won't get that Member card. No one wants to spend extra money now. I hope my store laments firing me, and I know they will.

parts x-posted to

bn_booksellers

Okay, now that I have more time, I can properly explain my weird dream with French Avant Guard or Bohemian or something performers.

So somehow I'm in France, Paris to be exact. A friend and I are walking around this really bohemian/eccentric area of Paris with odd theaters and shops, boutiques and such of randomness. And somehow we stumble upon a cafe attached to a theater in this weird four-story-walk up and they are having an editing session. Somehow I am carrying the printed off manuscript to Through the Woods, and I hand it off to someone to edit it. My friend then drags me off to some clothing store and we're gone for a while.

I come back, looking for my manuscript (my friend has disappeared now), and I finally find one of the eccentric theater people reading it. I ask for it back, and the woman says "No, we're rehearsing." I ask what they're rehearsing, and she says "The Through the Woods play, it's amazing!" I tell her I wrote it and I hadn't meant it to be a play. She then calls all the theater people (think of how the people in the musical/movie Rent are dressed) into the room and they gush and go off on how amazing the play is going to be and how honored they are to meet the author. I'm flattered and they ask me to stay and help direct and make sure "their vision stays true to the essence of the story." I agree and somehow time flashes forward to a few weeks later and the final dress rehearsal is going on and a big snow storm is happening outside. The "vision" of the play is very performance art and interpretive dance inspired. Just weird, but it was brilliant in the dream. Since my friend has abandoned me in Paris, I had been staying in the odd upstairs apartments of the theater building, but they are all being used now by other actors. People offered me a place to stay at their flats, but this one guy, I think the actor who plays Liam in Through the Woods (if you read it, you'd know who that is!) says I can stay there.

Apparently through the whole rehearsal process, a weird unspoken attraction had built between us. He's tall and lean with reddish brown hair and these green-shaded John Lennon glasses and he's just gorgeous. Unknown to me another actor, this short, pudgy, moleish looking man had become obsessed with me (as the author of the "play") and now plotted against us being together. The next night is opening night and the house is packed and after the play and the numerous curtain calls, the actors call me out on stage to address the audience. I thank them for coming and then start gushing and crying because my dream of having a story I wrote come to life in such a dramatic and moving way was finally realized.

Then the heavy main curtain fell suddenly and I think it crushed me. I don't quite remember because I was startled awake by a caterwauling Diesel.

picture ganked from lele244

I mean, I'm grateful for what the medication has done to me---for me. I've been stable---consistently stable---for the last 3 years. But when I look back at what I used to do, creatively, back all those years ago... I feel something is missing. It didn't take hours of procrastination and debating and bargaining to want to write or draw. I would sit at the computer and type for hours, nonstop, without writer's block. I'd draw for hours... I can't really remember the last thing I drew within the last... 4 years. I don't draw anymore. It took me 4 years to finish Magic & Madness, true part of that time I was having the hardest phase of my depression and had to be partially hospitalized for a month... but it took me 1.5 years after that to finish the book. I feel that creative spark is... not gone.... but muffled. Hidden under a snuffer.

It just makes me think about what I'd be doing, what I'd accomplished without the medication.

Apparently Mitch Albom was in our Barnes & Noble Tuesday morning. You know, the guy who wrote such inspirational books as Tuesdays with Morrie, For One More Day, and The Five People You Meet In Heaven. Well, I guess he was touring around Barnes & Nobles looking at how his book newest book, Have a Little Faith, was displayed, because some authors spend big money to get their books displayed on their own tables and stuff like that.

But apparently, he was a real... well... "unpleasant person", in the words of booklady50, who had the (dis)pleasure of interacting with him. I wasn't there, I didn't work at BN yesterday, but I stopped in before heading over to Lane Bryant and chatted with her, and wow. Mitch Albom's kinda a prick. And a hypocrite. He and his little flunkie assistant were taking pictures of where his book was displayed and Mitch was pitching a fit because it wasn't displayed where he thought it should be---since he did pay B&N money to have his own table or something. But yeah, the whole time he was there, taking pictures of the misplacement of his books, apparently he was just a prick and was rude to booklady50 when she offered to get a manager for him to talk to. Quote: "Well, if it won't take too long." (and have that dripping with annoyance acid).

So... yeah. Here's this guy who is supposed to be the author of great inspirational books about changing your life for the better and all that... pitching a royal I'm-the-king-of-everything-cuz-I'm-the-author fit because his book wasn't in the spot it was supposed to be. booklady50 and I discussed how he could have handled that a lot better, in a more tactful way of letting his annoyance or confusion be known. Like so: "Oh, I was under the impression that my book was meant to be displayed as such. But it's not. Maybe I'll have my people call BN Corporate and figure this out." Simple, tactful, conveys the point without being a douche about it.

I've decided that I'm going to pull a Mitch Albom when I'm a successful author. Yeah.

x-posted to bn_booksellers

Over the last 2 weeks I've spent a lot of money on movies. Not buying DVDs, but going to see an actual movie in an actual movie theater. I went to go see Zombieland three times with friends, and each time it was great. Although, now, I think I'm all zombie'd out for now until the movie comes out on DVD. If you love zombies, you need to see this movie. It's funny, scary at times (I still jump out of my seat at certain parts after 3 viewings), and it's just a good fun movie to watch and eat popcorn to. I mean, it's zombies. Zombies can't be all that deep (despite what you try to achieve with your movies, Mr. Romero... zombies just aren't good for social commentary). I would place Zombieland in the same arena as Shaun of the Dead, scary, yet funny. Laugh-out-loud funny at parts. Especially the cameo toward the end of the movie. I won't tel you who the cameo is, since that would ruin it, but it was great. I was greatly pleased with it. On my scale of 1-10, I give Zombieland a solid 9.

