The RedMolly Picayune-Democrat

Tizzagged

So Angie tagged me, along with most of the rest of the Digital Scrapbooking crew, and since I've been woefully uncreative on the blog post topic front lately, I figured what the hell. Thanks, cute Angie! And I still need to watch you at the craps table, you gambling demon, you. And you were a total trooper about eating the curry at PMA! Mmmm, curry. And without further ado, here are seven facts, some random, some weird. (I really couldn't tell you what the difference between "random" and "weird" is, unless one is supposed to somehow randomly determine facts to share, such as "I have two coffee cups on my desk, both empty. They look oddly homey and comforting in the wan sunlight streaming through the window.")

1. I can't sneeze without looking at the sun, or at least a very bright light. Many members of my family have this same condition; my mom did some research and found out that it's called autosomal dominant compulsive helio-opthalmic outbursts of sneezing, or ACHOO syndrome. (Cue Jon Stewart: "Autosomal dominant compulsive helio-opthalmic outbursts of sneezing, or NAMBLA. ..." My God, that never gets old.)
2. A frighteningly large percentage of what I say consists of a few stock goofy words or phrases, with the occasional song/movie quote thrown in to leaven the mass. My response to all questions? "Kittens." When the kids get up to badness? "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" When something is bad, rotten, boring or just plain stupid? "This is dildos." Seriously. I don't know why someone hasn't strangled me yet. So freakin' annoying...
3. I love to sort, organize and throw things away. Not having a place for something, or seeing something not in the right place, makes me feel all wriggly and wrong-hearted inside. But then when I am feeling less than tip-top and not adhering to the strict rules of the GSH plan, I start stacking things up thinking how good it will feel when I am finally up to putting them away with great precision and unparalleled accuracy. And I stack, and I stack, and the stacks teeter and fall, and people start e-mailing me looking for stuff I was supposed to have done a long time ago, and the world caves in and oh hell let's just go back to bed.
4. After much agonizing mental toil, I think I have figured out out exactly what combination of Stilton, Trader Joe's Sesame Thins and red wine I can consume every day and still lose weight.  My calculations so far: 4 ounces of Stilton + 9 Sesame Thins + 5 six-ounce glasses of wine = 1235 calories. And I would be walking 2.5 miles round trip to Lupa for two of those glasses of wine, which should burn off 311 calories, so we are GOLDEN. I call it the "Scurvy Gone Wild!" diet. Will probably need to throw a multi-vitamin or a handful of sprouts or something in there.
5. Best thing this week: Eddie Izzard's "Death Star Canteen" bit, performed in LegoVision:
   
6. Jim's parents bought us a webcam, but I can't figure out how to make the stupid thing work with stupid Windows Live Messenger stupid stupid. Why do you need three names for your product anyway? What would be wrong with MessCam or Winchat or Herringbeast or something short and easy to remember and not at all made by Microsoft? And why does every stupid Microsoft product in the world feel the need to start up every time I restart my computer and natter on at me about needing to adjust the settings or check for compatibility upgrades or something? Pfaugh. It's enough to make a girl go Linux.
7. There's nothing to completely erode your sense of self-worth like scrolling through the Craigslist job listings and realizing that there is nothing, nothing that you are remotely qualified to do. Bookkeeping? Dental assisting? Residency coordinating for a nonprofit teaching hospital? These human resources people would laugh in my face. About all I can do is type fast (91 WPM with 98% accuracy baby!) and string words together into long semi-coherent jumbles. Possessing these skills, alas, makes one rather less employable than would having a dab hand with a bedpan.

So, Angie, was that random enough for you? Thanks for the tag. I know I've been tagged a few times recently and never responded. My excuse is that I suck, and I am very sorry. But anyway, thanks for inviting me to play.

Anyone else want to play? I know this is a well-worn meme, but it's always fun to read what lurks in the hearts of (wo)men.

Compelled, yet uncompelling

It's Wednesday, I feel like crap and yet I feel compelled to blog about remarkably uncompelling things.

