More about the old girl (me).

I am experimenting with code today.Lilia of Sew Little Time (check out her gorgeous apron post--May 30) has tagged me with a meme!

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?

Getting ready to direct my film school thesis project, a cheery post-apocalyptic jaunt. Location scouts included getting chased off quarries by men who probably had guns in their trucks (until we found the one magical friendly quarry!), going to NASA and touring their whatever-you-call-it fancy space gardening area, and having the most incredible sets built. The kewlest. Although in the end the whole experience didn't average out to "wonderful", I'm afraid.

2.) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):

Continue to read the ARC of BAD GIRLS; start reading FALLOUT and actually making notes this time; water plants and possibly go get more pots; finish organizing the kitchen; drop broken-again sewing machine off at sewing machine repair store (again!).

3) Snacks I enjoy:

Um, everything. Seriously. I'm like a raccoon or goat. But I do especially enjoy cookie dough right out of the package and Doritos. And cheese.

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

Probably start a school like Oprah's, only not just admit photogenic girls. Also, sponsor me up a bunch of Puppies Behind Bars. Pay off my house, buy the new McMansion down the street and demolish it immediately, situate my family happily, get that dent in the back of my car fixed... really, what couldn't you do with a billion dollars? I'd do everything.

5) Places I have lived:
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida; Tallahassee, Florida; Van Nuys, California; Burbank, California; Studio City, California.

6) Jobs I have had:
"Sales associate" at Kay-Bee Toys, Abercrombie & Fitch (before they went all naked-catalog), and Learningsmith. Receptionist, assistant, development assistant, infomercial writer... good times!

7) 6 peeps I wanna know more about (and in no particular order):

1. Mary Witzl--just her answer to "where have you lived" will probably be a list pages long

2. Mary from Overnight at Thistletonthwaite Castle

3. Jay Montville

4. Jamie Ford (who can already find his book an Amazon! Jealousjealousjealous!)

5. I don't know if she does memes, but let's see if Little Willow from Bildungsroman happens across this (I know all these high-tech women check their links and stats... it's like leaving a trail of breadcrumbs!)

6. And Alex.

Tag!
I'm thinking about redesigning the website soon.


I wonder how these boxes affect the RSS feeds?

Wonderful peeps

I have been feeling the love this week! All of your wonderful comments on my cover, birthday wishes, a great mention at Josephine's blog, actual Love from Jozet at Halushki... a warm welcome back from the members of Backspace after my long unexplained absence there... a nice cake and party at work, and on and on.

This is especially good because otherwise I would be focused to linger on the fact that my birthday ushered in the most freakish weather patterns in recent memory and the only obvious conclusion is that God is sending me a message.

;-)

No, but I was already feeling the glow when I came across this post at agent Janet Reid's blog. It made me smile!

I hope everybody's having a great weekend. I get to spend this rainy, gray day sewing at home, which is about all I could ask for.

Bad Girls Don't Die: presenting... the cover!

Let me start by saying, I love my cover! My designer is a brilliant woman at Hyperion named Beth Clark. She took the design in a totally different direction than lesser folks (me) would have thought to do. She really brought out the spooky, gothic side. I first saw this a couple of months ago, and it took my breath away. I loved it instantly, which was amazing, because as an author, you hear all these horror stories about hideous covers.

But none of that here--I loved it, Agent M loved it, and I hope you like it!

(Click the image to look at a larger version, if you're interested.)



This is an exciting week... I'm supposed to be getting my ARCs (advanced review copies) soon, too! And I realized yesterday that today is the one-year anniversary of my working with the Delightful Editor. And tomorrow is my birthday! And the dog show is super busy! And I'm going to need more coffee! And more exclamation marks!!!! *collapses*

PS - Thank you all for your kindness regarding Winston's illness. He actually had a rough weekend (and so, therefore, did we), but if you have to pick a weekend to sit inside with your dog and not leave the house, it might as well be the weekend with record-breaking heat. He's very much on the mend now.

Winston's ear surgery went fine.

I spoke to the nurse. Winston is fine, and he's coming home tonight.

Thanks for your support and kind thoughts.

k.

Winston's latest

Bad monkey = me. I'm all backlogged on comment replies and even getting around to everybody's blogs. If you ever read the Little House on the Prairie books and remember the book where Laura's too busy partying it up at church socials and competing in spelling bees to study, that's sort of what my life has been like lately.

