I Learned It From Watching You, Okay?

Not much gets Sonnyboy riled up, but he hates the ice cream man. The second he hears that music, he does this low chest “grugh” and then gets on the couch where he can watch that fucker until he’s sure he’s gone. It cracks me up because, normally, this is exactly where New Kitty likes to sit and watch the world go by when she’s in the house. So, I think we can all guess where the dog learned his watching-out-the-window habits. The Butcher is kind of with me on the dog maybe having diminished eyesight, too. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain–other than him continually accidentally putting his eyeball right on my foot. But other things, like when he wants to get a good look at what you’re doing, he tilts his head all around, like he’s trying to get you in the best focus he can.

Anyway, in other news, I finished my short story, tentatively called “And Now, The Dancing Brannigans” about a guy who finds some distant cousins through his genealogy research but they turn out to be kind of dicks. Entertaining, but dicks. He has them over to teach him a dance they know and they steal all his silverware and leave him sticks in return. He gets even. It’s kind of ambiguous about whether that was a good idea. I like it. I’m waiting to hear back from the anthology editor.

And my goal, my gift to myself, is to submit the Sue project to five agents this weekend. I’m nervous as fuck, but what can you do but be nervous and do it anyway?