1. Sore throat. Ecch. How can having a sore throat make the rest of you feel awful too? I just want to go to bed, but I don't think that's an option. [Checks.] Nope.
2. Grey. Grey weather, grey mood; grey is the color of disappointment and I'm feeling remarkably disappointed today.
3. All I ask is one day of non-rain. One day when I can actually go outside. Even just for a little while. I mean, this is Portland, and I knew what I was in for, but still... WTF, weather?
4. Why am I listening to this incredibly freaking depressing music? ("Terrible Canyons of Static" by godspeed you! black emperor if for some reason you wanted to know. I'm at the part with the violin/xylophone/reverby guitar solo and I just feel like ripping my wrists open with my teeth. But my god it is beautiful.) But it looks like Teddybears is coming up next on the Party Shuffle (Everybody do the Party Shuffle! Take it to the left... move it to the right...) and that should take care of the whole depressing music thing.
5. I came up with a new beginning for The Book; not a completely new beginning, just a better opening. If only, if only I would write it. Not quite as straightforward, a little bit more imagery-ridden... hell, it'll probably suck but I should write it down anyway just in case.
6. Our book club's most recent book was Jane Eyre, which I was supposed to read in high school but managed to evade, and gosh darn if it wasn't actually a pretty freaking awesome read. Except I bought this edition (the Penguin "Red Classic"), with a creepy pink chick-lit cover and quotes from romance writers all over it, and it spoiled the vibe a teeny bit. Best part, though: the writeups of other "Red Classics" at the back which managed to make Wuthering Heights, Lolita and A Spy in the House of Love all sound kind of uniformly tripely chick-littish, which is awesome in its own marketing-department-on-steroids way.
7. I need an MP3 of the Smiths' "How Soon Is Now?". Does anyone have one to share?
8. What should I write my next photo column about? Actually, the next one will be on why you should be shooting RAW instead of JPEG. How about after that? Srsly, I would love to do one on Naughty Photos (for married people only, you evil-thinkers! Gosh!) but I think that idea will get ye olde editorial kibosh.
9. I was so good at our book club meeting. I had one, and only one, glass of wine--a delicious Kathryn Kennedy Santa Cruz Mountains 2004 Syrah--and it was delicious. I thought I was friendly but not overbearingly chatty. But I am still thinking maybe the two new ladies in the club did not like me so much, and I'm not sure why. Alas.
10. And now, for your viewing pleasure, a picture of the lovely Princess Ella von Smella Bella.
    

And how is your week?

Wednesday Wandom 10: Fangirl Edition

Things that are making me happy:

