It's November! And That Means It's Time For...

NaNoWriMo!

What?

Oh, you know.  National Novel Writing Month.  There's that crazy guy, Chris Baty, who lived in San Francisco in the 1990s.  The last year of that decade, he and 21 of his closest friends decided that they'd have a better chance to get dates if they were also writers, so they got together in November 1999 and set out to write novels--one each--in a month.  True story.  And it worked so well that they did it again the following year, with more friends, and the year after that, and then they got onto the fledgling Internet and November hasn't been the same since.

Write a novel in a month, you say?  Impossible, you say.  Hogwash, I say.  All you have to do is sit down in front of a keyboard (or a notebook, if you're old school, with a handy pen) and write 1667 words a day.  That's it.  That's all.  Do that every day for a month and at the end of the month you'll have 50,000 words.  A short novel is about that length, so it's entirely possible, if you're diligent and type/write reasonably fast, to write a novel in a month.  I looked back at the stats on the Web site and discovered that I've iu fact done this four times; 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009.  I actually finished the novels from 2006 and 2007, though to be honest, they weren't much to write home about.  2008 yielded No Accounting for Reality, which is still for sale right here and here (and yes, proceeds still go to Children's Hospital). 2009 started off badly and didn't end well, but I got half a manuscript out of it, and maybe something'll still come out of that.

So when Kevin reminded me that NaNoWriMo was about to start, it occurred to me that I wasn't exactly doing anything else at the moment, apart from moping around and not exactly writing.  So I figured what the hell, and on Halloween Night I signed up for the 2012 edition.  I solemnly swore I would show up, write my 1667 words a day, and just keep going no matter what.  So far it's a jangled mess of long rambling statements about birthday dinners, Buddhism, the existence of God and running into Muslim men in awkward situations (in short, a lot like this blog; hm, could there be a connection?)  but maybe it'll start making sense as I get further into it.   As Julia Cameron said, many times in many different quotable ways that I can't call to mind right now, just show up and start typing.  God fills in the rest.  Good advice for life, too. 

Anyway, if you're interested, check out the Web site and if you feel like jumping in, it's not too late.  A friendly warning, though - don't start writing to publishers and agents in December.  They pretty much aren't taking queries the whole month because of the holidays, and what with the hurricane and all, most of them are probably shut down until next year sometime.  Always check the agents' Web site to see if they're taking queries before you send 'em, folks.  Meantime, here's my cute li'l Writer Page link.  44,751 words to go!

Breakfast in America

Playing in the background: The smoochie bird. I'm not sure what kind of bird it is - possibly a bluejay - but it has a call that sounds like "smoochie smoochie smoochie smoochie smoochie."

Saturday in Texas. The day dawns wet and cloudy. It's been raining off and on since the middle of the night, as those of us who are easily startled by thunder boomies can attest. I've crawled out of bed, into some clothes, put in the ear drops (I have an ear infection), meditated and fixed the all-American breakfast - bacon and flapjacks. (Eggs would be overkill.) I've had some coffee, Joan is still asleep, when she does get up there's plenty of food, and the house is nice and quiet. Perfect time to get some writing done.

Except.

I don't know what's wrong with me these days. Well, actually I could give you a list, starting just incidentally with being unemployed, but as far as writing goes I don't know what's wrong with me. I haven't been able to string two sentences together in weeks. Which is a pity because if there's ever a perfect time to write, it's during a period of unemployment - long stretches of unstructured time, occasional annoying visits to Monster.com to make sure you haven't missed anything - but otherwise perfect. I'fact last time I was unemployed (and yes, I'm appalled there was even a last time) I wrapped up Book Two and started Book Three. I even remember one particularly nifty three day weekend where I knocked out eighty something pages, which is even better if I don't then delete three-quarters of them the following day, as I sometimes do.

(Course I was also manic as hell, and it finally got a chance to show up because a. I wasn't working ten hour days and then coming home to write, b. I wasn't drinking anymore, either and c. the binge eating was pretty much under control thanks to OA. I'fact if it hadn't been for that particular lapse in workingdom I might have gone on undiagnosed for months or years longer, saving myself thousands in therapy and prescriptions, while the disorder continued to wreak havoc on my life and damaged my brain even more than it probably already is. Oh well. You gots to take der good mit der evil, as Lars von Trier would say.)

But here I am. Sober, binge-free, medicated, ridiculously calm compared to the swooping ups and downs of anxiety I had when I was working, and all set to dive into something big and complex in between looking for work, which, if one is honest, does not really take eight hours a day in spite of what those nice "how to land a job" guides tell you. And I am churning out absolutely nothing. This, for the record, sucks.