But please excuse me for one more day, and also please send some happy thoughts/vibes/prayers (however you roll) for Winston, who is having a minor surgery today for an ear polyp that was discovered over the weekend. It's not the polyp I'm worried about (I'm told they're mostly benign, and you could really drive yourself crazy speculating otherwise), but general anesthesia always carries a risk.

I'm also a little worried that this could affect the hearing in his left ear, but considering he's not a very good listener, I'm not going to lose any sleep over that for the time being.

It began when he gave a big old yelp at about 4 am Saturday, and then later that day proceeded to yelp whenever anyone touched his left ear. We went to the vet and they found the polyp.

So, I have no actual reason to freak out, but I still hate to have him put under. He's such a little guy.

I should put "little" in quotes, though, because he's back up to almost 20 pounds. (The container of sugar cookies he managed to find and decimate the other day certainly didn't help.)

Thanks, everybody. I'll post an update when he's out of surgery.

The doorknob fell off.

I know that sounds like a metaphor, but it's not. The little tab thing you press down on to open my front door popped off--thankfully after the door was open. I guess you call a locksmith for this kind of thing...? We have a couple of other lock issues that need to be taken care of, so I guess it's time. In the meanwhile, I'll rest comfortably knowing that no one can possibly expect me to leave my house while there's no good way to get back inside.

In other news, the garden is coming along nicely! Although I don't think I heeded Mary Witzl's advice in time to keep from flooding my garlic. I do know that the Peruvian Daffodils are getting close to pushing up over the top of the soil--I saw a hint of green in both pots! It's funny to think that all my life I've walked by people's incredible gardens and not been impressed, but I manage to get two plants to grow and I feel like the queen of all I survey.

One of the most charming things I've seen lately is a smattering of baby praying mantises around the yard. A couple of weeks ago, I followed one as it made its way down the railing of the deck. Head to tail (or whatever), it couldn't have been more than 7 or 8 millimeters. At one point, it stopped walking and turned its tiny head to look at me. Then it set about doing a series of Tai-Chi moves, leaning slowly forward and then backward, all the while watching me. (Maybe it had a crush!)

Lately we've seen one on the dwarf orange tree, over the course of a few days. Slightly bigger. They're just so darn cute. And when they're older, they'll eat all sorts of pesky pests.

The peaches are getting nice and rosy, too ("peach", I believe, is the technical term).

Last weekend, we had our first backyard get-together. It was great fun, although I'm really neurotic about improper "flow" at parties. Clumps of people make me nervous. So I took a few mental notes about what can be placed where to keep people scattered and moving.

So spring has sprung! Although it's cold and damp here--has our misty June gloom come early?

More on book minimalism

Is it the onset of warm weather that makes me so desperate to clean my house? And not just tidy it, but rip through it and get rid of everything we don't need or use?

The problem is, we have so much little stuff that just hides away in closets, and then when you try to get something done, the little stuff all jumps out and says, "Ha ha ha, what about me?" and then you're left looking at picture hanging kits and canisters of 35-millimeter film and instruction manuals to stuff you know you have around here somewhere. And what can you do? You can't get RID of it, for heaven's sake! What a waste of good 35-millimeter film.

However, I'm making some progress.

("Why don't you tell us about it, Katie?")

Okay!

Online indie bookstore Powell's has a neato feature called Sell Us Your Books, wherein you can enter the ISBNs from any books you're looking to get rid of and they'll either bid or not accept it. This is a heady and addictive process, let me tell you. Before you know it, you'll be scouring your shelves just to find books that they'll take. "Accept me, Powell's!" you will say. "Let me and this copy of Angela's Ashes into your exclusive club!" (Spoiler: that's an ix-nay on Angela's Ashes.)

They're not offering hundreds of dollars. They offer a couple dollars for hardcovers and less than a dollar for most paperbacks. After a while, you start to get an idea of what they're into, and you start trying to guess whether something will be accepted.

Here's the exciting part, though: if Powell's doesn't take it, you can't put it back on the shelves. You have to put it in a stack of books that will go the the thrift store or to a library. Because if you were ready to let it go for 75 cents, you can let it go for free. Let's be real here, fellas.

Anyway, I have a box shipping out today (pre-paid), so that's exciting. I actually made almost enough room on my shelves for all the books that I used to keep in the sewing room, but had to move when my fabric stash overtook the space.

What's that, you say? When am I going to purge the fabric stash and sewing room?

I'm sorry, I don't have time to talk about that. I have to go shoot fifteen rolls of 35mm film.