1. After the news of Dumbledore's sexuality came out (ha ha) the other day, I was explaining the concept of fanfic and slashfic to Jim. He was, unsurprisingly, especially fascinated by the notion of taking people from different fictional universes and writing stories in which they play with each others' naughty bits. Fisher heard the tail end of this conversation and piped up, "You mean somebody could write something like... Harry Potter and the Goblet of Sex?" It's making me laugh every time I think of it.
2. Our neighbors heat their house primarily with their fireplace. Their chimney is on the side of the house next to our driveway, which means that as I sit here at my desk with the window open (Fresh Air Fiend!), the smell of woodsmoke drifts through the screen and scents my whole office with fiery deliciousness.
3. Jim and Fisher are competing to see who can finish reading (re-reading, in Fisher's case) the Harry Potter series first. I think Jim beat Fisher to the end of Book 4. Our dinner table conversation now includes Fisher regularly interrogating Jim about which events he's reached, or hasn't reached, in the course of the narrative. Rhys (who hasn't read any of the books yet, obv.) and I (who have read the first two and now feel honor-bound to read the rest) regularly shout in unison: "NO SPOILERS!"
4. When I took myself out to dinner when Jim was out of town a few weeks ago, I met a woman at the bar (I always always sit at the bar when I go to a restaurant by myself) who is a fellow writer. We exchanged contact info and went on our merry ways. Much to my surprise, she e-mailed me less than a week later about getting together to chat... and this Monday, we had "lunch" (well, dessert in lieu of lunch) at Pix. She's working on a YA fantasy novel... loves Neil Gaiman, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Campbell, comic books and video games... it was great to find someone to geek out with! Yay friends!
5. The Wunderland Arcade. $2 to get in the door, then all the games run on nickels. First-person shooter mayhem violence excitement! (Yeah, we take the kids kind of a lot.)
6. Jac and Mike stopped by last night en route from their weekend in Bend back to their Gig Harbor abode. Wine, cheese, merriment, child charades. ("Fisher: be Cleopatra! Be a gladiator! Be a giant robot with a nuclear butt!") They discovered a very wonderful thing on their travels, too: Benham Falls on the Deschutes River. Benham Falls! Isn't that exquisite? (Herms: "Benham Falls. Is it hurt? Yes it is. Everybody's glad.")
7. Family in-jokes. And their complete inability to be explained to anyone who wasn't there at their nascence.
8. The word "disambiguation," as popularized by Wikipedia! Fun to say, fun to employ.
9. Vampires, zombies, skeletons and other shuddery Halloweenish things. The only thing I don't like about Halloween is the hideous "color scheme" enforced upon us by nameless faceless mavens of style(lessness). Black's OK... but purple and orange, WTF? What's wrong with just plain black, or maybe black red and white, and then we could all go dressed as the White Stripes?
10. My brother is coming to visit us on Friday. I'm almost freakishly excited about this. How much happy Portland mayhem can we pack into four days? Stand by for news!

VIII

So I have been tagged twice for the circulating hip'n'now "eight random things" meme, and it goes a little some'n like this:

1. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.

2. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.

3. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been
tagged.

I'm not really sure how that second rule fits into the schema (maybe it would work better as #3? maybe it should be rephrased as "...should post these rules along with their 8 random facts? maybe I should just give up on writing and become a copyeditor, since I seem to love nitpicking so much?), but there you have it. And here we have these:

I. My new favorite place in the world is my "desk" upstairs in my "office." It's an L-shape of laminate countertop mounted to the wall, and it's where I sit at my computer and look out a little square window through which I can see trees and the neighbors' rooftops and the occasional frolicking squirrel, and hear the traffic and home-improvement noises from the street below. The fresh Portland air rushes in and keeps me cool, and I feel peaceful and content. (Note that, however, all this peaceful contentedness has not translated into a single new word added to The Book.)

II. I am fascinated by tiny, delicate little things. Especially dollhouses and the perfect little miniatures that fill them--a half-inch-high wineglass, how cunning is that? But I'm left cold by the prevailing Victorian aesthetic of the dollhouse world and would love to start a company that makes modernist dollhouses and darling little Eames chairs and metal-and-glass bookshelves and concrete countertops and wee little copies of Dwell magazine to fill them.

III. When I'm temporarily stuck for words while writing, I type "vootie" as a placeholder. This nonword is gleaned from an old issue of Groo, wherein Groo ventures into the jungle and passes underneath a monkey and the monkey says "Vootie." With the period. (My mom also once had a student named Vuthy Y; Vuthy was pronounced "vootie." My brother, sister and I were highly taken with this name and used to ask each other, "Y, Vuthy, Y?"

IV. I sit crosslegged in my desk chair. And in most chairs. Sometimes I get odd looks while doing this in restaurants. But what am I supposed to do? It's a habit, and habit excuses one from responsibility.

V. It was my birthday yesterday. I am this many:

(Sadly, that's 32, not 23. But perhaps not that sadly, because that would have made me frighteningly youthful when my eight-year-old was born.) I had an absolutely lovely birthday, highlights of which included: having every member of my immediate family (parents, sis, bro) call and sing to me; receiving all kinds of darling clothing PLUS a gift certificate to our local nursery and another to Powell's (and an adorable sparkly dragonfly necklace from the inestimable Miss Zara, which I am wearing right now); having a fab lunch at Papa Haydn and a delicious dinner at India House; and having both Fisher and Rhys draw comics starring me as Super Mama. (According to Fisher, my super-power is apparently driving like a crazy person and yelling out at drivers with Texas plates.)

