More shopping today. But nothing fun happened this time out. no, not this time.
And we couldn’t find jeans to save our lives. I cleaned out a major department store of the one style of jeans I wear, and I didn’t have enough of them to meet my needs. And Laurell is having similar problems with her section.
I love comics. I have since I got my first comic lo these many years ago. (Transformers #1 from Marvell for those of you keeping track.) I have sustained a habit that once exceeded my income by orders of magnitude. I’m down to maybe a dozen titles a month, with a regular pull-and-hold file at my local shop. I’ve been going there regularly for about four years now, and I know most of the staff on sight. I try to go in once a week and pick up my file, and talk with them about TV, Movies, Comics or Gaming. Its a nice little shop in one of the many municipalities that make up St. Louis, and they have been around for some time. In fact they have several locations throughout the Metro area and I don’t see them folding any time soon. I like that. It gives me a place to go and talk to people that don’t look at me odd for wearing my Spider-Man 2099 t-shirt, or for knowing the value of my comic collection better than I know my cell phone number. I like the guys that work there, and they have turned me on to several series that I would never have looked at if they hadn’t recommended them. I’ve also had the joy of introducing Trinity to comics, and to collectible card games. Today, she picked up her first comic and cards. I was very pleased. So pleased in fact that I’m springing for card sleeves for her.
Before you applaud my generous nature, know that I have ulterior motives. I have every intention of hooking the kiddo on my other guilty pleasure that you find at gaming stores… Miniature Battles. < VBEG > I can still remember having her ask if she could play against me when I got a table top space battle game. I told her that she would have to be able to read a little better than she could, but when she could read the rules, I’d teach her to play. Now that she is reading better, I’ll see if she is still interested, but I think she will be. I often catch her having imaginary battles between her stuffed toys and her Barbies.
So I’m going to go now and curl up on the couch and read my new comics and watch as my daughter helps the 7th Barbie regiment take hill 123 from the forces of the Furred League.
Author: Jonathon
Today is the first day of spring break
Today is the first day of spring break. My daughter’s spring break that is, grown-ups don’t get one. Well, maybe teachers, though my friends that are teachers say that most of their none student time is spent preparing lessons, and grading things.
When I first realized that our last full week before tour was going to be Trinity’s spring break week, I was sort of unhappy. The last weeks is a frantic creature. You are trying to find those last few items you need. Have we bought enough toothpaste, enough pairs of hose, enough of whatever we’re going to need. No matter how well you’ve planned things, you never remember everything, not until the last few days. Then you run around in this frantic last minute dash to get everything ready. We’re getting better at it. We’re not as frantic or last minute as last time, but it’s hard to keep the panic completely away. You try packing for a month, where you could be doing anything from mainstream television to goth, with a travel schedule that precludes dry cleaning in between cities most of the time, and see how well you pack. Put on top of that that you can’t wear just business dress, but need to look spiffy, or even formal at the drop of a hat, and it becomes a true challenge. Like I said, when I first realized this week was spring break I was wondering where my sanity would go, then I got to thinking.
If spring break had been after we left, what would Trinity have done? My ex-husband’s job is a regular office job. He can’t take off just because it’s spring break. His new wife’s job is much the same. Neither of them has the kind of work where they can just rearrange everything. Yes, Darla would have been here, but she has to work, too. She’d be busy holding down our little company without the two thirds of the employees. She’ll be a little frantic, herself.
But we are here. So Trinity is downstairs playing with the dogs, while I write this. Once this is done, we will go through her summer clothes from last year, and see what still fits. Then we will have to go shopping. All you with children understand that she’s grown since last year. She’s hit one of those growth spurts. I waited last year until we got back off tour to buy summer clothes for the kiddo, and it was picked over. A lot of cute stuff was out of her sizes. So I’ve learned you must shop for the season you want, before the season starts. Because, if you wait for summer to begin, there won’t be any summer clothes left. They’ll be fall clothes. I am one of those people that doesn’t actually think about clothes until I need them. But that is no way to shop in America. You must plan. Tour is actually helping we learn this things. Funny that.
We’ve already arranged one play date this week for Trinity with one of her best friends. It will be my last chance before winging off into the wilds of cities everywhere to see one of my very good friends, who just happens to be the mother of Trinity’s good friend. Nice how that works out.
I’ll probably arrange at least one more play date where munchkins come over to my house and rampage about. Alright, not rampage, it just sounds that way. I’ve got another day out planned, but haven’t been able to contact everyone. I don’t remember planning playtime being this much of a struggle when I was little. No one talked about play-dates. But then no one had their kids in every sport or activity known to man, either. We, by the way, do not have Trinity enrolled in gobs of after school activity. I believe sincerely that a child needs time to play, to think, to just be. Frantic activity is something you do when you must, not a way of life. I know as a writer that I need lots of time to just stare off into space. Sometimes I know what I’m thinking, sometimes I don’t. But I know that without this time, I wouldn’t be able to write, not like I do. Doing nothing is not a bad thing. Just as doing everything, can be a very bad thing indeed. Be brave, start a trend, relax, enjoy life for a change, let you and your kids, do nothing. See how it feels. My husband has just informed me that breakfast is ready. Got to go.
