Tweetgarble: everything I wanted to tweet today, but couldn't.

It has been a WEIRD day, folks. SO MANY THINGS happened that I wanted to share on twitter, but couldn't because I was stuck in the Hot Corner Grill for the duration of an interminable baseball game. Fifteen innings. We still lost. Ugh.

At any rate, here's the weird summation:

Lulu complained of feeling ill this morning. I had to get to work, and I worried about leaving a sick kid home alone. Helper Monkey was due home by 9, so if she was really sick, she could call and he'd go get her. She was, and he did. I felt like Mother of the Year.

I got to work by 8, and there were some film crews there getting shots of the stadium. I asked what they were filming, and they said they were studying broadcast journalism at Fort Meade (one was Army, the other Air Force), and were making a B roll for a class project about food service. Okey dokey. I wished them luck, and told them if they wanted to watch me count beer cups and french fry boats, they were welcome to observe the seedy underbelly of the food service industry. Heavens to Betsy, but about ten minutes later, there they were.

Before I knew what was happening, I'd been selected as the star of their film, forced to wear a microphone, and had two cameras on me for the first four innings of the game. I hope I didn't do anything inappropriate, since this video will ostensibly be viewed by other members of the U.S. Military. I honestly have no freaking idea what to make of this. It was surreal.

Me, in my classy spillproof work shirt and Mr. Microphone. Dang. I really wish I'd thrown on some lipstick. And what a great shot of my nostrils, too! Ugh.

On top of the game running 15 innings, about 5 hours, it was the last game of the homestand, which meant everything in our stand had to be disassembled, washed, and reassembled. It's...a really big job. Especially for six people. We usually have 14. So. We were there for A WHILE. Talk about dishpan hands.

I thought it would be nice to get something to cheer Lulu up, so I stopped at the grocery store. She loves blue Gatorade, so I got her some. I also got myself some gelato, because damn. My feet hurt. Which, obviously, translates to an extreme need for gelato.

When I finally dragged my carcass home, SURPRISE! Lulu was hanging out in our driveway with half the middle-schoolers in our neighborhood, having a regular little party. So much for being sick. Apparently a six hour nap and a shower is now a cure for illness so awful she had to come home from school early.

Helper Monkey agreed she looked awful this morning, so I can only assume a MIRACULOUS HEALING occurred while I was at work. At least she has some nice friends.

Helper Monkey was helpful today, and had done most of the laundry. He warned me, before I went into the bedroom, that it was awfully sparkly in there, and I thought, "OOH! DID HE CLEAN, TOO?!" Nope. Lulu accidentally knocked a jar of glitter into her laundry hamper, and when Monkey dumped it out to sort, GLITTERPOCALYPSE!

So my bedroom rug looks like a unicorn threw up all over it, but hey. Unicorns are magical.

So that brings us up to this moment. My ears are ringing, I feel dizzy and slightly sick. My feet hurt. My back is sore. I just want to curl up in a little ball and sleep for about 12 hours. I don't know if I can finish this draft tonight. I think I'm going to be kind to myself, and do it tomorrow. I'll have ALL DAY, and it's going to be Friday Write Club! Guaranteed finish tomorrow. Because other things are starting to pile up behind it (like EXCITING CP manuscripts that I can't wait to read!)

So there you go. My weird day.

I keep forgetting I'm influential about amnesia.

I'm sure you've all heard of Klout, even if you haven't bothered to check out your own "score." If you haven't, then google it. I'll wait right here...

Ok, then. We all know what I'm talking about now. But can anyone explain what the point is? I get access to "perks" once in a while, but most of them aren't worth my time. I'm not big on giving free ad space in my social media to companies just to get a free product. I have to really like a thing to talk about it. Which is the most puzzling aspect of Klout, in my mind.

