Author: Jonathon

Viva Las Vegas! But as usual by the time we get to Vegas we’re too tired to really take advantage of the what the city has to offer. By third signing it’s time to huddle in the hotel room and conserve energy for the events. I did limp out to have lunch outside the room, and it felt good to be out and about, but now I’m tired. You guys will get to see my nifty cane from Butch Honeck. So many people asked about it at the Chicago and St. Louis signings that we’re putting the link so you can see the other beautiful things he makes. Unfortunately right now the cane is not just a cool fashion accessory for me. Sigh. I’ll be better soon and see my doc next week, but tour and publication dates wait for no one, especially when you only did the second injury two weeks ago. Jon wore his new suede kilt and his necromancy t-shirt in Chicago. We both wore our New Rock boots. Jon looked so fetching in his kilt that I got a little distracted. Those of you who have come to signings before know that he dances in place to sort of keep the energy up, well it’s always distracting to me in a good way, but add the soft swirl of the suede to my husband’s, um, assets, and I had to remind myself that we were here to work. I don’t know if he can wear the new sexy kilt again to a signing. It’s entirely too much fun. The kilt came from Offkilter Designs by the Kilt Guy. He makes two weights of suede and one of leather. It’s all soft and very pettable. Jon’s New Rocks, he calls them shit-kicker boots, knee-length and layers of leather and metal, just added to the kilt. I wore my flame boots. Jon’s t-shirt is from Off World Designs. So that’s it all the stuff you guys asked, "Where did we get it?" Now you know. 

Now I’m off to finish getting ready for the event tonight. See you at the Clarke County Library at 7:00 for question and answers, signing to follow. First 100 people get free T-Shirts!

Ahhhhh!

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear."

—-H.P. Lovecraft

Lovecraft always makes it sound pretty.

"Do one thing everyday that scares you."

—-Eleanor Roosevelt

Today, I will be way ahead of the curve on this one.

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
—- Frank Herbert, Dune – Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear

My favorite use of this quote was on the cartoon "Earthworm Jim" where our superhero Earthworm Jim is on a sled careening madly down a hill with his sidekick Peter Puppy behind him. Peter begins to quote the above as they hurdle towards their doom.

I’m going to finish getting ready. Car comes in moments to take us to the airport. Curse, you, phobia.

SKIN TRADE is officially on the shelves. Glad that everyone is finally able to read it. Sometimes there is so much time between the writing of a book and the publishing date that it seems distant from me, and old news, but not this one. This book was a hard write, and the last few weeks of it’s conception was some of the hardest nights I’d had as a working writer. That makes SKIN TRADE very fresh in my mind. So happy reading everyone. We’re packing for the plane tomorrow. For the first time in a long time I’m actually nervous about getting on the plane. Damn phobia.

Chicago on Wedsnday. Vegas on Friday. We’ll see everyone there.

In the interest of going to bed early-ish, I’ll leave it at that night. I’ll try to blog tomorrow before we get on the plane, but I won’t promise it depends on how much of a handle I get on this very familiar nervousness. I really thought I was over this particular phobia. I’ve traveled all over and been fine. Maybe I’m not phobic of airplanes at all. Maybe I’m phobic of tour. Is there a word for that? Touraphobia?

I’ve been unnaturally calm about tonight being the first event for SKIN TRADE. I just finished meditating and I’m still calm, but it’s the calm of still, deep water. Glassy on the surface but bubbling with life just below where the eye can see.  My nerves have finally risen and let me know they are there. Eek! Is it stage fright? A little, but it’s more that so much effort, so much time builds towards this week of tour. Will we make the New York Times list? Will we make #1? How many copies will we sell? The reviews have been good so far, in fact remarkably so, which is cool, but I was raised to expect the other shoe to drop. Will it?

Oh, my God, I’ve got an hour until the car picks us up. Must go get dressed, do make up. Ahhh! See you all tonight at the St. Louis Public Library 1301 Olive Street. The question and answer session begins at 6 PM with the signing to follow. Gotta run and get ready. Oh, and we’re giving away free t-shirts to the first 150 people. Sizes and styles are non-negotiable, so you get what you get. Sorry, but we tired to do sizes and styles once before and it turned into a logistical nightmare.

We saw "Star Trek" today. Took Trinity and Jon’s parents and made a family outing of it. What a great movie to choose for it. All our friends had said it was amazing, but so few movies live up to the hype. This one did. This was one redo of a nostalgic icon that actually improved upon the orignal. I might have enjoyed other redo’s but I’ve never said it was an improvement until now. What I also loved was that all the main cast got good parts, good moments, great action. I won’t spoil it, but let’s say that it wasn’t just the Kirk and Spock show, but the entire cast got a chance to shine, and most of them got to save the rest of the cast at least once. Cool.

Trinity and I went on a girl’s afternoon out today before the movie, because I had things I needed before we go on tour, and she’s always been happier shopping than I am.  I’m just beginning to realize it doesn’t matter what I do with the kiddo, it’s just the fact that we do it together. My friends with older kids tell me my days of being cool and her wanting to spend time with me is limited, so I’m trying to enjoy it while I can.