Today we shopped for tour
Today we shopped for tour, and visited with friends. The friend visiting was good. The shopping, not so good. I’ve bought this lovely black skirt (what else) with a small spray of blue flowers around the side slit. Great, right. Well, not exactly. The flowers are a beautiful shade of blue. A beautiful but hard, nay impossible, shade to match. The shirt that came with it is all I’ve found, so far. When you’re packing for a month long business trip, you don’t really want to take something that has only one shirt that matches it. Nearly everything that goes with you, must serve at least a dual purpose, if not more. I love the skirt, but if I can’t match it up a little more, it may have to stay home.
My friend Karen has this uncanny ability to find sales on odd clothing. Never business clothing. Nothing practical. No, she’s the one to take with you if you’re hunting lingerie, or leather, or boots. Anything that could be worn clubbing, or worn in the bedroom; not only will she help you find it, but she’ll find it on sale, a really good sale. She’s one of the few people I can shop with that doesn’t make me hate the process. Of course, it could be the fact that I usually buy lingerie and leather when I’m out with her. Hmmm, well maybe. I hadn’t really thought of that. She’s helped me pick out outfits that my husband owes her thank you letters for. Maybe that’s why it’s more fun to shop with her. But, sadly, yesterday, I was concentrating on tour, but took Karen with us. She and her hubby, Bear. Maybe that explains why I found almost nothing businessy but came home with two leather skirts and a leather shirt. Damn. That does explain it. The long leather skirt you’ll be seeing somewhere on tour. The other outfit, well, none of you have been that good.
Important safety rule; never take Karen shopping for tour clothes. Okay. I’ll remember that next time.
Damned right I’m persistent.
Damned right I’m persistent. For all those who read that and think, what, my husband ended his diary entry yesterday by saying, I was nothing if not persistent. He’s right about that.
I set out to find a spring poem to quote for the first day of spring, which was yesterday. I have seldom read a more depressing bunch of poems in my life. When you consider that I have a degree in literature, that says something. Oh, the poems started out okay, but before they ended, they were depressing. It’s almost as if they were embarrassed to be totally upbeat, as if that weren’t cool. Either they were afraid to be cheerful, or modern anti-depressents would have changed an entire generation of poetry. For good, or ill, I don’t know, but it would have been different. Everywhere I went one of the few bright spots was Wordsworth’s Daffodils, but it’s been over quoted. I thought that in college, when I had to do a paper on it. So I wanted something cheerful for spring that wasn’t by Wordsworth. I finally found it.
One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring.
A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken, can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence. A chipmunk, emerging for a sunbath but finding a blizzard, has only to go back to bed. But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges.
That bit of cheer is from A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold. It is a book that I haven’t really looked at since college, when I spent a good part of a summer in the Michigan wilderness learning that I didn’t really want to be a wild life biologist. I’m far too fond of indoor plumbing, and other little luxuries of life. It’s just as well, if I had decided to pursue the biology as a career when my allergies hit just after college, I’d have been seeking a new job. I am unfortunately allergic to most animals, and most plant environment. Some field biologist I would have made. So it was good that summer that I discovered I like the outdoors, love animals, want to help save the environment, but not absolutely up close and personal.
I started bemoaning that I’d wasted two hours yesterday seeking a bit of spring gladness, but in all that searching, I found the book I just quoted. I remembered why I bought the collected verse of Rudyard Kipling. Read his poem IF, and you’ll either understand what I mean, or you won’t. I found my complete works of Robert Frost. I found my birding journal with quotes about birds in it. Such pretty pictures, such lovely quotes, I’ve never had the heart to actually use it as a journal. I think I had forgotten why I loved poetry. Getting a literature degree will spoil you for it, sometimes. Make you not want to read another piece of it. I think, at last, I can go back and enjoy the poems for their own sake, and for my enjoyment, without trying to discect them, and figure out what they mean. I always hated having to figure out what a poet, or an author, meant by something. Just read and enjoy. I know I certainly don’t want to be analyzed. The scariest so far on telling me what my books were about has got to be the woman who was a pure Freudian (I didn’t think they still existed). She went on about father figures and phallic fangs. EEK!
Got to go for now. Today, we are trying on clothes, seeing what shirt goes with which pants, or skirt. Deciding what we’ll be wearing where. Don’t wear the shorter skirts if you’re going to be on television. Don’t wear the higher heels if there’s going to be a lot of walking. That sort of thing.
The First day of Spring.
