It’s been tough with the daughter away–and unreachable. We race for the mail and jump anytime the phone rings or beeps, hoping for word from her. The letters we have gotten from basic training are all positive. Wait, she said basic training was fun. Maybe SHE’s the crazy one.

As for me, I’m working, doing the normal housey things and trying to enjoy a little outdoors time in the evening after the baking sun is low on the horizon. Been writing–for a short book, my current project sure is kicking my ass! and also doing a little reading.

I’m on book four of a semi-popular para/sci fi series and have decided I’m not going to read any further. Aside from the Janet Evanovich series, I have never been a series kinda girl and although I tried with this one, and I really do like the characters, I can’t do it. I keep thinking the author is going to make things bigger and badder and weirder and of course the worse case scenerio ALWAYS happens to put the main characters in some kind of mortal danger and of course they get pulled out at the knick of time. While it’s not the same, there’s still a repetition to it. Four’s enough. Plus, there’s a bit of romance here and there that has on more than one occasion left me rolling my eyes, because, again, it’s another extreme.

On my next trip to the bookstore I”ll be trolling for some para/sci-fi’s that aren’t series’d out the yang. One or two works for me. Even if it’s not romance, and my reading appetite has been light on the romance in the last month or two, I still am ready to say goodbye to the characters after a book or two. I’m probably in the minority (aren’t I always?) but that’s my take.

Told you I was crazy.

I’m still shaking my head, wondering how the hell time went so fast. If you’re inclined, say a prayer for her safety and success. I’m sure I’ll update when I’ve heard from her, and of course, when she comes home end of August.

I figured I’ll dive deep into writing to keep my mind off the fact she’s gone. An empty house will take some getting used to. The hardest part won’t be that she’s gone, but that she’s not simply a phone call away.

I’ll try to post a pic of her in uniform when I get one.

Anyway, came up with a pretty cool idea that I felt was rather novel. Doesn’t mean it is, I’m certainly not the best read creature in town, but it was something different plot-wise and I spent the boring drive (Tues night at 9:30–No one is out!) thinking about it. Had so much figured out. I stopped at a stop light and grabbed a post it note from my purse and jotted down two sentences.

*cries* it wasn’t enough. It’s gone! The whole thing is….missing from my brain! The sentences covered the concept, but in the daylight it evokes a “so what?” reaction. Was I simply over-tired and in mental shut down from high school band songs, rather good chocolate chip cookies and sherbert punch? Or did I really lose a good thing? I doubt I’ll remember.

Eh, at least I am still getting ideas. When that well dries up, I’ll cry. Word to wise–be specific in your notes. If I’d have just taken 10 minutes before I went to bed and spelled things out, I’d be searching for another blog topic.
Or simply eating my lunch instead of crumbing up the keyboard.

So Godspeed, little T. We love you and will miss you.

Evening edit: That was an adventure. We got his house up in the tree with him inside, and he didn’t want to come out. I can imagine him. Wow, big room! Lots of noises. We actually had to convince him to come out of his house. He did–and promptly jumped on me. This isn’t anything new, he liked to climb on us. It was almost as if he were afraid to touch the ground. Then he jumped. He explored around on the ground, then on some small branches, and finally into a tree. He climbed it ALL the way to the very tippey top and looked down at us.

I really thought I’d be all sad and cry, but I was actually so excited and thrilled and proud the way he seemed to take to the wild. I’ve got a pic, I’ll post… eventually.

At least so says the inventor of the dildo.

(What’s the correct spelling of dildo… dildoe… anyway?)

Thanks, DH, for that cute little tidbit.

When I got home tonight, my husband and the neighbor, Mike, are standing outside, smiling. They feed me some b-s story about capturing some big ass raccoon and putting it in the extra cage in my room. I knew that was a joke, but they kept insisting there was a new critter inside.
A ferret. A poor, weak and outcast little girl. Not sure of her age, but she’s weak, way too skinny and looks like she’s been stuck outside for awhile. Her coat is ragged and dirty, but she’s friendly. So we hit the local pet store and got a weekend’s supply with intention of calling vet first thing Monday.

I just can’t help but wonder how they know to find us…

But really, first there were yahoo groups (at least first for me) or similar message board type sites. About the same time came forums, which were a little different, as far as oragnizing posts into specific conversations. IM an chat features have always been around and probably my most used form of communication. Blogs? Meh. I can’t keep up on my own. I feel lost for things to say, and know usually forcing a topic means it’s as boring to me as it will be to the rest of the earth who manage to stumble upon it. I do like reading other’s blogs, because I feel like I haven’t TOTALLY lost touch with the world and can gain some details about this publishing business and books and my friend’s lives. Myspace? I have one, it’s as bad as blogging, but a little less…lonely. Facebook? seems redundant to Myspace-why bother. But twitter? It boggles.

I guess my schedules does it for me. It’s why I gave up on yahoo groups. I *might* be able to glance at a few things in the morning before work, but never possibly catch up. Then 8-9 hours later I maybe can get online, maybe not. Even if I did comment to something, it’s likely hours late, or any responses back to me were hours ago and the subject dropped. I really don’t see twitter as anything more than a world wide yahoo group of messages, all mixed up and tied to different responses and answers and conversations. I can’t see it working for me. Plus, my cell phone is used as a cell phone. I call people, people call me. I’m neither need or want to be tied to some electronic device. I’ve got books to write, dammit.

And honestly, this blog post was really little more than an excuse to put off starting revisions on a book. But with an editor interested, I suppose that’s way more important than blogging, twittering or…anything else, yes?