They track topics, you are "influential" about through your social media interactions. I can understand that. If you talk about something a lot, people might come to see you as a source of reliable information on that topic. What I'm most interested in today is how the hell Klout decides which topics a person is influential about. Get ready for the surreality, because here's my list:

• Jeans
• Chocolate
• Sushi
• Pork
• Cookies
• Horror
• Pudding
• Bacon
• Yogurt
• Books
• Writing
• Amnesia
• Shoes
• Conferences
• Justin Bieber
• Video
• Tumblr
• Cats

Quite a list, right? I mean, Bacon AND Pork? Wow. And what's up with Justin Bieber? Maybe it's the amnesia talking, but I don't ever remember saying anything (other than possibly a joke somewhere or other) about the Biebs.

Some of these I get. Like chocolate. And shoes. I like those things. But then why am I not influential about coffee, too? I mean, I write about coffee all the time! And sure, I post some things about my cat, so I get that, to an extent. But Conferences? Really? Is this because I tweeted something to Backspace a few times? I have no clue.

Do you have an equally bizarre and unsettling list of things that Klout has assigned to you? Post them below so we can all have a puzzled laugh about it.

In the mean time, enjoy this delicious pudding.

I write like...A schizophrenic amalgamation of every writer ever on Earth, apparently

The fabulous Feaky Snucker tweeted an interesting little website last night, and I've wasted more than enough time playing with it today. I'm going to put my thoughts on it in order here, so I can go back to doing what I'm supposed to be doing today. Since I still haven't set pen to paper on my new story idea, I really shouldn't be playing with silly websites until I put a measurable dent in the truly important things on my to do list.

The website in question is called I Write Like. You enter a few paragraphs from your work in progress, your blog, or anything you've written that's at least a few dozen sentences long. The site analyzes your writing and tells you which famous author the style most represents. I thought this sounded like an interesting experiment.

I picked a scene toward the end of Running Down the Dragon. It was the climax of the main storyline, and I figured it was as dramatic a scene as I could have picked. What writer would the work most resemble? Douglas Adams, apparently.

That was appropriately cool and impressive. But, lo, I was not satisfied. I went a page or so back in the manuscript, and picked out the four or five paragraphs before the Douglas Adams scene. Who did that most represent, writing-wise? None other than the Bard himself, Willie Shakespeare. Eyebrow raised. This website is crazy, right?

At that point, I was addicted. I went back several chapters, and found a wonderful scene that I completely changed around during the last edit. I rewrote the scene, and it went from a dispassionate description of a room to an emotional sequence of memories drawn from several objects in that room. I love how the scene works on several levels now, and I love that I Write Like thinks the new scene most resembles the work of Oscar Wilde. I absolutely adore his writing. Lady Windermere's Fan, anyone?

Before I went so far as to self-diagnose my writing with hopeless multiple personality disorder, I switched over to analyzing a series of my blog posts, instead. Since blog posts are by nature shorter than novels, and intended to be stand-alone vignettes rather than cohesive narrative throughout the entire history of the blog, I figured it was safer to play with them. I entered the last half dozen or so posts into the analyzer.

Some of my results:

David Foster Wallace, William Gibson, and H.P. Lovecraft. CTHULHU!!!

Strangely, the Lovecraftian blog entry was this one, about character shopping at the MVA. Maybe the MVA is the secret lair of The Thing That Should Not Be? It would explain a lot, actually...

Just for fun, I ran this very blog post you are reading RIGHT NOW through the analyzer. Can you guess what writer this post most represents? Scroll down to the bottom for the incredible result. At least take a few guesses before you spoil the surprise, though...

An incongruous photo of dry ice evaporating in the heat on Thursday. I thought it looked cool, and I needed a bumper photo to keep y'all from cheaty-looking down to the answer right away.

So what have I learned from this bizarre little trip through crazy-land? I write like a lot of people all smooshed together. And you know what? I think we ALL write like a lot of people all smooshed together. It's the nature of life. We're like sponges. We absorb everything we read, every nuance of every book, every blog, every tweet, even. Just as we are what we eat, our writing is a conglomerate of our life experiences. I'd like to think that rather than chunks of my work being seen through the filter of dozens of incredible authors, taken as a whole, my work is simply mine. It's a unique recipe of all the ingredients I've filled my imagination with over the years. Every writer has their own recipe, and it changes and evolves constantly as we throw new ingredients into the pot.