*runs away*

Two words: supervolcano

Ha! I know that's just one word, but at work I'm dealing with questionnaires that say, "Describe this dog in one word," and the amount of people who don't know the definition of the number one is staggering.

"Always ready to show!"
"Fun/loving/energetic"
"He is amazing"

Next time, I'll say, "Describe this dog in one (1) word." Perhaps that'll clear things up.

Although the responses are all delightful to me. I like it when people at dog shows take the time to write down cute stuff about their dogs. It's all about the dogs, after all.

Oh, no, wait--today it's all about the supervolcano.

Evidence can be found here.

Please resume with your day, which you may feel is oddly invaded by my multiple blog entries. See, this is what happens when you take away my computer.

Officially annoyed.

Okay. There's quite a backlash about a major online book retailer (and the way they handle reviews) right now in some circles. The curious can check out a blog called Dear Author and get the details.

A co-worker and I have been discussing a certain New Agey book put out by a certain New Agey author and promoted by a certain talk show host. I tried to get through the book a month or two ago, and found that it struck me as impractical and basically nonsense.

I posted a one-star review at the major online retailer. I noticed as I did it how rabidly fans of this book would attack negative reviews, but I wanted to put an opinion out there that might keep someone like me from spending money on this book. I understand that there are differences of opinion. I understand that some people find it life-changing.

I didn't like it. It didn't change my life, except that I had used that month's Audible.com credit to buy it, and when I gave up on it, I was left without an audio book for my commute.

My one-star review is gone.

Major online retailer has a policy of removing abusive or irrelevant reviews. Mine, I can assure you, was neither.

I am so creeped out by the thought that people who read and love this book enough to consider themselves "enlightened" are already practicing angry-mob techniques like reporting reviews in order to censor criticism.

It's like trying to play tennis with someone who won't let go of the ball.

Grr!

PS - The book is Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth. The talk show host is Oprah.

My life as a pioneer woman.

Two days ago, the unthinkable happened:

I had finally managed to lure the husb down to the sewing room. I often try to get him to come hang out with me while I work, but he doesn't particularly like going downstairs. But on this day, the top story of the house was very warm, and the basement level was nice and cool.

Almost immediately, my sewing machine broke. Something happened where the needle thread gets caught under the little plate where all the secret, magic stuff goes on. I tried repeatedly, but couldn't fix it.

Then, the next morning, as I was sitting at the computer, the husb comes in and says, "I need the computer for a shoot we're doing over the next two days."

I beg your pardon?

But these mythical "shoots" are apparently more importantly than my voting on lolcats over at I Can Has Cheezburger, so I surrendered the machine (with great misgivings and lots of whining to show how serious I was, naturally).

That night, I got home from work to find that the shoot was still ongoing, thereby robbing me of the third of the four essential items in my home (my husband--the fourth is Winston, but he was grouchy). Add this to our chronic lack of groceries and the fact that our DVR is full of high-def episodes of CSI: Miami (don't ask me why, I gave up on David Caruso a loooong time ago), and I was marooned.

I wandered around the silent house, occasionally pausing to look at the empty desk where the computer belonged. Then, clearly driven to madness by the starkness of my situation--

I went downstairs and started... cleaning. On a weeknight.

The big room downstairs has become a bit of a catch-all, especially with the new outdoor-type supplies that have to live inside. I rotated the couch and started organizing and making various little piles and putting things away.

Eventually, I hit a wall and went back upstairs. I found something random to eat and sat down to watch The Stepford Wives, feeling strangely like a Stepford wife myself. That movie is so strange. Especially now that it's so ingrained in pop culture--every time they say, "There's something wrong in Stepford," you want to shout at the screen, "What do you expect? It's STEPFORD! The place with the wives!"

Last night, knowing there was neither sewing machine nor computer nor husb waiting for me at home, I stopped and meandered around the grocery store a little. Then I got home and found that the DVR had made room for America's Next Top Model (which I am starting to have a problem with, as none of the winners actually go on to become, you know, MODELS). I prepped a little food, sat down on the couch, and watched Tyra Banks ham it up.

This morning, like a dream, I woke to find the computer back in its spot. The husb is also in his spot, and Winston is more sleepy than grouchy. The sewing machine has not yet been repaired, but I have a loaner.

Close call with reality, eh?

PS - Bath math:

getting conditioner for hair + looking at face wash = conditioner all over face

PPS - Winston is three years old! His birthday was Tuesday.