I even have a couple of works in progress. There's Book the Third of Mindbender, Soulmender, which is basically done but there's some denouement to wrap up at the end and explain What Happens To All The Major Players (and perhaps more important, who killed the sinister detective, because frankly, I'd like an answer to that one). There's the whole getting Mindbender published thing, which doesn't take concentrated writing but (oddly like looking for a job) does take a willingness to hunt down agents, write letters, follow up and be a pest in a nice way. And finally there's No Accounting for Taste, the sequel to No Accounting For Reality. During the last NaNo-go-round I got about a third of the way into this one; go back to November and check out some of these NaNo posts by way of example. So there's stuff I could be doing. I'm just not doing it.

What happens is this: I sit down at my trusty laptop (I love my laptop, in case I have not said that lately - I don't know what I'd do without my laptop). I open a file. Pick a file, any file. I read through the last little bit of whatever I was working on. I add a sentence. Maybe two. And then I get distracted. The TV is too loud or there's some new game on Facebook I just have to try or maybe instead of doing this I should be knocking out more query letters or more recently, I need to check Monster or Craigslist or Simply Hired, name your favorite, or there's a recruiter to call, a chore to do, a floor to sweep, dusting to accomplish. I go back to the file. I glare at it. Then I get fed up, quit, close the file (sometimes without even saving it) and flop down on the couch, watching whatever happens to be on the Discovery Channel and cursing myself for being a lightweight. Obviously I can't do this. Obviously I was fooling myself all this time. Obviously I've let everyone down again (though, as Dashiell Hammett allegedly said, "It's not like they're gonna miss you, Lily.") I've done this pretty much every day for weeks.

So is this that thing they call writer's block? For years I've been convinced it doesn't exist but I'm starting to believe in it now. Anyway, it's very frustrating. But perhaps there is hope. I did, after all, manage to knock out this entire blog post - and Joan is still asleep.

Why Jen Bailed On NaNo, And Other Stories

Folks, I have to bail on NaNoWriMo for this year. I have a really good excuse, though. I'm in court. (I've always wanted to say that.) Seriously, for most of last week I was getting stuff ready and for most of the last two days I've been sitting in a courtroom listening to a really sad story unfold. It's gonna last at least another week and maybe right up to Thanksgiving. And seeing as I'm crawling home after seven most nights and passing out on the floor (well, actually, Joan makes me go all the way into my room - very annoying) I am not coming anywhere near the necessary word count that would make winning NaNo possible. If the only way to win is not to play I choose to bail. Well, actually I choose not to have any more stress than necessary because frankly there's a lot of it right now. But in case you've gotten fond of the silly posts from the still-unnamed sequel to No Accounting For Reality, those will continue off and on. As soon as I catch my breath. Meanwhile, it's back to the briefs, boys, or as they say in court, litigate this!!

Jenz Third NaNo Post

Folks, we've broken 5,000. Can Nirvana possibly be far behind?

“Cheryl, they’re not real cows. They’re metal cows that have somehow come to life.”

Cheryl frowned and shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said.

“No, really. They are. I was close to them this morning and they’re definitely metal.”

“Here comes the vet,” Cheryl said, pointing down to the lawn where a small brown van with Dallas Zoo painted on the side pulled up next to the fountain.

“Well, this should be interesting.” I got up. “Come on, Cheryl. Let’s go see what they have to say.”

“What about the Latino Cultural Center contract?” she asked, hurrying after me.

“I’ll look at it later.”

By the time we got downstairs, the vet was hopping out of her truck. She was a stocky redhead with a green Dallas Zoo t-shirt and a monumental chip on her shoulder. Like most chips, it was invisible, but it was definitely there. She took a look at the longhorns, tilted her head to the left, tilted her head back to the right, and jumped back into the truck.

For a second I thought she was going to peel back out of the park as quickly as she got there, but she came back out with a big metal tackle box. Well, it looked like a tackle box, anyway. When she popped it open, it was full of medical stuff. Long pointy things and short square things and scissorlike things and a bunch of other stuff I didn’t want to really guess at. One of them was a big syringe. She took this out, stuck its needle into an ampoule and sucked up some clearish-yellow fluid that looked a bit like diabetic pee. That done, she approached the longhorns (after moving around some very well-meaning but obviously clueless police officers and ducking under the Crime Scene Do Not Cross tape). One of them, a big male (actually, I
think they were all male but this male was bigger than the other males), detached himself from the group and came over to her. She reached up, skritched him between the horns (well, kind of on his nose, actually) and plunged the syringe into his side.

Or rather, tried to plunge the syringe into his side. Instead of plunging, the syringe took off to the side. The impact with the side of the cow bent the needle up at a sharp right angle, making the whole thing look more like a J-hook than a syringe. She held the syringe up to the light, eyeing it curiously.

“Well?” one of the emergency management guys wanted to know. He was hiding behind one of the police officers, and well back from the Crime Scene Do Not Cross tape.

“Metal,” said the vet. Shrugging, she ducked back under the Crime Scene Do Not Cross tape and tossed the now-useless syringe into a nearby trash can. Bill and two or three of his crazy homeless friends immediately went after it, convinced that it contained heroin insteadof diabetic pee.

“What do you mean, metal?” The emergency management guy looked aggrieved.