Is there a particular author that your work seems to favor, though? Give it a try. You never know. You might be the next Jane Austen, or Ray Bradbury, or Mark Twain. You might even be all three. If you play with this tool, let me know what IWL thinks of your writing.

So, what writer does this post most resemble, according to I Write Like?

Cory Doctorow.

I'll take it. Oddly enough, he's the only famous author the site has attributed my writing style to more than once. Hmmm...

My New Favorite Character Shopping Mall

As a writer, I pick up interesting details about people see in daily life and later find them showing up in characters I make up. It's probably a common problem with writers.I don't really see it as a problem. It's more of an interesting quirk I've noticed about myself when I create a new character. I pull details from nowhere, and later on during edits I'll realize those details actually came from somewhere specific in real life.

I finally had a conscious moment of character shopping the other day. It was the first time I ever thought about characters while I was just sitting there observing people. Then again, I didn't really have much else to do at the moment.

Lulu is flying by herself in a little more than a week, and I wanted to make sure she had a proper ID card. This is the first time she'll be going through airport security without me. Even though United swears up and down she doesn't need an ID card since she's still under sixteen, it would suck rabid donkeys if they didn't allow her to fly because of it. With my luck, she'd be stuck in an airport somewhere with no way to get home.

I took her to the MVA (for those of you who don't live in Maryland, that translates to the DMV) and we waited. And waited. In the middle of all that waiting, I started noticing the interesting folks around me. I came to a startling conclusion.

When people go to get their driver's license, they do everything in their power to ensure the picture does not suck.

Despite the fact that the little picture on a license doesn't show more than the collar of the shirt you wear, I saw people dressed to the nines from head to foot. Not only did a lot of people dress nicely, they seemed to distill the essence of their personality and sense of style into a single outfit. And don't misunderstand. Not everyone looked like they were dressed to go to a wedding. For some people, dressing to the nines means something very different.

There was tattooed-arm-lady, who wore a revealing set of layered tank tops to show off her artwork to best effect. Her matching purple and black hair was coiffed to perfection. There was the guy who looked like he worked for a Colombian drug cartel back in the 80's, with his shiny alligator boots, silver belt buckle and matching necklace, and slicked-back hair. There was a teenaged girl who clearly was getting her first license ever. I think her mom took her to the hair salon before coming by for the picture.

Granted, not everyone put that much care into how they'd look on a piece of plastic they have to carry with them for the next five years. There was also the small group of folks who barely managed to dress themselves at all. There was one older gentleman who looked like he interrupted his busy day repairing a tractor to pop over and renew his license. Not everyone gives a damn. And you know what? They're great characters, too.

I had to restrain myself from taking pictures of a lot of these folks. I think the state government would frown on me loitering in one of their waiting rooms taking covert photos. Yeah. That could have consequences...

This rambling story does have a moral. Next time I'm having trouble inventing people for my stories, I'm going to pack a lunchbox and head over to the MVA.

I saw this, and it changed my life.

Three words for you: Cowboy. Monkey. Rodeo.

Yes, those are monkeys riding border collies. Yes, they are herding sheep. They did a remarkable job of it. The best part is, they really like it.

Second best part: Last night was Helper Monkey's birthday. He was in the stands. You can kind of pick him out in the second row all the way at the far left of the picture. He's one of the blurry blobs in a white shirt. Trust me, Helper Monkey enjoyed the show. Full article on the insanity here.

Twitter...Is Missing!

Quick question: How do you complain to a wide audience that Twitter is down when...Twitter is down?

And not just down. I tried accessing it on every device and browser in the house, and nothing! Twitter?!

WHERE ARE YOU???

***Edit: Okay. Who broke Twitter? *foot tapping, combined with Mommy Glare*

I mean it. Who is responsible for this? You know what this means? I actually have to get back to work now. *continued tapping and glaring, with no discernible effect on the situation*

***Second Edit: How ironic is it that Twitter announced its problem on Tumblr? 

I must not be writing enough...

The weird dreams are baaa-aaack.

Either I haven't been writing enough, or I slept too long today. Since I've only been up for about ten minutes, I'd go with option two. Option one is something I won't touch, yet. I plan to write a lot today. Starting with my bizarro dream.