VI. Driving like a crazy person and yelling at drivers with Texas plates is my real-life super-power. But if I could choose a different (better) one, I'd choose the ability to turn ethereal and back again. No door would be closed to me! I could read all the files at the NSA (and add/subtract things, which would be the really fun part). I could visit museums and libraries in the middle of the night and have them allllll to myself. (Would I climb up the T. rex skeleton at the Field Museum? You bet your bippy I would. But semi-ethereally, so as not to damage anything.)

VII. I've visited twenty-one states, I think, and lived in three. I've been to three foreign countries and lived in zero.

VIII. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to do my best to have a "Science Friday" feature, wherein I will blog about something interesting in the world o' science and/or science as it relates to homeschooling. (Shouldn't be too hard. Really, everything relates to homeschooling if you look at it for a couple seconds.)

And now the part where I become a party pooper... I don't know who has or hasn't received this meme already, so I'm not tagging anyone. But as always, please, if you feel inspired to play, please do so and let me know. (Summer? Melissa Ives? Bueller? Bueller?)

(Also: my dad e-mailed me a couple days ago about my Sticker shock post. I got his permission to go ahead and post his comment here in its entirety because I felt like he really got what I was trying to say. We made a connection, man.)

Two, via Amy

Because she is such an English Geek.

Two names I go by:
1. Mama ("... look at this. Mama, what is this song about? Mama, how old do you think that house is?")
2. Deirdre Benham--my aspiring pseudonym. There's a whole story there, but it's only told in Schardt-cant, so I can't share.

Two things I am wearing right now:
1. a Celine Dion t-shirt
2. $5 black flip-flops with white hibiscus flowers printed on the insoles (Jim: "You know nobody can see those when you're wearing them, right?")

Two things I have (or want) in a relationship:
1. make me laugh!
2. tolerance of my million-and-one ridiculous foibles

Two of my favorite things to do (that maybe you don't know):
1. see how much money I can save at the grocery store by comparison shopping and timing to hit sales on pantry items (geek out! yecch!)
2. have long conversations with my cats, in which I speak both parts (oddly, all cats have the same heathenish voice; also, more often than not what they say is "I hate you so much. I will tear out your throat while you sleep. Can I have some chicken?")

Two things I want very badly at the moment:
1. someone to pack my damn house for me
2. a glass of wine--hey! Jim just brought one in here! Hooray. Now my life is almost completely complete.

Two pets I have:
1. cat(s)
2. brine shrimp(s)

Two things I did last night:
1. If I remember correctly, last night was utterly eventless. Can we talk about Saturday night instead, or even Friday?
2. No? Well, we watched the episode of "Homicide: Life on the Streets" in which Crosetti commits suicide. That was a nice light way to spend the evening.

Two things I ate today:
1. Greek chicken with penne
2. God, this is boring. Um, I guess Safeway-brand faux Corn Chex.

Two people I just talked to last (I'm assuming this means on the phone?):
1. Zara
2. Trevor

Two things I'm doing tomorrow:
1. Celebrating Jim's birthday. *breathily* Happy birrrthday, Mister Newwwwmaaaaan... happy birrrrthday toooo yooooou!
2. Packing. For hours and hours and hours.
3. (Cheat! Cheat!) Accompanying Fisher's class on their godforsaken eight-thirty-in-the-morning fifty-degrees-forecast swim day field trip.

Two longest car rides:
1. California foothills -> California coast -> Portland -> Seattle -> Vancouver Island -> I-5 southbound -> Santa Cruz, over the course of about two and a half weeks. (That wuz our hunnymoon.)
2. Grand Junction -> California -> Grand Junction, at least twice a year for the last five years. Used to be a sixteen-hour ride each way. Now it's *ahem* shorter.