Michael Buble (Boo-Blay) has a new CD out, Crazy Love, and I got it. Yay for Michael Buble! However... it's not that great. There are certain songs that are good but not enough to save the whole. Track #5, "Haven't Met You Yet" it cute and good, but his cover of Ray Charles' "Georgia On My Mind" is lacking that power and emotion that a) Ray had when he sang it, but 2nd) I've heard Michael sing powerfully on other CDs, and this whole CD is missing that emotion behind the songs. His last CD, Call Me Irresponsible, was great because it wasn't produced within an inch of its life, and he had power and passion to his voice. This CD is lacking, you can hear it in his voice. It's almost like "I'm not really going to try, because I know housewives will buy my CD anyway." And don't get me started on his cover of Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me a River". So much potential to that song!! And Michael doesn't even reach it. And I want to say that #9 "You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You" is a cover of a Sinatra song (but don't quote me on it, I've been wrong before). Michael Buble has done other Sinatra songs and this one just sucks. I mean... ugh. Fail. I give Crazy Love a 4.5 on my scale. Good, but, really, could have been a helluva lot better.

Got some writing done last night, which was good. But then I got super tired at 10pm (o.0) and went to bed. I fell asleep to Robot Chicken and discovered when I woke up Kiera had hopped up on my lap (with laptop) and settled down for a nap with me. I did get somewhere on chapter sixteen before I retired for the night, and added 1695 more words to Magic & Destiny. About a little less than 1/2 of the way to my weekly goal. Since I have this morning off from work, I might get some more down. I was on call this morning @ BN for a 9am shift, but didn't call in @ 8 to check... because I was still sleeping and woke up at 9am thinking I was working at Lane Bryant this morning... oops. They have yet to call me, so apparently they didn't need me. And I don't think the MODs know they have people for on call shifts anyway, so don't bother to check. Whatever. I'm not feeling good today, anyway. So I can relax until about 4, and go to Lane Bryant and work 4 hours there. Yay.

I'm really fighting the urge to go back to bed. I have stuff I really should be doing around here. Like picking up all the crap in my office. Sweeping off my deck because leaves, bird crap, and seeds aren't pretty. Do dishes. Write more. Finish Cell by Stephen King or finish Homer's Odyssey by Gwen Cooper... ugh. Right now sleep is winning.

I haven't written about Rogue Angel in a while. I've kinda stalled out in that series, due to other books lobbying for attention as well as writing my own books to sell to the reading masses. I'm such a dork that I downloaded all 22 available book covers because one day, somehow, I'll find a way to make a cool book cover collage out of all of them. But soon there will be book #22 (The Spirit Banner). Stupidly excited about it. And #21 Paradox comes out in November. But I haven't read #17-20 yet, so why am I so excited? Because I know they're coming, and I love the cover art. Another idiosyncrasy I have: when the next book in a series I am reading comes out, even if I'm not ready to read it, I must buy it. Dunno why. *le shrug* I also need to work on updating my Rogue Angel Icon batches. I think I only have up to... #16 made. I would have a RA Icon here, but the last one I used for Polar Quest wasn't all that great, and I already read that book. So I need to make new ones for the books I haven't read, and use them when I'm reading them. Yeah, I know, I'm a dork!

Speaking of books... sometime this week I need to get my bookshelves up from the garage and get my books back where they belong. I'm tired of having all my crap in boxes, so I'm just going to set up my house without painting. It's just taking too long to get painting done, especially with no one's schedules matching up to mine to help me paint and stuff. So... yeah. I need to have a functional house over paint right now. Once I get my books all organized, I can update my book lists in Excel and get that straightened out. I'm surprised I've lasted this long without organizing stuff. I think the mess of my house just overloaded my OCD and it just shut down. But now it's starting to wake up and I must organize!!

Kiera and Diesel are both "hiding" in my office. Kiera is on my folding chair, curled up all comfy, while Diesel is curled up in a purple collapsible cube thingy which has been his new sleeping place lately. An improvement from sleeping on top of the kitchen cabinets.

Well, I should wrap this up. I have to wake up @ 8am to call BN to see if I'm needed for a 9am on-call shift. WTF. I pray that I'm not needed. I need to sleep and clean and do laundry.

I thought of this list while I was at dad's doing laundry (again) because Kiera felt the need to pee on my bed (after I just got done washing those sheets and bed spread last night, so now the bedroom is Kitteh Free Zone for an indefinite time frame). I was watching on the Travel Channel a show called Ghost Adventures and it, of course, got me all creeped out. And got me thinking about the entity in dad's basement. Anyway, here's my list of weird things I do. Why I'm sharing, I dunno. Hopefully if you see me doing any one of these things, you'll remember this list and not think I'm too weird.

1. Count to 3 (let 3 steps pass) when I'm getting on a down escalator
2. Cross myself when I go down into dad's basement when I'm home by myself (because of the entity)
3. Insist on collecting all available color options of a lacey cami offered at Lane Bryant [this only shows 3 colors: Golden Palm, Peacoat Blue, Black but I also have it in: cream, lime green, lavender, royal purple, magenta, wine/burgundy, pale blue... I think that's all of them]
4. If I'm eating an onion ring (which is seldom) and the onion comes out of the batter part than just the bite-sized piece, I have to pull the whole thing out and just eat the breading
5. I pick out the white crunchy boney parts of lettuce in a sammich/burrito/salad
6. I walk up/down the basement stairs with my back to the wall (see #2)

I thought I had one or two more, but I guess they slipped away when I was driving home tonight. Oh well.

Does anyone know where I can get a statue of St. Francis de Sales? I need one for my office.