Here goes: I dreamt that Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer showed up at a strange camp/hotel I was at. There was a lot of strange stuff going on (most of which I can't remember, since it was secondary). There was a tent set up as a store/restaurant, and a ton of people I don't know walking around and doing strange stuff. Hardly anyone seemed to notice Neil or Amanda, either. Weird.

My daughter and I noticed them, and welcomed them to the camp. We apologized for the state of disarray the place was in, and they were really good sports about it. We took them to lunch. We walked around Coconut Grove, Florida. (side note: I went to high school in Coconut Grove, and somehow a lot of my dreams center around some idealized, alternatate-reality version of the town).

After we ate, I ran around doing a bunch of weird stuff, and kept running into them again and again. There was some sort of giant log cabin building, some spooky old house or hotel, and we wandered around through the crowded rooms for a while, saying hello to all the strange people we found there. We had a few lovely chats, which ended with Amanda inviting me to have coffee with her in New York next weekend. I accepted the offer, and said we could get tickets to a play, too. Then they drove off, and I woke up.

There was a LOT of other stuff going on here, but I can't remember what else we did.

So, when I start having these kind of dreams, dreams that are very realistic that I remember in such great detail, it usually means I've been slacking off on the writing. No matter what else happens today, I MUST write. Because I don't think Neil and Amanda would approve of repeatedly showing up in my lame-ass dreams. I think they have better things to do. Though I am tempted to slack off next weekend to see if their offer of a cup of coffee still stands...

I wrote only a few hundred new words yesterday. Completely depressing. I'm not even going to track it here, for fear of demoralization. The kid and I ended up watching movies last night, but it was nice to hang out with her for a while. It was sort of a reward for her, since she made honor roll at school and brought home her perfect report card yesterday. Too bad she couldn't come into my dream and meet Neil Gaiman, though. She loves Coraline! :)

*Ribbit Crrrrooak*

Yes, I am losing my voice. Reading out loud for two days will do that to you. I've read 204 pages out loud in the last few days, and it's really trying. I've been subsisting on toast and hot tea, hoping I can make it another 122 pages without going completely croaky.

I've still got to chaperone a field trip on Thursday, and nothing is worse than trying to keep a dozen kids together while on the loose in downtown DC if you don't have a voice to yell at them. Maybe I could bring an air horn along. There must be an app for that. (Time passes while I check into it...) Yes, there are DOZENS of air horn apps. That's a relief. I'll just blast any wayward kids if I can't yell.

Also, I can't believe the strange things I've found to fix just by hearing my own words out loud. I think the sense of sight and the sense of hearing (or even the part of our brains that controls speech) process things in different ways. I haven't necessarily found mistakes, per se, but things that could have been written more clearly, or more concisely, or more precisely. I'm never going to let a manuscript out of my hands again until it's been through the read-out-loud test. Best advice I ever got.

I'm glad I finally got over my reticence to hear my own words in my own voice. It was embarrassing at first, because other people could periodically hear me reading it out loud (Helper Monkey and Lulu both have spent time in the room while I've been reading), and because somehow hearing my words out loud somehow made them more real.

I'm not a shy person. I'm not afraid to say what's on my mind, usually. But this is just weird.

I've cringed at the thought of other people reading my novels. I've cringed at the thought that those people will then want to talk to me about them. For some reason, despite not being afraid of saying most anything that comes into my head, letting other people in to meet my imaginary friends scares the crap out of me. I've poured myself into my writing. Knowing other people are reading it is nearly as bad as walking around naked and asking people to comment on my little show. Scary!

But it's what I wanted when I started writing. We'll see if I ever get over that weird feeling.

Also, I finally made a real commitment to writing as a career choice. I ordered business cards. I was going to post a picture of my card here, but then I realized it had my home address, phone numbers, and email address on them. I don't think a random public blog is the right venue for all that information. I took the photo and blurred out the details I don't feel like sharing with the known universe.

How official!

Time to take out the trash. The literal trash. Gotta go, or I'll feel like a lazy bum for not helping.

Reading Allowed...uh, I mean aloud.

