Lust For A Very Particular Book

So when my backpack was stolen, besides my laptop, iPod, art supplies and deck of cards, I had an ARC of Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings.

I was really enjoying the book. It took me a while to get into it, but it was so very pretty that I could hardly resist. Here is the thing. I would buy the book again, but I hate hardbacks. I can't carry them anywhere because they weigh something like ten zillion pounds.

If anyone has or knows of someone who has an ARC of Way of Kings and is willing to sell it, tell me, children. I will pay postage and whatever reasonable price the person wants.

ARG! Yay ARG! Yay.

This weekend has been bipolar. Along with the usual lack of sleep, I,

1) sold a story

2) got my laptop and iPod stolen.

On the first: I sold an elbow-rubbing story to Jen Brozek at Apex for her new anthology, "Human Tales." This particular antho is a bunch of faerie tales from the fey creature's point of view. Mine was an Arabian Nights pastiche, and well-received by my writing group, who promptly went home and died with their lives complete.

On the second: ARG. ARG. ARRRRRUGUGG.

We were at a potluck yesterday in Cornwall Park, aka Frisbee Golf Stonerville USA. Because we filled our arms with babies and baby stuff, we forgot to ensure that the trunk had closed properly.

Some ratfink who should catch leprosy and die opened the trunk and helped himself to my backpack, including a laptop, iPod, two notebooks full of stuff relating to my tutoring job, a deck of cards, and an ARC of The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson.

Seriously now. Why do people do this? There was a box of diapers, two carseats, and a mess of kids' toys in that car.

What drives me crazy--oh oh--is knowing that the person can go through all my crap. None of it is interesting. Most of it is backed up on another computer. But they can read my lists of books I've read and read my journal entries and look at pictures of me and Chrissy throughout the years. They can see the Radiohead bootlegs that probably only a few other fanatics have. They can even read my stories. If they are a complete idiot, they can try to publish them, which would actually be a nice way to bust the thief. I'm changing everything online--passwords, security questions, everything. I'm calling every pawn shop (luckily we go to church with the cop who took the report, so he's doing more looking than usual) in this county and I'm trying the ISP to see if they can find the IP address. I just scored a circa 2009 laptop on eBay for way less than Mac would charge me.

But.

Some stoner idiot is out there looking through my pictures and my writing.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGG.

Comin Atcha From The Depths of the Diaper

Hi.

I have not blogged in a bit. Nor have I written. Nor have I finished any of my career-oriented tasks within any more of an hour before they are due. Nor have I slept.

On the good side, though, nobody is literally drinking my bodily fluids that I know of. Chrissy often complains that "it's tough being a cow," to which I reply, "unutterably so."

I DO write, though. I tutor a kid who likes creative writing and we write together and swap stories. I get paid by the hour for it. My life is awesome.

This is not one of those stories. This is, instead, a story that awriter penned at a writing-group session, about me.


All Spencer wanted was to sleep. Between Samwise's 1:00 AM arias and Adia's new tendency to play Godzilla Death Metal Screamy Time at 5:00 in the morning, he wasn't getting more than one hour of sleep each night. It was starting to wear on him.

"Opium!" said Victorian Spider-Man, who looked exactly like modern Spider-Man, except he wore a black top hat, gloves and a monocle. "Opium will quiet those little scamps straightaway!"

"No, Victorian Spider-Man," Spencer said. "Opium will just warp their little minds and send them to rehab at age 5. What do you think, Housewife Superman?"

Housewife Superman adjusted his floral apron. "Send them to a different planet where they will be raised by a kindly elderly couple and grow up to be superheroes! Or give them warm milk."

"They don't have superpowers, Mrs. Kent. Tony Stark?"

Tony Stark gave him a skeptical look over the rim of his gin and tonic. "Do I really look like someone you'd want advice for your kids from?"

"Why not?"

Tony tossed back his drink. "I'd put them in an ice chamber and take them out when they were twenty-five."

A tiny voice from behind asked, "Daddy, why are you talking to the rice maker?"

It Is Done And Cannot Be Undone

More or less.

He's Samwise, for good or bad. No doubt much of the Internet is pleased and a few of you are horrified. This is my favorite text on the subject: "When he is twenty, what will happen when he's trying to pick up on a girl and she finds out he is named after a hobbit?"

To the sender I point out: Sam is the only one of those hobbits who snatched himself a lady.

Just in case, though, I am starting a money jar to change his name when he's older if he really wants it.

