Book Finished, Hide In Cave
I’m feeling extraordinarily antisocial today. I suppose in less electronic times I’d be a hermit, which would be hard on the kids. If I had kids. No, I’m not blaming the fact that I have children on Teh Interwebs. I’m just noting that, like Bukowski, I consider solitude a necessity, and have to arrange to get it in bite-size chunks. My idea of solitude has grown to include the wee ones, in any case.
Yesterday I left the house and the Prince and Princess in the care of the Muffin, and popped down to Borders with the last two issues of The Economist. I was looking forward to some time reading about policy and world events (I also picked up the most recent Foreign Affairs because, well, I’m direly behind in my understanding of China’s geopolitical stature and internal affairs. And I also wanted to read the article about the furore over the artificial constraints on the yen.)
But did I get to read? Erm, not so much. I settled down with a gingerbread latte and a bagel and was immediately deluged with requests from other people who wandered in after I did that I give up half my table. I picked a slightly bigger table because I like to spread magazines out and make notes in my journal or on scrap paper while I read them, just like history books. I was a bit peeved that anyone who seems older than I am automatically assumes they can make a request without uttering that magic word “please” and furthermore, have me hop to obey. Just because I have a nose ring doesn’t mean you can order me around, peeps.
I know the way I dress is unconventional and I am prepared for this sort of behavior. So the first few people who asked for my table got told, “Nope.” They were quite put out, especially when a nice older lady said, “Excuse me, ma’am? May we take that table please, and one of the chairs? The other half of our party just arrived.”
To which I replied, “Sure. No problem.” And ignored the seething from the cowboy-hat-clad dictator who had simply assumed he could take my table, with his overblown and hairspray-lacquered wife in tow. Who got disabused of the notion when I said, quietly and politely, “What do you think you’re doing? Didn’t your mother teach you better?”
Besides, Mr. Cowboy Hat, a gentleman takes his hat off inside a building. My grandfather taught me that. I suppose you didn’t get the memo.
You see how antisocial I was feeling. It didn’t help that twenty minutes later, a flurry of cell phone calls ensued. Apparently, when I said, “Call me Saturday morning if you want to stay an extra night and be picked up on Sunday, or I’m going to assume you have a ride home” was translated to Someone Else as “Call me Sunday when it’s convenient for you and I’ll drop everything and pick you up.”
Cue annoyance. Temporary annoyance, but annoyance nonetheless. I barely even got to finish my %&$#ing coffee.
Today I even unplugged the phone. I hate the damn thing anyway. Well, maybe “hate” is a strong word. I’m phobic of the phone. Scared of it. You might even say terrified.
But enough of my bitching. I know why I’m in this mood. Because I just finished Redemption Alley and did a quick revise on it, then sent it to the Beta Reader, who will give it the torture it needs to become a Real Book instead of a steaming pile of doo. I don’t think I’ve had enough time to lay on the floor and let my brain recover. The snap-back after each book is pronounced, especially the Kismet books, which are so hard on me emotionally.
Speaking of books…over at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books a froufrou is heating up. Seems there are several long passages in Cassie Edwards romance novels that appear to be taken verbatim from other books. Scandalous. This also brings home something I’ve noticed quite a lot lately–that the old-fashioned investigative journalism we think journalism is all about has taken a vacation from newspapers and television and is now in the hands of bloggers, who the established MSM (mainstream media) marginalizes because of the direct threat they represent. There’s a fair amount of bad muckraking in blogs too, but that is flash-in-the-pan compared to the blog who provide excellent service and information, whose writers dig for the evidence and present it to the reading public.
God bless ‘em.
Anyway, I’m retreating inside my shell today. Last night the UnSullen Teen and I watched The Big Lebowski (the Teen had never seen it) and L.A. Confidential, which I’d never seen either. Spacey and Pearce were good, but Russell Crowe can’t act his way out of a wet paper bag. I kept expecting to see him in a secutor‘s uniform. Heh. Also watched last night with the kids was The Monster Squad, which I loved when I was the Princess’s age. Everyone under 10 was delighted with the film. I was nostalgic. The UnSullen one tried to hide his laughter–I guess it’s not cool to like movies a 32-year-old hack feels nostalgic over.
Heh.
Happy Monday, all. Hope you’re feeling a little less think-skinned and raw than I am today. I’m just glad I don’t have to show up in an office.
That would be bad for EVERYONE.
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