I got recognized in Starbucks today. I was ordering my hot chocolate when the barista asked “Aren’t you an author?”
And I said, “Kind of.”
And she said, “I knew it. I saw you at the Southern Festival of Books. I bought your book. I haven’t read it yet.”
And then she wrote my name on my cup without me telling her what it was.
It was the most heebie-jeebie inducing thing that has happened to me all day.
My brother’s friends were all in a terrible self-inflicted accident last week and one guy died, one guy is still in the hospital, and one guy owes $70,000 in medical bills and his dad is outraged because he doesn’t believe they’d charge Mexicans that. The driver is fine, though apparently he had to be stopped by people from leaving the scene.
The car was not even theirs, so it’s not clear what insurance will cover, if anything.
There’s just a series of stupidities. I mean, they did this to themselves. They all got drunk, one kid was also on Xanax, and sped home at over 100 miles an hour, the driver drunk and on meth.
And my poor brother is just furious and heartbroken and hell if I know what to say to him. I spent my whole lunch hour talking to him and I was just like “they need to get lawyers,” “they need to get lawyers.” They’re all adults and apparently the hospital has already approached the parents of the kid still in the hospital about how they’re going to pay for his care.
I am afraid for my brother, too, really. And it’s hard to get at what makes me afraid for him. It’s not just that this is how his friends carry on and therefore could be how he’s carrying on. It’s the resignation in his voice. When I said, “I’m sorry you’re having to deal with this” he said “Eh, it happens to everyone.”
But you know, if I had to think of the four friends of mine who would be most likely to be methed up and drinking or on Xanax and drinking… my list is empty.
I had a tick yesterday right on my neck. And it was there long enough that, after I rubbing alcoholed it, I still ended up with a number of weird bumps and a pink rash that ran in disturbingly straight lines.
“Look at that,” I said to the Butcher. “I’ve never had a tick bite do that before.”
“Yep,” he said, “that’s the venom.”
What the fuck? Ticks are venomous? Why, again, do we bother to wage conventional warfare? We can’t just send drones in armed with 10,000 lbs of ticks to gross out and frighten our enemies into doing what we want?
Other than that, it was a nice weekend. We tried The Pharmacy for the first time. The Butcher got this delicious-smelling beer, but it took us as long to decide what we wanted to drink as it did to decide what we wanted to eat, because they have their own soda fountain. So, yeah, you can get a Coke. But you can also get all manner of phosphates and they had this thing that was orange and vanilla creme and bubbles that I almost got, but when the Butcher said “I’m having something with malt,” I immediately only wanted a chocolate malt, so that’s what I had.
Then we went to the Frist and saw the “Monsters, Fairytales, and the Genetic Imagination” exhibit, which was excellent, especially the sculptures. And then, because we still had time on the parking meter, we flew through the Phillips exhibit, which I liked even better (and then we had a fight about that, but in fun).
I like weird things, but my whole problem with some of the stuff in “Monsters, Fairytales, and the Genetic Imagination” is that I couldn’t imagine how it would fit in a home or a museum with a varied collection. Like how, outside of an exhibit like this, would that stuff work? But that’s really only like 1/5 of the exhibit. Everything else, frankly, I’m kind of surprised Rob Zombie hasn’t come through with his curator (I’m assuming Rob Zombie has a curator? I would if I were rich and weird.) and just pointed at things the curator was supposed to try to acquire for him while his curator is all “I’m sorry, Mr. Zombie, Mr. King has already purchased that.” Lord. I have to believe there’s some kind of creepy art arms race between the King family and the Zombie clan.
As you know, I finished up Let’s Play White and I started Always Coming Home because nm recommended it to me when I was having a fit of doubt about my first draft. Yes, even after having “just let the first draft suck in spectacular ways” as my first rule of writing (h/t Bird by Bird, I think), I still sometimes can’t help but already be “Oh my god, what am I going to do with this pile of shit?” Even though the answer is “use it to fertilize a lush, green and vibrant second draft.”
Here’s what concerns me about America. Ursula K. Le Guin is a very famous writer. If you’ve heard any fantasy authors beyond Tolkein, you’ve probably heard her name. And this book is brilliant so far. Just so deeply moving I about can’t stand it. And yet, it was out of print for years. It’s now published by the University of California Press, in their series of books about California (which, really, is a brilliant task for a university press to set for itself–bringing old books about a certain subject back into print). How was this out of print?
I read some old reviews, though, and it’s hilarious.Dudes are genuinely complaining because Le Guin is too feminist now and why can’t they just have a story about a dude like she used to write? What was wrong with that? And the thing that makes that even more hilarious is that one of the sub-themes (at least so far) is kind of about what is wrong with that.
Una Park was cool. Only Percy Warner left. I have to find someone at the parks department to interview for my grand finale.
Dog was up every two hours pooping, even after I gave her some Pepto. Who’s the dumbass that fed her pork barbecue yesterday? The dumbass that got up with her all night and is writing this post today. I only have myself to blame.
Tiny Cat Pants 