I just finished up an e-interview. The price for that earlier play time was that I’m still working at midnight.  I used to do all my work first, then play if there was time, but lately on the weekends I’m putting my playtime first and some of the work afterwards.  Maybe it has something with Trinity getting older and me not wanting to explain to her that I couldn’t go to another movie because I had a deadline. Sometimes you’ve just got to grab the family and go to the movies. I am happier sitting here at midnight working than I would have been sitting inside on the beautiful afternoon we just had. 

I have to admit to letting my mood get away from me today. I let the whole pain and the bum leg just get to me. I was positively down in the dumps, nervous and unsettled, then I saw something flash by the office windows. I went to the windows and found that we had barn swallows. I’ve always loved swallows don’t know why. I have no happy childhood stories. In fact, I don’t remember ever seeing one for real until I was a teenager, and that was because a friend’s barn had a nest. But I’ve loved them since the first time I saw them dive through the air, that cobalt blue back shining in the sunlight, the breast flashing white and red (the red of a Robin’s breast not Cardinal red), that forked tail, all of it whirling and diving in the air twisting on some invisible point. When I was younger I wanted a barn that had swallows in it, but as I grew older and less enchanted with farm living, I just wanted a yard where swallows would nest. I didn’t hold much hope out, we have no gazebo, or shed, nothing that would typically attract them for nesting, but today they whirled past the windows. I watched them dive and dart, skimming above the grass for insects, speeding up to the sky to rush and circle back. There were two of them, dipping and skimming over the water garden and the clover-rich grass. We are insecticide and herbicide free in our yard which gives us a much richer variety of plants and animals. Jon joined me to watch them do their aerobatics, then we noticed that they kept darting down towards the ground. Swallows don’t like the ground except to collect mud for their nests, or water to drink, and bath in, so why were they landing on things? They landed on the roof of the solarium, the Shepard’s crook with it’s hummingbird feeder, the patio, but all that to flutter under the eaves again and again. They flew so close to the window we were standing in front of that if the glass hadn’t been there I could have stroked them as they flew past. We went to a different window and found that they were doing what I’d hoped, investigating nesting sights. I told Jon, "If they put mud on anything it’s a good sign." They put mud on top of one of the lights over the solarium door. They also bathed in the stream and sat on the roof edge and groomed. We watched them flutter and play for a couple fo hours, then as darkness began to fall they were gone. I hope they come back tomorrow, and I hope we have the odd problem of not using that door for the duration of nesting season. Barn swallows without a barn would be so terribly cool.

My bad mood vanished under the flight of swallows and the hope that they’ll be back tomorrow.

True hope is swift, and flies with swallow’s wings;
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.

William Shakespeare, "King Richard III", Act 5 scene 2

Maybe I’m not the only writer that liked swallows.

Saw the new Terminator movie last night. Jon and I are glad we saw it, but don’t feel a need to see it again. Charles said this movie was better than T3, which Jon and I never saw. It is a good movie to see on the big screen, lot’s of spectacular explosions and special effects. It’s also a very jumpy out movie, as in startling. Jon and I both jumped. Charles being a veteran of actual combat, and an ex-cop sat steady. He was probably amused at our jumping, and my little intacts of breath, but he was friend enough not to poke fun. Christian Bale did a good job with the part of John Connor, but it was like being Batman. Neither role gives him much scope for his acting abilities. I don’t mind that when it’s an actor I’m pretty certain is showing all the range they have inside them, but it bothers me when I suspect that an actor has so much more to give on screen and the part limits them. But, they are both blockbusters and have raised his capitol in Hollywood. There are a number of fine character actors that would probably love to be able to do both the summer blockbuster and that little Oscar worthy film. I think Christian Bale could do both, if the right part came along. Though I hated the movie American Psycho for thematic problems and confusion of plot, and just general all around cynicism, Christian Bale was brilliant in it. He made that much more complicated part work. His acting was what got me through to the closing credits. So, I’ve seen that he has more range, and it would be nice to see again, but in a movie that was more enjoyable. Not that Mr. Bale cares what I think about his choice of movie roles, but the more I play in Hollywood the more I look at actors the way I look at writers. Time is passing, and I just like to see all good artists make the most of it.

Speaking of making good use of time I’m going back to work now. I have the end of the novella to finish rewriting. There’s an e-mail interview due today, and I finally know where the wheel came off the Merry book. Oh, and the publicity for SKIN TRADE, which comes out next week, (ahhh!) has begun to swallow the world. My goal before it really does swallow everything is to send the novella off to New York and then just let the week of tour and publicity have it’s way with me.

Trinity had her school program today. She had a solo and so Jon and I went. Couldn’t miss our girl on stage singing, "Science Genius Girl" by Freeze Pop. The band is entirely Jon’s doing. I’m not a big one for techno anything, but Jon and Trinity love it. But there was an interesting moment when the students who were announcing the various acts said, "And now an oldie but a goodie," and it was Michael Jackson’s "Thriller".

Jon sort of slumped in his seat. I patted him on the back, leaned in to whisper, "Seeing your youth fly before your eyes?"