Two favorite holidays:
1. Duh, my birthday. Except for the getting older part.
2. Christmas. Everybody loves freakin' Christmas.

Two favorite beverages:
1. Um, fermented grape juice.
2. Very very very cold water. Like the tooth-hurty kind.

Son of the Return of the Random 10, Part Deux

Like Flavor Flav, back from the grave*... it's another round of ten excitingish things you may or may not have already known about me, or my family, or my community, or... hell, who am I kidding? It's RedMolly all the way down.

This is the special "They Come In Threes" edition. (And that is quite enough out of the peanut gallery. Seriously. Shut up.)

1. Three things that would be good names for this blog, if it weren't already called something else:
   • In A World... (said in the movie-trailer-guy's stentorian voice)
   • Charismatic Megafauna (a.k.a. Smiley the Shark 'n' Pals)
   • Were You Aware? (sort of the lame fat-kid version of Lori's Flaming Lips-lifted blog title, Do You Realize?)
2. Three songs I want played at my funeral:
   
   • Flaming Lips, "Do You Realize??" (Do you sense a theme here??)
   • Tom Waits, "Come On Up to the House" (afterlife or no afterlife, it's a great freakin' song)
   • Peggy Lee, "Is That All There Is?" (Then let's keep dancing.)
3. Three things I own many of (that are not books):
   • Lipstick/lip gloss (I emptied out my various purses several months ago and had eight lipsticks and eleven lip glosses; I think I've gotten two lipsticks and three or four glosses since then)
   • Moleskine notebooks (the little palm-sized unlined ones)
   • Black shirts (four tank tops, four t-shirts, three long-sleeved pullover shirts, one short-sleeved button-down, one long-sleeved button-down, etc., etc.)
4. Three people who scare me:
   • Shirley Dobson (we accidentally saw a couple of minutes of Hannity and Colmes tonight--don't ask--and were struck by her sheer sedated chinny terrifyingness as she sat nodding out at her execrable sweetie's side)
   • This guy
   • Carlos Mencia (actually, what scares me is that there are people who think he's funny)
5. Three bands I'm digging right now:
   • Teddybears (this link will take you to their MySpace page, which, as is typical, blasts you with unasked-for music... but as is not typical, it's an awesome song feat. Iggy Pop)
   • Hood (sadly, apparently defunct; also sadly, more unasked-for music @ this link)
   • The Good, The Bad & The Queen (something of an, er, supergroup, including Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz; Danger Mouse of, well, about everything released in '05-'06 worth listening to; Simon Tong of the Verve; Peter Simonon of the Clash...)
6. Three books I'm reading right now:
   • China Mieville, The Scar
   • Judith Flanders, Life in the Victorian Home
   • Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life (I've been reading this book intermittently for oh, three years or so. Barzun's a brilliant writer, but I fear my mind has been too rotted by television (which, incidentally, he deplores) for me to concentrate on it at length)
7. Three songs for which I have printed out bass tabs (note that I'm not claiming I can actually play any of them):
   • Misfits, "Skulls" (and two bonus tunes, "Braineaters" and "Die Die My Darling"... I have a feeling the homeschool band is going to turn into a Misfits cover band)
   • Gnarls Barkley, "Crazy" (cunningly, the bass tabs and the guitar tabs are the same and INCREDIBLY FREAKIN' EASY)
   • Radiohead, "Airbag" (can't play it yet... probly never will)
8. Three good names for girls, were I going to have a daughter, which I amn't:
   • Phoebe (I can't think of a good middle name to use with Phoebe, except Ranunculus)
   • Lila Frances
   • Virginia Katherine (Ginny-Kate)
9. Three bands I liked in high school that have withstood the test of time and still pop up on playlists with unexpected frequency:
   • Happy Mondays
   • Megadeth (how weird is that? Watched the last half of Decline and Fall of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years a while back and was once again impressed by how well Dave Mustaine and crew acquitted themselves, especially compared to the becoiffed acid-washed knuckleheads who populated the rest of the film)
   • *Mr. Bungle (and, really, the whole Mike Patton oeuvre)
10. Three phrases I use far too often:
    • "In a world... " (said in my sad impression of the movie-trailer-guy's stentorian voice)
    • "What is the evidence?" (channeling either Johnnie Cochran or Richard Dawkins... you take your pick)
    • "Rocks too hard for just one hand"