I've been reading my current ms out loud to find awkward dialogue, bad grammar, and places where words might be overused. This has been very helpful. I can't tell you how many times I'll be reading along, and SAY a different word than my eyes SEE. I usually end up changing the word to the one my ears told me would sound better. I'm pleased with the results, so far.

I've also started noticing some strange things about my characters. I thought I just made most of them up out of whole cloth, but obviously that's not how brains work. We create characters out of a mish-mosh of people we know, and people we know of, like characters from TV shows and movies.

The other night, I had a shocking revelation. I was watching NCIS, and I realized my main character, Thalia, is about 75% Ziva. o_O

Once I got over the idea that I hadn't actually created my little imaginary friend, but cobbled her together from various sources, I've been racking my brain since then to figure out who else donated a bit of their personality to Thalia. And then I started thinking about my other characters.

I had a moment of additional panic when I thought ALL my characters were based on NCIS, but I realized that didn't really hold up. Though I think of Henry (Thalia's father-in-law) as a little Gibbs-y, it doesn't hold up as an accurate character description. So, relief. At least I didn't just pull my characters out of a single TV show.

Now I'm officially on a quest to figure out who all my characters are based on. I asked the Helper Monkey what he thought, and he agreed he could see Ziva in Thalia. I also asked him if he could see any other similarities between my characters and any people -- real or imaginary -- we know or have seen on TV. He said, "Nothing leaps to mind," which translates as, "Can't you see I'm watching NASCAR? Can we have this conversation another time, like maybe when I'm asleep?"

So I'll continue to think about the people I've created. I hope the rest of my imaginary friends are a little harder to figure out, though. So much for originality!

Thank you, Ziva, for inspiring Thalia for me, even if it was completely unintentional. At least you're a badass!

Conclusion: I watch too much NCIS.

My schizoid personal style

Since I'm not writing anything new at the moment, and reading a blog about the tediousness and momentary bursts of excitement of the editing process every day would make me want to claw my eyes out, I figured I'd write something a little different. So here's something a little more personal: my Sense (or lack thereof) of Style.

This won't be about how I decorate my house, which is basically Ikea with clutter. For example, the legal pad with my notes for the third novel in this series has been sitting on the floor next to the coffee table, balanced on a marker, for five days. No one's touched it. This is sad.

My housekeeping is so bad, this hasn't moved in five days, despite being in the freaking center of the living room floor.

No, this will be about how I decorate myself. When I'm at home, or even if I only have to run to a friend's house or drive the kid to school, 99 times out of 100, I'm wearing pajamas (Sock Monkeys!), ratty t-shirts (today it's from a 1996 Metallica concert), my bathrobe, or a hoodie (Lets go Caps!). Oh, and slippers. I have maybe ten pairs of slippers, and I wear them all during the winter. It's almost the end of slipper season, though, and that makes me kind of sad. Slippers are cozy.

If I'm running errands, I have one of two looks to choose from. I either look like someone who's escaped from the military and discovered the art of sloppy dressing, or I look like Mary Poppins. Definitely polar opposite looks.

Let's start with prim and proper, though, shall we? I love Victorian Goth and Steampunk clothing. I adore long, ruffly skirts, corsets, parasols, and funky little hats. My daughter's friends call me the "Goth Mom" and they eagerly await my next outfit and tiny hat. Granted, this look takes a bit more work to achieve, given the corsetry, makeup, hair, and overall presentation. And it's incredibly impractical during the summer months. Thus, my other look.

I have a bizarre compulsion to shop at Army/Navy stores. I wear a lot of black/olive drab/camouflage. It suits the main character of the series I'm writing, so maybe I've taken on a little of her personality? She's a soldier, so maybe I've become a little more like her? Or maybe she just brought out those parts of my personality? I love stompy army boots, and the comfortable fabrics and cuts of military clothing. BDU's were designed to be rugged, breathable, and flexible. Beats the hell out of skinny jeans.

These two looks seems to fit the two halves of my personality, too. I love to be a proper lady, to show good manners. The whole Victorian thing takes care of that. But I also love hiking, kayaking, and all outdoorsy-type activities. I teach girl scouts how to navigate in the woods with a compass, how to pitch tents, and how to build fires. The whole pseudo-military look takes care of that.

