You still here?

Turns out that writing poor excuses for three paragraphs of science fiction takes rather a lot of time.

Developments:

1. Girl at Shopper's took me aside gently and suggested I take advantage of sale prices on a 14-day treatment for "mature, fatigued" skin. I explained that my go-to remedy for that has always been gin, but she persisted. I'll keep you posted.
2. Fingernails are chipping. Yep, it's been so exciting around here that that makes number two on the list.
3. Christmas shopping nearly done. Thank you, Etsy. And thank you in particular, lizix26.
4. Have perfected killing regime for fruit flies involving balsamic vinegar. If you piss me off I have a salad of doom to give you for dinner. Consider yourself warned.
5. Brought home someone else's shopping bag from Winners, and that person took one of mine. In return for a pair of size 13 boy's winter boots and a three-pack of Fruit of the Loom boxers, I got an olive oil spray can, a headscarf and two candle holders in the fashion of fat flying babies. It's like Secret Santa although perhaps not as practical in the long run. Kid isn't excited about wrapping feet in acrylic scarf decorated with bears on skates. Honestly, it's like I don't even know him any more.
6. Learned much about the relative popularity of marbled cheese, aged cheddar, those little wrapped up squishy cubes with a cow on them, and Baby Bel, thanks to attending the Grade 2 Halloween party yesterday. Also learned that skunk monkeys like smelly bananas and that Marvin T's banana is always smelly. Also also learned that Marvin's mom is quick with the slappiness. I think I like her very much.
7. Mounties are cool, but Zombie Mounties are cooler. Kid doesn't care. See #5, above. Whose kid IS this?
8. Father's return to the pink of health seems complete, although mom still won't let him take me and sister 2 on whirl-wind (all-expenses-paid, I trust) jaunt to NYC. Mother is a pill. Perhaps it skips a generation and that explains Kid.
9. You pretty much can't win any debate when you're defending the premise that Idaho is as good as Italy. Even if the B-52s have written a song about Idaho and not about, say, Rome. That still doesn't work. Even if you sing that B-52s song to your extended family after a good dinner and over a couple of glasses of wine. It still doesn't work.
10. The Clone Wars, Season 2 is apparently so good that one could, actually, lose a all sense of time as well as bladder control, if one were a genetically pre-disposed killjoy child.

Bye now.

Perfect Mommy

Kid just snuggled into his duvet and whispered: "You're the perfect mom for me. I'm not saying that there aren't better moms out there somewhere, probably moms that aren't lazy and can make cookies, but for me, you're just right."

Sci Fi all over again

I'm in the midst of an online writing class on speculative fiction through UCLA extension. I love those classes--they draw people from all walks of life, at all stages of dreaming and working and getting things done. I'm at the slow end of the "getting things done" part--honestly, some days it's all I can do to make sure my teeth are brushed and I've eaten something before 5.30. I'm having a hard time coming up with a story idea. Which I think I can explain thusly.

My life is a little like a science fiction novel: when I think of what I was doing not a decade ago, compared to now?

Whoa (as Keanu would say).

• There is eerie goo on my floor and sometimes on my clothes.
• A creature leapt from my belly and then began to feed on me.
• I often cannot remember my name or my birthday. Forget about the serial number. 
• The appliances in my kitchen are conspiring against me.  Those fires do in fact start themselves.
• There is a smaller person in my house who looks like me and says many of the things I say and yet when I speak seems not to be able to hear or see me. 
• Most of my interactions are with ghostly presences that I conjure on a screen.
• I was recently informed that my cauliflower soup, while not poison according to the scientifically postulated laws of nature, was disgusting enough to be categorized as "wildly imaginative in a bad way." 
• I have eyes in the back of my head.

Seems clear enough to me that the reason I'm having trouble writing science fiction is that none of it is fiction any more. Perhaps if I approach it as a class in realism I'll have an easier time of it. 

The garbage men of the apocalypse

I love Thursdays in the leafy suburbs. Early (like, 9am) (I love working from home), the recyclers and the garbage guys come down the hill in their trucks. I love the apocalyptic whirring and crunching that heralds their arrival. I love the feeling of relief as my detritus--outdated prescriptions, doodles, fevered tallying of taxes, magazines that did not bring me the lasting happiness and immediate shedding of 5 pounds that I'd been promised, coupons for crappy fast food, the latest Child Safe fear mongering classes, failed art experiments (the day the decoupage died was particularly wonderful)--sails off down the street to its new life as a community newsletter or confetti for the wedding of people long separated by circumstance or, perhaps, the scratch pad belonging to the world's most brilliant writer. The guys riding the back of the trucks must wonder about me, standing in my blue starry pajamas, smiling beatifically upon them from the living room as they swoop like seraphim for the trash bags. Desperate housewife? Cougar on the poorly coifed prowl? Recent escapee from the sanatarium? Staunch believer in second chances.