Whoo! That certainly was a long list! I kind of felt like I should've ended it with three tags, but I'm trying not to spring that sort of thing on people, so if you feel like snagging it or adapting it or whatever just LMK and I'll TYB. Mwaa.

Also: I am having fun coming up with Technorati tags that have seldom-if-ever applied to the same post before. What you think?

Ten! For! Tues! Day!

Jiminy-crow, this is being a tough post to write.

I started it last night, with "ten compulsions," then deleted it 'cause it was so frankly weird. Then "ten things about me that are Good," which got as far as #4 before flaming out in a crash of twisted metal nobody-cares. Toyed briefly with the idea of "ten things I would like to have," but that's perhaps even a little shallower than the rest of this navel-gazing enterprise, don't you think? (Especially since none of those ten things would have been "a keener sense of compassion for other people.") And then I went over to Amy's blog and read some of her posts, and they all convey a sense of engagement with the world and meaningful introspection without losing their edge of wry humor, and my blog just never does anything like that and it's pretty much just all first-person-subject sentences and a lot of snarking, and anyway I got kind of discouraged and maybe a little bitter and then we had to go pick Fisher up from school and go to the park.

So. Um. I humbly present for you today's Random 10 RedMolly Facts: the "Ten Things I'd Change About Myself, the Did I Have the Wherewithal and/or a Wand Edition."

1. Let's get the really important one out of the way first. Gain three inches, lose twenty pounds, shrink my rib cage from its natural australopithecine proportions, miraculously acquire a set of bodacious ta-tas and hair that's the perfect un-chemically enhanced shade of red. And yes, I can make that all be one thing. This is my list.
2. My complete, utter and abiding personal inertia. Laziness, lack of stick-to-it-iveness, ADD, whatever you want to call it. The thing that makes it so that I can't ever seem to see a project through to
3. My lack of, and indeed distaste for, athletic ability.
4. My dislike of beer. Because I love and adore red wine, but sometimes the occasion-appropriate beverage is something cold, frosty, hoppy, even (dare I say it?) a bit lower-brow. (But not Lowenbrau. That's never a good idea.) There may be light at the end of this particular tunnel, though; I've recently discovered that I quite like Mike's Hard** Lemonade (actually, I like the Hard*** Lime better) and that meets most beer-type criteria. Still pretty damn embarrassing to be seen drinking, though.
5. The schizophrenic little voice in my head. No, not the voices that are a fair indicator of schizophrenia; the single bifurcated voice that can't seem to decide if I'm on the right track or bound for utter calamity. The one that really likes The Book* one minute and really hates it the next. The one that slaps me across both cheeks: "This is a great project! Why are you bailing out midstream?" and its inevitable B-side, "What a stupid freakin' waste of time! Why didn't you drop it by the wayside earlier?"
6. The nightmares that come probably three nights out of the week, and have been taking up residence in my sleepbrain for the last four nights straight. The one night before last was a doozy... damn.
7. My constant, gnawing and sometimes paralyzing need for validation. 'Cause nobody really likes me (why should anyone?) and yet I want everyone to like me so very badly...
8. Another multifer: Mildly Grouchy Impatient Mama, who surfaces pretty much every day for a regular airing, and Insane Ragemonger Shrieking Mama, who pops up randomly and usually when she's least needed and most unhelpful. ("What... do... you... MEAN... you can't find... your... #@$!!!... SHOES?!")
9. My utter inability to express complex thoughts or emotional earnestness of any sort. Mile wide and an inch deep, yep. A Jeopardy champion in the making, or at least an overeducated underrelating history/science geek. (Want to hear about the thirteenth century? No? What about the wacky mammals of the Miocene?) And why bother empathizing when you could snark instead? Life's far too short to spend focusing on hard things like math or, y'know, human emotions. Look--a pony!
10. My fear of moths. Stupid: yes. Surmountable: apparently not. (And no, not butterflies. Just moths. Shudder.)