The cat thing, well, Tornado’s here beside me and he wanted to be mentioned. S got a “cat encyclopedia” recently. Although we’d suspected for a while that Tornado and his brother Hurricane are part Maine Coon, the information in the book convinced us. Not only do the exterior features, especially size, ring true, the personality and abilities are spot on.

And on polar opposite of my 30lb not-fat-cat is my mother in laws new little puppy. All three, yes THREE pounds of her. She’s reputed to be half Yorkie, half Schnauzer and cute as a button. My cats could eat her alive, if they could catch the spirited little thing. She’s definitely an “Aww” sort of creature.

And finally, had fun watching Barrett-Jackson car auction–and having my husband enjoy himself working on his Chevelle in the garage. He tolerates cold better than I do, but soon we’ll both be out there, enjoying the car shows.

I’ve only got about 10 pages left to type in. Heading out to get it done. Ciao!

Occasionally I can get some neat story ideas from dreams. Sometimes major, sometimes just a teensy thought that may or may not turn into something viable.

Last night? er, OUT there.
The setting: my parents old house–the one I lived in from age 9 til 18. However, the inside of the house wasn’t set up the same, and “my” room, was actually from the house I have now. Yeah, cuz a dream isn’t ever going to make sense, right?

My dream started with me getting out of bed (although it wasn’t morning–it was… nearly dusk) because I heard scraping on the roof. I knew it was because my dad had finally decided to start removing shingles to reroof. (Sense is NOT part of dreams, remember?) I got up, (was already dressed) and dug into my closet for my old sneakers (cuz I didn’t wanna destroy the new ones, and needed good traction to get up on the roof and help)

So I walk outside and see a skateboard laying there. Which means I knew who was there. (Skateboard? WTF?) In fact, there was a whole caboodle of people there, some sitting, some helping clean up the yard as the guys on the roof threw shingles down.

(Here’s where it gets even more stupid).
I walked up to my friend and his girlfriend. I knew he was “white vampire” (but I have no idea what that means here in the waking world) and had a feeling his girlfriend was a witch. I was worried about them here among my family–not that I thought they’d hurt them, but that my family would think them monsters or something. I talked to them for awhile. While we chatted, my grandparents pulled up in a car my grandfather hasn’t owned in YEARS, a 1970-something burgundy colored Cordova. By this time is was full dark and two young teens had set up candles in bags (like you see at halloween). My grandmother immediately said “No, absolutely not, you’ll attract the _____.” I have no idea what she said, but it was something paranormal and evil. I personally wasn’t worried with my friend and his girlfriend there, but I wasn’t going to admit who they were.

They (being who? I dunno) ended up hanging candles in the trees around the house to illuminate the area well enough to keep working. In the meantime, my Grandma started walking around the house dragging a stick. I asked her why. I knew she wasn’t… a witch or anything powerful, but had some knowledge about protections. She said she was making a circle to keep out anything evil. I knew the circle would harm my friend and his girlfriend (no, I don’t have names! I can’t even picture them). So I told my grandmother protection was already in place.

We all took turns pulling shingles off the roof. At some point, my friend’s girlfriend asked where my husband was. I said he was in bed because he was ill. (that was my own dreamlike a-ha moment). So she said she’d go see if there was anything she could do.

And that was it. Dream over. I’m almost scared to ask someone to analyze the funky crap that comes out of my head while dreaming. However, the people who know I write–and write paranormal fiction most of the time–just shake their head and give a knowing smile instead of threatening me with a white coat and padded room.

I do. Here’s why….

Had a chance to watch Twilight the other night. I had…expectations. I hadn’t put them into words, but term cliche would probably be one of them. No–I hadn’t read the book(s). My daughter has. She’s talked about them to a small enough extent that my expectations weren’t swayed. Another vampire plot. How original could it be? I expected to find the heroine TSTL (Too stupid to live) and the hero overbearing, bossy, possessive and…unheroic. Especially since these were teenagers.

I’ll try to do this w/o spoilers, but gee, I’ve got to be the last person on the planet who’s neither read nor seen the movie, right?

It’ll be tricky to say this, but I’m glad Bella and Edward weren’t cast with actors who are….too pretty. I didn’t feel they were the most attractive characters in the film. I didn’t find Edward “drop dead gorgeous”, despite his looks being described that way at least once. Sorry… not for me. But–his looks (especially his eyes) were a perfect FIT for the moody, aged vampire caught in a teenagers body angst.

The characterization surprised and…yanked me in. The push/pull was good. Very good. While watching, I was making mental notes about how it was so clear we could see the attraction between them, and how they fought one another and themselves to stay apart. Their tension was good enough that I thought about it for days. To me that’s the spine tingling, breath catching rush of romance. This made the movie for me. The struggle with self control, the way neither bended or compromised who they were, really, yet still changed by what they learned by being together.

That said, I thought Bella accepted Edward’s near stalking like behavior a little too well. But kept reminding myself the book is huge–and not all that can make it on the screen. I can only hope the book makes up for that bit that makes me cringe. Please. I have a 17 yr old daughter. [side note: I asked--She thinks Edward is uber-creepy. She did say "creepy" several times during the watching of this show.]

Plot-wise I won’t say too much, because while it was better than I expected and didn’t caught in the deep ruts of BTST, I don’t think it would have carried the movie if the characters weren’t so richly developed. There were bits here and there that would have made me slap a big red ? in the margins if I were reading a friend’s (or my own) draft. I felt kind of proud of myself for still enjoying the movie despite those. Now I wonder if I read the series if it’ll be a case of me pulling out certain passages and disecting them or if I could actually enjoy it.

Ah well. If anyone has any idea how to turn off the critical thinking switch so I can go back to simply enjoying a book or movie, I’ll all for it.