My favorite thing about my split-personality sense of style is going to a store where I'm a regular customer, and seeing the surprised looks on the employees faces as they recognize me in my other identity. I'm convinced a few of them think I'm actually a set of twins.

Either way, I'd never be able to settle on a single personal style. Frankly, I don't care. I just know that whatever mood I'm in every day, I'll be able to dress the part. Lately, though, I've been more military than Victorian. Thank you, Thalia (my main character), for bringing that to the forefront. I was a little sick of doing the makeup thing every morning.

One last thing: HAPPY VERNAL EQUINOX!!! I just realized I almost missed my plum tree in bloom. All the blossoms are crazy early this year, and I did miss the peak bloom, but here's a pretty picture, nonetheless.

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

I hope you didn't eat anything green today that shouldn't actually be green. For example, after a 5 hour Girl Scout cookie booth, I took my daughter to Burger King for dinner. They offered us GREEN KETCHUP!!! This is wrong, people. And truly gross. And real Irish beer is black, not green. Have a Guinness. Or a Jameson's whiskey. That's what I'm doing today.

I did, however, eat two cupcakes with green frosting. They were delicious.

I've also learned how to make a pyramid out of little foam craft bricks and hot glue. I told my daughter to tell her history teacher that we can't imagine how much hot glue it must have taken to make the big pyramids in Egypt. We still have one more day's work to do on the pyramid project. The clay palm trees are drying on the table, and we still have to print out a bunch of facts about Cleopatra to stick all over the pyramid. Fun, fun!

Pyramid

Drying palm trees

Lastly for today, I had a horrible dream last night. I woke up in a cold sweat. Literary agents had apparently lined up at my front door. They wanted to show up in person to see the look on my face when they rejected me, I guess. Either that, or they wanted to see what kind of idiot would ever submit such a thing to them in the first place. Or maybe they wanted me to watch them laugh in my face. It was a horrible dream. Agent after agent after agent. Stupid, huh?

Anyway, I just realized how late it is. All that construction work really took it out of me. And I burned my finger on the darn hot glue gun. I can really sympathize with the Ancient Egyptians now.

Strange things, and Happy Pi Day!

I've seen some strange things in the last few days.

First of all is the obvious time change weirdness. I'm used to doing things in the dark in the evenings, and watching the sun set while I drive Lulu to her evening activities. I kind of miss that, since it's still daylight when we head out for that stuff now. Then again, I'm not compelled to pull over and take pictures of the sunset all the time while we're driving, for which the kid is grateful.

Yesterday it was nearly 80 degrees outside. Right now it's in the mid-70's, we have the windows open, and I'm enjoying the tweeting birdies. Since it's not technically spring yet, this is somehow fundamentally wrong. I walked around town last night in the sunlight, wearing flip-flops and a short skirt. The trees are still winter-naked, but it feels like freaking June. I'm a little concerned what this will mean for us in August. I have a feeling we're going to boil this summer. I'm enjoying the energy savings of not having to run the heater all through March, but I'm worried we're gonna pay double come summer.Considering last summer the capacitor in my A/C gave out, I'm worried we're going to blow the new one out this summer. Ugh.

I suppose I should stop griping and enjoy the nice weather while I can. I don't need to pay tomorrow's bills today.

Another weird thing, I saw this:

Creepy

 And then I remembered the beauty school around the corner. I figure Ms. Head is on her way to class.

I almost forgot about Pi Day! Happy Pi Day. I had to run out last night and buy a pie, since I can't stand baking when it's this hot out. We selected a lovely cherry pie for dessert tonight. The kid's math teacher is also giving out an extra credit point to every kid who brings in snacks for the class today, so we got Oatmeal Cream Pies for her to take. Doubly good as a math class snack on Pi Day. They're also throwing pies at their English teacher at lunch time today.

Anyway, I've been taking a breather from editing for a bit. Since I finished the r&r on the first novel, I've only sent it to a few agents. I wanted to see what the response is before I send it out widely. We're back to nail-biting, wait and see, and the emotional roller coaster. It's all good. I hate to admit it, but I kind of enjoy that bit (said the freaky crazy lady).