Well, hey, that's done, and now I can go Mr. Clean Magic Erase the walls or something useful like that. Or pack. 'Cause we have a house to move to. Did I mention that? That we have a house? What's done is done, and let the dead bury their own dead.

*yes! We are now capitalizing The Book, in respect to its insistence on being thought about even when not being actively worked upon. And since we have no title and no inklings of a title, The Book is serving quite well, nomenclature-wise.

** Heh-heh. I said "hard."

*** Heh-heh. I said "hard" twice. "Hard twice."

Tenfer Tuesday--Vice City Edition

As Monday elapses and Tuesday arrives, as the swallows return to Capistrano and I return to Grand Junction, so the world turns, the cycle repeats, and it's time once again for the Ten Random RedMolly Facts: Vice City Stories.

Yeppers, these are those things of which I amn't, and oughtn't to be, proud, but which are just as much a part of my character as my many laudable virtues (which will perhaps appear in a future edition of Two Random Facts). Look close, Dear Reader, and revel in the shame...

1. I am a non-smoker, and yet I carry a pack of Marlboro Reds with me everywhere I go. Call it a fetish, a talisman, a way to make friends at a bar. But there they are. (It's been the same pack for over a year, and I think all of four cigarettes are missing from it.)
2. Two words (or a word and a string of numbers): Reno 911.
3. After a few drinks, I start swearing like a sailor. (Really, I'm working on it. It's fuckin' hard.) And I dearly love a good dirty joke.
4. Last Monday, it took me about three and a half hours to drive from Grand Junction to Boulder (that's 264 miles, 26 of which has a speed limit of 50). Hee hee hee.
5. SLAYER! Taste the rage! Also, er, Belle and Sebastian.
6. I have every intention of being a crazy cat lady when I get old. Three are just not enough.
7. Errrr, ummm, Mercedes Lackey. (Those of you who have read the open letter to fantasy authors will appreciate the crunchy irony-smack flavor of this one.)
8. I know it's very important to conserve resources and save the Earth, but damn, do I enjoy a nice steamy-hot twenty-minute shower. With leg- and armpit-shaving, salt scrub, two kinds of face wash, all the bells 'n' whistles.
9. Red meat! The redder the better! Delicious juicy red filets with knobs of butter and/or blue cheese!
10. Probably at least once a week, we have a couple of hours of "homeschool" consisting entirely of Rhys playing video games (Educational! Really! Well, sometimes) while I prop my feet up on the coffee table and read a book.

Now you know my secret shame. Well, not so secret; I'm liable to share these with the nearest bartender after a glass or three of delectable delicious Sonoma Coast Zinfandel...

If it's Tuesday, there must be Ten

more Random Things Re: RedMolly.

This is the special Travel edition, brought to you by the beautiful Sands family cabin in the mountains outside Ward, Colorado. The early-evening sunlight is slanting through the windows, dappled by a dancing screen of conifer needles and new spring leaves. The boys are in the loft bedroom, piecing together the swell Lego airliner Grammy brought them. Jim's downstairs with wine, cheese, a sliced baguette and the Sirius noodly-trance channel (which, oddly, I'm not minding a bit). Grammy is curling up in a comfy chair with a copy of Dwell and the blissful knowledge that two of her three grandsons are just an arm's-length away. On Thursday morning, Mom and I will be winging to DC to visit the inestimable Baby Augie and his beloved parents. All is calm, all is bright.

