1. 3:30 is early. Even if you go to bed at 8:30, it’s still very early.
2. It does kind of start to get light all at once. Like one second, it’s dark and then–bam–part of the sky is a little lighter.
3. Until reading this book Bridgett recommended, Indian Traders of the blah blah blah, I have failed to appreciate a very important, fundamental fact–fur trading was an ENORMOUSLY important source of income for the Indians of the old Southwest. I guess I’d kind of had this wrong idea that the fur traders were all “Oh, if you’re not using those scraps left over after you hunt for dinner,”we’ll gladly take those.” This is an important realization because it means that, when people are like “Oh, there weren’t Indians living in Middle Tennessee when we got here, so what’s the big deal about us settling here?” it’s because we did the equivalent of settling in the middle of the Saturn plant and tossing things out and moving production lines around and generally making it impossible for people to work there and then acting like “What? It’s not like you live here.”
4. Early morning mist is weird. It’s like the creeks get up and wander around the low-lying ground. It’s kind of creepy.
5. Lexington is amazingly cute.
6. If you are remotely interested in publishing in Sci-Fi, Fantasy, or Horror and you get a chance to hear Jason Sizemore talk, you should. Even if it means you get up at 3:30 in the morning to get there.
7. He said really, really nice things about “Frank.” In front of everybody!
8. But holy shit, I am both in awe and proud that “Frank” made it into Apex. They have so very many submissions. Had I known, I might not have had the guts to send it in. I’m glad Elizabeth McClellan made me.
9. Sizemore said a lot of good things, some of which I might talk more coherently about later, but my take away is going to be that it takes talent, persistence, patience, and luck.
10. The only people at McDonald’s at six in the morning are truckers, the Amish, and old men. The old men were gossiping about zucchini pie. What is this? Is it gossip worthy? They were actually razzing another guy about having never tried it.
11. And then at McDonald’s for lunch, I sat by people who were–honest to god–talking about seeing ghosts and one of their sons having a demon. It was like the Universe winking at me.
12. Yes, I ate at McDonald’s for both meals. I’ll tell you why, people–consistency. It might be uniformly terrible, but you know what you’re going to get at McDonald’s no matter where you are. Also, I don’t think their hotcakes are uniformly terrible. They are yummy. Especially if you get them with sugar, not syrup.
13. Because syrup is kind of yucky, let’s be honest.
Tiny Cat Pants 