Archives for February 2009

Here is where I am.

I am in bed. The laptop is propped on my bent knees, and I'm all hunkered down into many pillows. Digit is draped over my left arm and up onto my chest, and I have to look over him to type. Now he's washing his paw with cat-food breath only a mother could love.

Harriet is on my right, staring out the window at Harriet-TV. It's raining — I can tell by the sound and by the way I can just see the rain misting in front of the eucalyptus trees. Harriet can't see that, but she knows that the window is her favorite thing to watch, even if the picture is fuzzy nowadays. Miss Idaho is sandwiched between me and Harriet, as chihuahuas often are, and Clara is snoring on the floor beside the bed.

I'm going to stay right here as long as I can. I have a day off, with nothing planned. And I'm feeling just the right kind of under-the-weather: I don't feel well, but I'm not miserable. I think a day of doing nothing but reading and blog-surfing will be the ticket to health. I'm fighting the predictable sense of guilt: I could be writing! I could be cleaning! Shopping for cat food and litter! Getting the tires rotated, the oil changed!

But right now, I'm not. Lala said as she left for work that lying around all day was a spectacularly awesome thing to do. Turns out she is right.

more animals

That cat is clearly getting Bounced. Digit used to love that, so much that when I folded my own sheets I'd catch him up in them and swing him around. He'd purr so loudly that I could feel the sheets shaking.

Books on Kindle, animals, and rain. Tylenol and napping. It will be good.

When she isn't helping to put out fires, Rachael Herron is creating flames of a different kind.

That seriously made my weekend. (Yes, I wear a uniform. In order to answer the phone. But at least I don't ever have to decide what to wear.)

Now. The house is clean, it's a rainy evening, Lala is out, and I have a date with a glass of wine and some television. I have just a SMIDGE of work to do tonight, and then I'll be getting cozy on the couch with some knitting and an artichoke.

I was just standing in front of my copy machine. I was making copies, don'tcha know. Tax stuff. For writing. Because I'm a writer. I was dealing with international tax stuff. You already know my book is going to be translated into German and sold there.

But now I'm going to be published in Australia (and distributed in New Zealand)! Random House Australia has picked up my book for publication in early 2010! How excited am I?

SO EXCITED!

I love that my family and my mother's friends in New Zealand will be able to buy it right there, off the shelf. 

Also, I'm rather giddy, thinking about how I'll have to collect the different editions of the book. I think I'll have Lala put up a shelf somewhere in the house, just for the books.

I can't quite tell how you my head explodes when I think of things like this.

It's still the dream. Coming true.

IT'S SO THRILLING.

It's nice to be thrilled. Also, it's nice that I've done the 2008 taxes today, and I remain standing. No blood, none at all. I am annoyed that dumb old Governor Arnold is withholding my state tax refund indefinitely, since California can't afford to give us the money they owe us. They are issuing IOUs instead. Dude. Whatever. Whenever money comes, it's welcome, right?

Oh, and speaking of taxes — my 2008 taxes were simple enough to do with Turbo Tax. But can anyone recommend a Bay Area tax preparer that can help me out with filing quarterly taxes this year, since I'm now getting money for writing (woot!)? Thanks! I'd found a great one, and I've LOST ALL THE INFO on her. Because I'm a moron sometimes.

Australia! New Zealand! And I'm getting my hair cut this afternoon! Good stuff. (Also, after taxes are done, everyone deserves a big old treat, right?)

Hi! Hi!

Just a few thoughts, thrown at the computer as I hurtle by:

1. What happens to roses when they are allowed to grow wild with NO care, for perhaps five years? This is on the Western coast in a beach climate. (For the new book. I'm not planning on planting and then neglecting roses.) (Although I do want to plant roses. So perhaps I AM planning that.) Would they live? Would they spread? Shrink? Bloom?

2. It's almost the weekend! (My weekend, that is. One more shift and I'll be off for four days. Huzzah! Less skiing, more errands this weekend.)

3. I got a fish! I need to show you pictures. He's on my writing desk, and I lurve him. I thought it would be nice, when I'm spacing out while writing, to stare at a fish, and perhaps that will come, but right now he's more of a distraction. Look! He ate! Look! He spit it out!

3a. I couldn't think of a name for my fish for a day or two. When I DID pick a name (I will reveal the fantastic name with the photo to come), I said to Lala, "I named the fish!" We were in the kitchen at the time. She was holding a piece of salmon to be grilled for dinner. She was very confused.

4. Speaking of fish, we're having sushi for lunch, which is thrilling. Sushi at work. We never leave site for lunch, and we brown bag it every day. This is big time.

5. I like you! (And fish, apparently.)

Bye!

Edited to add: I forgot to tell you that the Whoreshoes broke up! You should come to their last hurrah: February 12th at Cafe du Nord in San Francisco. I'll be there, with knitting.