I've started r&r on the second novel, to bring it in line with the changes I made in the first. It has to be done, and once again, I think I actually enjoy doing it. Bizarro-land, I am in you.

Editing and revision was my least favorite part about writing things in school. Sadly, I think it's now become my favorite. I start with the bare-minimum needed to call it a story, and then flesh it out and sculpt it into a readable (and hopefully enjoyable) piece of writing. Now that's fun!

Okay. Back to the fun.

Change of Pace

I'm sick of writing updates on my writing, and I needed a break from editing. I'm sitting out on the back porch, enjoying the wind and the warm air (it's 67...aaaahhhh).

I was just working through my edits when I noticed a word my spell check thought was a typo. Sometimes I'm grateful for the squiggly red lines, other times I'm puzzled by them.

For instance, the other night I added the word "kvetch" to the story. Spell check thinks that's a dandy word. I was surprised. I don't know why, but after getting angry red squiggles on other words that I figured were normal, everyday words, I had to laugh at a Yiddish word being perfectly acceptable.

The word I just saw that made me come over and write this was "snarky." And even the Blogger spell check doesn't like it. Hah! I thought everyone knew what snarky meant. Dictionary.com thinks it's a word. Huh.

Other puzzling words I've used that my spell check dictionary tried to reject:

• Hoity-toity
• grimoire
• churros (Come on, it's a tasty dessert. Everyone should know what they are! Am I right?)
• itty-bitty (it actually suggested "titty-bitty", which is just insulting)
• nitty-gritty
• Tiki (suggested Wiki)
• half-assed (suggested half-asses, for some inexplicable reason)
• googling (suggested goggling, which I regularly do when performing internet searches, I suppose)
• patootie (suggested patriotic. Hah!)
• petroglyphs
• rinkydink
• TiVo (suggested Tito)
• yadda, as in yadda yadda yadda (it suggested Saddam. Gaddafi was the fourth choice on the selection list. I kid you not.)
• looky-loos
• it recognized Angkor, but not Wat. What's up with that?
• armoire
• riff-raff (it suggested riff-riff, which doesn't make any sense)
• doozy
• it accepted donuts, but not donut 

And there you have it. There were a few others, but they were legitimately words I didn't think would be in the dictionary, like proper nouns, and the like.

 Fun with Spell Check! Back to work now.

Edity-wedity, or "Nanananabooboo"

*sticks tongue out at manuscript* Finished you, you jerk. So today I can read through it once for "pleasure". Yeah, right. As if reading through the same thing for the fifth time in three weeks could possibly be pleasurable! Well, it should be nicer this time through, with fewer stops for corrections (well, hopefully NO stops for corrections). The worst thing you hope to encounter by this round of edits is an extra space where it shouldn't be, or possibly a comma that needs to come out or be put in. Other than the very minor mechanical stuff, this baby should be ready to head out the door.

I hope it is, anyway.

I really want to change the line in my query letter that says "I am currently writing a second novel based on these characters." I want it to say, "I have written a second novel based on these characters. It is also available for review." Or something like that. I'll have to edit that for a while before I actually send it out. ;-P

And so there you go.

We were supposed to go out delivering Girl Scout cookies today, but it's snaining. Snowing and raining at the same time. The weather can't make up its mind. I think it's mostly snow at this point, but it's kind of icy and slippery out there. Not exactly fun when you've got to carry boxes of cookies up and down hills. I'm not risking my life or my ankles for cookies. Not gonna happen.

Tim stayed home last night, because he was worried he'd get iced in at work, and then he came down with a headache, so he's not even much fun to have around the house. I like it when he takes off work for weather rather than illness, because it's like a mini-vacation. When he's sick, it's just like any other day, and he may as well not even be around. :-(

And that's about it. We were supposed to get actual snow, and it is still coming down out there. We'll see what happens with it. Will it be enough to go sledding? Or will we have to actually shovel the driveway this time? So far, no and no.

I'm going off to blow raspberries at my MS. Have a great day, everyone!