He nodded. "It can’t be an oldie yet."

I didn’t argue just gave comfort. He was seriously weirded out by it. Moments before I came to my office to blog this, Jon said, "It’s only been twenty-five years. It’s not an oldie." Then I started doing math in my head.

"Jon, you weren’t old enough for this to be the music of your youth."

He started doing math in his head then and realized he’d been nine when "Thriller" came out. He turned to me and said, "Add twelve to nine. You were twenty-one."

Apparently, it was my youth being called an oldie but a goodie. Strangely, it didn’t bother me. Maybe I’m spending too much time with friends, and a husband, that are ten years, or more younger than I am. Or maybe it’s that I don’t think of "Thriller" as my music. I didn’t listen to commercial radio at twenty-one. I’m actually not a big fan of eighties music. My favorite music starts in the nineties to now. I’m always finding a new band that I love.  I remember one cook-out when I was still married to my first husband, and we were with his oldest sister, her husband, and their friends. They were playing things that had been big when most of us had been in high school. I and the fifteen-year-old nephew were not enjoying the music. I finally couldn’t stand it, and went to the host and said, "I’ve got music in my car that was actually made this decade. I’ll let you borrow it." He looked at me as if I’d said a bad thing.  Maybe one of the reasons I’m not attached to the sounds of my high school and college years is that’s it wasn’t my glory years. High school is something you get through so you can go to college. College is what you do so you can get a job and be a grown-up. I love being a grown-up so much more than I ever liked being a kid. Life just gets better, and if you’re doing it right being a grown-up just means being more of who you always were, not losing yourself, but finding yourself.

Sitting in the dark with just the glow of the computer screen and distant candle light. The toads are singing in the water garden outside my window. The new Tori Amos album, "Abnormally Attracted to Sin" is playing. Jon is over in the other part of the house trying to get the new website design up and running. Carri is doing her work from home tonight, because it got to be eight o’clock and her wife was at home, probably wondering where the heck she was, but Jon and Carri are determined to get the new web design up tonight. They seem to have run into technical problems that I don’t really understand.

We fed Trinity earlier, but had delayed dinner for us because I was writing and Jon was doing his tech stuff. I’m not sure we would have figured out what time it was if his mother hadn’t called to ask a computer question. She asked what we’d had for dinner and he said, "We haven’t had dinner yet."

"It’s eight o’clock"  she’d said.

We all went, crap. Techies are as bad as artists for the whole absent-minded professor thing, or would that be the absent-minded artist thing? Combine us all together and sometimes we forget mundane things like dinner. We get lost in the programming, or in the imaginary worlds. Though tonight I was writing a new bio for myself for the website, which wasn’t imaginary, but very time consuming. Hopefully you’ll get to see it tonight.

I saw the chiropractor today for my leg. He was actually hopeful about my ankle, because I’d walked and stood on it for two days, almost all day. He’s wrapped the ankle in a new method that was originated in Japan, actually. It gives more support with much fewer lines of wrapping. I’m still using a cane to help me take the weight off of the ankle, but it’s been doing better since he did acupuncture and wrapped it. In fact, it felt so much better that I walked a little too fast and it began to hurt more again. Me, overdoing it? Naw. Just almost always. I used to try and change myself, but this last year I’ve changed tactics. I’m embracing myself, all of myself, even the parts that aren’t my favorites. All the parts make up who I am, and I like who I am, so why be squeamish? It’s been an interesting journey to find myself.

I wanted to be the kind of person who would never get so wrapped up in work that she’d forget to eat dinner, but that was a year ago and I’m okay with it now. I am both the laser guided concentration and the forgetful, easily distracted artist. Two sides of the same coin; can anyone say, ADHD?

Honestly, I didn’t test very high for that. Though I’m usually moving. Either my hands, my mouth, dancing in my chair, petting something. Where do you draw the line? Maybe I only fidget in a more socially acceptable way because I was in a school system that beat my ass if I talked in class, or disrupted the class too much. So, I learned smaller ways to move, but the movement is almost constant or it’s not at all. I’m either moving, or almost utterly still. Usually still and staring at a computer screen, a piece of paper, or out a window. I’m going to go over to the other side of the house and see how Jon is fairing with the website. I need to pet someone, um, something.

Happy Memorial Day everyone! We celebrated by doing a four day weekend with friends. Jon and I had a great time. We visited, shared meals, and enjoyed a beautiful few days in their neck of the woods. Woodsy enough that spiders and granddaddy long legs were very plentiful. Nature is good but not everyone in our party wanted it crawling on them. But other than a few exciting arachnid moments it was a lovely trip. We might have over walked my bad ankle though, because I’ve managed to strain my calf musle. I’ll be seeing my chiropractor tomorrow, and we’ll see what he says about it. If he thinks it needs it, he’ll send me back to my orthopedist. Fingers crossed that it’s better by tomorrow. I am trying to stay off of it as much as possible. In the interest of getting Jon and I to bed now, I’ll leave it at that. Oh, and Trinity was with her father visiting out of state family. Back to school for her tomorrow and back to work for us.