The First day of Spring. And the wonderful spring air is poisoning us. Our Allergies have hit high speed, and as such we are feeling miserable. but not to worry, this is normal for us at this time of year. 
We have learned to adjust to the fact that the air itself is attempting to kill us.
But it is nice to see the flowers begin to bloom and all the green and growing things to burst forth from the earth once more. It gives us a sense of renewed hope that no matter what happens, the earth will continue to turn and things will continue to grow, and none of our problems are all that big a deal. Spring is the time when I take the long view, and see all that is possible with just a little effort.
Laurell has gotten in to the mood of spring and has been reading poetry looking for a good Spring poem. I think that looking in The Compleat Works of Rudyard Kipling is not the place to look…. But she is nothing if not persistent.
PRESS RELEASE – 3/20/03 – LAURELL K. HAMILTON TOUR
I will be going on tour. War having begun does not change that. I have every confidence in my country’s armed forces and in the security measures here at home.
They canceled my tour just after 9/11 and I fought to go out as planned because to change our plans out of fear means the terrorists win. My husband and I went out and made every scheduled appearance. We will do so during this tour, as well. The only caveats are if plane schedules are changed, or there is some freak weather occurring either where we are or where we are going. Barring acts of God or the airlines, we will be where we said we’d be, when we said we would be there. We look forward to seeing you all at the events.
Keep positive thoughts going and remember…
Don’t Panic!
Laurell K. Hamilton
Today Laurell actually got to write!
Today Laurell actually got to write! She’s deep into the third Merry Gentry book, SEDUCED BY MOONLIGHT. Not only do we have to prepare for the tour and get all that done, but she also needs to still be writing. Its what pays the bills and what makes it so that we have a book to tour for. Yesterday afternoon, a new pair of boots came all the way from England. They looked awfully narrow to Laurell. So narrow she almost didn’t want to try them on, but I persuaded her. Once on, they fit! They fit and she agreed they looked really cool. They have little buckles in the shape of bats. Laurell was worried they’d look too cutsey. I assured her they didn’t look cutsey, other adjectives came to mind, but we’ll leave those up to your imagination. All I need to do now is find something to put on the sole to give them a bit more traction, as they have absolutely no tread.
It’s been a day.
It’s been a day. It started well, with bacon for everyone, and hot tea for Laurell and I. Then the sudden dawning that today was picture day at school and we hadn’t planned for it. When I was in elementary school, there was only one picture day all year. Today was our daughter’s third this year, so we’re running out of outfits. Add to this the adventure of trying to get her pig tails even, (does the phrase Picasso Pig tails mean anything to you?) and we almost missed the bus. I had managed to get the kiddo off to school only to see Laurell running to the bus whirling what looked like a black-jack over her head. I was mistaken, it was a plum in a plastic bag for Trinity’s snack. Not long after this, Laurell went to get her eyebrows waxed and has just returned. I love my wife dearly, but why you would do something that causes your eyebrows to swell this much is beyond my understanding. She says that it will be compleatly gone in 3 days and I believe her, but still… [3/19 I talked with her and she says that waxing her eyebrows will have them look better longer, and that it hurts lest than having them plucked one at a time. I guess I understand it. She assures me that if my eyebrows were any less than perfect, I’d be doing it myself.] Anyway, tonight she’s taping an interview with a local radio station that will be aired on the Sunday, and we have to plan our wardrobe. Even though its “only radio” and no one will see how she is dressed, it counts in our minds as a public appearance and as such our appearance matters. I believe that if you are a professional and are doing your job, you should look professional. I’m lucky that Laurell agrees.
Happy St. Patty’s Day
Happy St. Patty’s Day, everybody. This is sort of a trial run. My husband and I are thinking about doing a journal about the tour. But since neither of us has ever kept a journal for longer than two weeks at a time, we thought we’d practice. So, really, this is a journal about getting ready for tour. All the little things that you never think of as important, until you are about to spend a month away from home. Little things, like having enough food for our dogs, or that the person that you’re having over to house-sit knows how much food to give the fish, and how often. Its all the stuff you do before a vacation, but more so. The biggest difference between tour and a vacation is packing. On vacation we get to pack shorts and t-shirts, jogging shoes, hiking boots. On tour we pack suits, ties, skirts, hosiery, and boots. But these are so not boots for hiking. These are boots for walking around in, yes, but the biggest thing is that they look fabulous. The truly uncomfortable footwear, stays homes. Because on tour, unlike vacation, you cannot control how long you’ll be on your feet, and how long it will be until you reach some place where you can take your shoes off. We want to look good, but not torture ourselves. We do not do cruel shoes. Mainly, as my husband just said as he read this over my shoulder, because you can’t run through an airport in them. Not unless you want to break an ankle. All those people more physically coordinated than we are, that can run full out in spike heels, more power to you. We bow in the presence of such accomplishment, but we’d hurt ourselves.