I spent so much of my life trying to be "important." I wanted praise and recognition and I wanted to be brilliant and better than everyone.

And yet my literary hero was totally humble and even a little dumb, but he did what his upper-class, literate, smart and informed buddy couldn't do.

I want Sam to understand that you don't have to be brilliant, you just have to be brave and stouthearted.

IN OTHER AWESOME NEWS: This weekend was much better than it had any right to be, considering we were out of the house, stuck in Bothell, while the landlady is having the lead paint removed. I got to go to a Clarion party with the awesome criada . I would like to reiterate to everyone there that I Am Not A Cool Guy. I got a new contract position at work helping to design the curriculum for some online courses, which is really cool.

ANNNNND.... I got into Viable Paradise for this year along with aforementioned criada and plunderpuss . Represent, Bellingham! W00t!

Sam(wise?) German Ellsworth

I started on Tuesday to write a blog post about how the baby was eight days overdue. It was snarkily called "Honey, BP Called And They Want Your Cervix To Plug The Oil Spill."

As of 8:00 that night, Chrissy proved that blog post unnecessary. After a small intervention by the midwives to help open said cervix, five hours of intense labor produced a nine-pound boy at 8 PM. True to his hobbit namesake, he proceeded to have two dinners, four midnight snacks, and three breakfasts.



Adia is much happier about having a brother than we thought. She wanted a sister and she was also afraid of getting replaced. But she is fascinated with Sam and constantly wants to hold him.

We are still waffling on whether or not to go all the way and name him Samwise. I love the idea of a special name no one else has that is based on a noble little hobbit. On the other hand, his teacher will read it aloud on the first day of school and somebody just might say "stupid fat hobbit!"

Of course, that would make said tormentor a schizophrenic fish-eating jewelry-addicted goblin.

What do you guys think? To Wise or not to Wise?

HE'S NOT DEAD!

No, I'm not. I have for over a month now been very worked up about the Arizona law targeting ethnic studies classes. Having taught an ethnic studies class at Western, I really want to take the time to write a thoughtful blog post about the experience and how it might relate, for all that I was a privileged white kid teaching (mostly) privileged white kids. Funny stories.

But anytime I have a couple of hours to write, I've actually been writing. One day. Until then: Jan Brewer, you are a simpleton.

Here's an excerpt from what I've been writing. This one was called "Father's Day:"


They had just gotten into bed at one AM when someone—Jeff would later correct himself and say something—banged on the drum set.

Jeff stumbled to the garage door. Three Annas looked up at him, three sets of blonde curls, three sets of two teeth and three ice-blue eyes. They scattered, squealing with glee as the man they thought of as their daddy ran after them. “Fallon! Clones!”

The Particle Cannons of Kilimanjaro

I meant to keep up on this blog. I really did. I was going to write such blog posts. Moments of great profundity. But at the moment I am laid up with severe pain in an uncomfortable place.

I have decided to play a game. To play this game you need one (1) copy of a Transformers comic book from the eighties and one (1) copy of The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway. Stir and allow to rise.


"Now taste high-frequency sonics, creep!" he said.

"I wish you wouldn't," she said.

"Fools! You are nothing to me--less than nothing!" He looked over to where the huge, filthy birds sat, their naked heads sunk in the hunched feathers. A fourth planed down, to run quick-legged and then waddle slowly toward the others.

"I don't quarrel. I never want to quarrel. Let's not quarrel any more. No matter how nervous we get."

"For... this... infamy... I will tear you apart with my bare hands!"

"Oh for Christ sake stop bragging, will you?"

He looked at her and saw her crying.

"Listen," he said. "Do you think that it is fun to do this? Fool! Have you learnt so little from our previous battles? I am power incarnate! I cannot be stopped... and I cannot be destroyed!"

"Stop it. Harry, why do you have to turn into a devil now?"

"I have only to wait for the volcano's imminent eruption. At that moment my power siphon will seize the raw, naked energy released... and convert it into limitless power for me to absorb! Nothing can stop me attaining my godhood now!" He turned his head and grinned and pointed and there, ahead, all he could see, as wide as all the world, great high and unbelievably white, was the square top of Kilimanjaro.

"You don't have to destroy me. Do you? I'm only a middle-aged woman who loves you and wants to do what you want to do. I've been destroyed two or three times already. You wouldn't want to destroy me again, would you?"

"Why do you persist in this futile struggle?"

"Why, I loved you. That's not fair. I love you now. I'll always love you. Don't you love me?"

"Such a noble speech... such a waste of time. Deceptions, fire!"