*PS: I forgot to add this:

Words: 98,166
Pages: 114
Edit Page: PFFFFFTTTTTTT!

*PPS: Lulu was just watching Spongebob, and asked me what Gordon Ramsay would think of the Chum Bucket. I replied that he would hate it. Does this mean we watch too much Kitchen Nightmares? We have been kind of addicted to it lately. That and reruns of ancient Family Feud episodes. Survey Says? At least we've stopped watching the Mexican version of Family Feud on Univision. None of us speak Spanish, but how can you resist a show called 100 Mexicanos Dijeron? La inquesta dice?

Snow and Cookies

We had snow yesterday. Probably about an inch. It'll be gone by lunch time. Ah, bizarro winter! You're so much less bother than Snowmageddon was! Since the whistle pig says you'll be sticking around for six more weeks, I guess I can't really complain if this is the worst you've got for us.

My only actual complaint about this winter is the lake never froze. No ice skating, no hockey, and no walking across to visit friends on the other side. We have to drive around to see them. It takes all of five minutes, instead of thirty seconds. Oh, well.

It's not going to be a great editing day. I've already been through about ten pages this morning, trying to get a jump on things. We have to go pick up our troop Girl Scout Cookie order this afternoon, and then I'll spend the rest of the day sorting and delivering. Ugh. But yum! Cookies!
In case you've never seen 256 cases of cookies all at once, I'll post pictures later. After I learn how to post pictures on Blogger.

Some funny stuff happened yesterday, and while it was going on, I thought, "I'll write about this stuff tomorrow." Yeah, right. If I could remember any of it now, it would be a miracle. Isn't that typical? The only thing I really remember is laughing about something hysterically funny yesterday.

For some reason, when Tim comes home from work now, he puts the TV on and watches ancient game show reruns. He works the night shift, and he's usually home by 9:15 or 9:30 in the morning. There's really not a lot to watch on TV at that time of day, and after he catches up on whatever he's got on the TiVo, he flips around while he finishes his breakfast/dinner. We usually watch the previous night's Daily Show, or whatever else happened to record. But it's on hiatus this week, so we've had to improvise.

We've been watching Family Feud, Card Sharks, and The Match Game. Thank you GSN, for the bizarre flashback to the late 70's and early 1980's.

So, I've only got an hour or so before he gets home and turns the TV on again. I'd better get cracking before I'm distracted by the train wreck of polyester butterfly collars and Farrah hairdos.

Words: 97,582
Pages: 311
Edit Page: 222

Things I learned at the Supermarket Today

I had to do some shopping, since our cupboards were getting pretty bare, and I didn't want to have toast and spaghetti sauce for dinner tonight. Since I needed so much stuff, I spent quite a bit of time at the grocery store today, and learned a few things I thought might help other potential grocery shoppers.

1. Don't refer to the humongous, institutional-size can of green beans as "Prison Beans." People might not know what you're talking about.

2. You shouldn't interrogate the produce. It's not equipped to answer your questions, and it doesn't know how many potatoes you still have in the pantry back at home, or if you already used the last onion.

3. Even if your running commentary is addressed to another human person currently shopping nearby, they still might not appreciate your analysis of the state of the "on sale" yogurt selection.

4. I had the best luck at conversation in the meat department, lamenting the fact that the "Big Buy" family size package was more expensive per pound than the single pound packages of ground beef. Another concerned shopper shared my views, or at least didn't try to pretend the crazy lady wasn't talking to him.

5. It's dangerous to give me coupons for chocolate products. I will find a way to utilize every bit of savings, and come home with four pounds of chocolate. Especially just before Valentine's Day. But it's all on sale!

6. Deodorant is no better at conversation than the potatoes were, and it doesn't know where they keep the Chapstick, either.

7. I always forget something important. Even if it's on the list. One important, necessary ingredient will be forgotten in my rush to get home before the frozen waffles defrost. Unfortunately, this week the forgotten item was a report cover for my daughter's poetry class homework assignment. Oops. Looks like we'll be crafting one from wrapping paper tonight.

So there you have it. If you have any other important grocery lessons for us, please feel free to share.