And now, ten  random, slightly travel-related facts about Me:

1. I love airports. I love getting there early and sitting at the gate with a book. I love that doubles are only a dollar more (or, in a sad reflection of our inflationary times, two dollars more). I love airport bookstores and overpriced airport convenience stores.
2. Actually flying in an airplane scares me, but I love it anyway. What the heck is holding the plane up?
3. Did I have the wherewithal, I would build (or have built) a Gypsy wagon. I wouldn't even have to take it anywhere, though that would be great; I would just like to have it around to hide out in and perhaps to write in as well.
4. I have been to Europe exactly once. We spent a frigid but glorious week in Paris one February when I was six and a half months pregnant with Fisher.
5. The best trip I ever took: either our three-week honeymoon driving up the Pacific Coast to Vancouver Island in our VW camper, or our two-week revisiting of the same trip in a Land Rover and staying in hotels. Actually, the honeymoon was even better.
6. There's a big part of me that thinks the idea of living out of an Airstream, traveling constantly and with no place to be and no schedule to follow, would be the Greatest Thing Ever. But there's a bigger part of me that says "what would I do with my books?"
7. I travel heavy. I have two suitcases, a computer bag and a large overstuffed purse for this week-long Boulder/DC jaunt.
8. I think it's bad luck to go to a bookstore in another city and not buy anything. At least, that's my excuse.
9. The three countries I'd most like to visit: North Korea, Japan and Morocco.
10. The three places in the US I'd most like to visit (that I've not visited before): Vermont, Boston and Ithaca, NY. (Do we sense a common thread here?)

Tune in next week, etc., yeah. Keep yer eyes open for more exciting Road Posts...

Ten more things, because

it's Tuesday. (Last week's random ten: here.)

1. I have four--no, five--novels in various stages of incompleteness cluttering up my hard drive. (Two are rather less incomplete than the others.)
2. I can't write with fancy pens. The best pen: a black fine-point Uniball. The second-best: a thirty-nine cent Bic.
3. The first concert I ever saw: Metallica (with Faith No More opening) at Cal Expo in Sacramento. My dad drove my two buddies and me to the show, came in with us, then said "Enjoy yourselves" and wandered off somewhere to enjoy the music on his own terms. Met up with us afterwards and drove us home at whatever-thirty on a school night. First time, I think, that it ever occurred to me that my dad might be really cool. Still, after all these years, one of the best damn shows I've ever seen.
4. Zombies: funny, fascinating and terrifying all at once. Armies of the undead! Relentlessly pursuing the living through the crumbling sepulchres of post-apocalyptic American cities! Shambling! Brains! Chainsaws! How can you not love them?
5. I've seen The Princess Bride over one hundred times. (Best quote: "No more rhymes now! I mean it!" "Anybody want a peanut?")
6. I like mashed potatoes more than any other food on the planet. Just good ol' plain ol' mashed potatoes with lots of butter and salt and preferably a dollop of nice creamy cream.
7. I can't stand to have my hair touched.
8. I'm always afraid people I only know from doing things like the blog or the radio show are going to be horribly disappointed upon actually meeting me.
9. I have two kinds of hairspray, a tin of brilliantine wax, a bottle of Redken mega-gel (which is technically Jim's), a "liquid fiber" hair-shagging-out sort of gooey thing and two tins of hair putty-type-stuff on my Product shelf in my bathroom. And on a rough day, I think a little bit of all of it goes into the (new, high-maintenance) hairdo. (God, I'm so not a hair person. It's just strange, and a little discomfiting. I'm not sure how I morphed from my flannel-shirted ponytailed college self into this weird lipglossed becoiffed mom person I seem to have become.)
10. If it's 3:13 in the morning and I turn the TV on and the Chappelle Show is on, I will stay up to watch it until the end. Even though I've seen every episode probably going on ten times. Especially if it's the one with the Player Hater's Ball.

Well, 'til next Tuesday, then... wonder if Chappelle is on. And if there are any leftover mashed potatoes in the fridge.