“I mean, they’re metal,” the vet retorted. “As in, not animals. So I’m going.” She started for the truck.

“Wait a minute.” The emergency-management guy got brave, stopped hiding behind the policeman and went after her. “You can’t just leave. We have a situation here.”

“No, you don’t. You have a bunch of animated metal cows.”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. How is it possible that we have a bunch of
animated metal cows?”

The vet shrugged. (Did I mention the monumental chip on her shoulder? Well, she could barely shrug.) “Look, they’re not cows,” she said, in case this wasn’t obvious. “That is to say, they’re not live animals.”

“Yes they are!” the emergency management guy told her. “One of them even crapped all over the steps to the fountain!”

“So what do you want me to do about it? I’m a veterinarian, not a street cleaner.”

The emergency management guy rubbed his bald spot. He looked like he might blow a blood vessel. I can’t imagine being easily stressed is a good thing for an emergency management guy. “So you’re just going to leave,” he restated the obvious.

“Yeah. When you get some live animals that are giving you a problem, call me again.” And with that, she really did jump back into her truck and drive away.

“Well, there you have it,” said one of the news people, who had been trailing behind the vet. “The cows at City Hall are not real animals, people. They now appear to be complex robotic creations. Suspicion is, of course, likely to fall on the University of North Texas Department of Robotics students, whose past pranks include creating a life-size replica of Mayor Laura Miller that ran the city undetected for most of the 1990s...”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said to Cheryl. “Do you realize what this means?”

“Yes. It means Laura Miller was the mayor for most of the 1990s,” Cheryl said.

I sighed. “No. It means people are more willing to believe in animated robotic cows
built as a prank by a bunch of robotics students at UNT than they are to believe that the longhorns at the other end of City Hall have somehow, mysteriously come to life. Why do you think that is?”

“Maybe because one is technically plausible while the other is completely impossible,” Cheryl said, startling me.

“Hmmph.” I hate it when she starts making sense. “Well, that’s–that–” I stopped. I just didn’t know where to go with that.

Cheryl nudged me. “Let’s go back inside. The Latino Cultural Center beckons.”

“Actually, it mostly repulses. It’s purple and orange, for one thing. Whose idea was
that?”

"The architect’s. You know how they get.”

Needless to say, the rest of the day got a bit weird. I’d look at the Cultural Center
contract and look over at the cows. I’d watch All My Children and I’d look over at the cows. I’d rattle off emails about various budgetary thises and thatses and I’d look over at the cows. I’d call one of the junior accountants over some fine point of contractese and I’d look over at the–

“Annie.” Cheryl poked her head into my office. “Phone for you.”

I jumped about a mile. “Don’t do that,” I complained.

“Sorry.” Cheryl pointed at the phone again. “But Pandora’s calling wanting to know if you died.”

“OH SHIT!” I grabbed for the little clock; half past six. “I’M LATE!!” I grabbed my purse and flew past Cheryl, trailing a stream of numbers and chi-squares and equations. The cows watched me run out of City Hall, but they didn’t move from their post by the window. They’d been joined by a couple of horses. I’d notice the horses in the morning.

Jenz Second NaNo Post

3409 words and counting...

The media were all over it about ten o’clock that morning. News crews set up camerasall over the front lawn, irritating the homeless guys by chasing them out of the prime spots.
Some guys from the Office of Emergency Management–I didn’t even know the city had an Office of Emergency Management, which should tell you how good I am at handling emergencies–were walking around yelling at people. Police officers put up one of those barriers of Crime Scene Do Not Cross tape to keep the news crews safe from the cows, or more like keep the cows safe from the news crews. The cows didn’t pay attention to any of this. They just stood there on the lawn, staring up at my window.

I tried to work, which is to say, I tried not to look at the cows. It worked about this well: I checked my email. I looked at the cows. I checked my calendar for the day. I looked at the cows. I read a letter from an irate contractor. I looked at the–

"Creepy, huh?” Cheryl said from behind me.

I jumped about a mile, the letter fluttering from my fingers. “Jesus Haploid Christ,” I
exclaimed. “Do you mind not scaring a person?”

Cheryl, a chirpy blonde that was sort of my secretary and sort of the accounting
department receptionist and, I dunno, the director of office potlucks, bent over and picked up the letter, throwing plenty of unnecessary hip wiggle into the movements. “You dropped this.”

“Thanks.” I took it back from her. I looked at the cows. I looked back at the letter. “So what’s the brilliant plan?” I asked. “They gonna get some metalworkers out here, figure out how all fourteen cows slipped their moorings?”

“Actually,” Cheryl said, “I think they’re getting a vet from the Dallas Zoo.”

“A vet? To treat metal cows?”

"Oh, they’re not metal cows,” Cheryl told me. “They’re just painted to look like they’re metal cows. That’s why they need a vet. To make sure the paint won’t irritate their skin.”

I looked at Cheryl like she’d grown a pair of longhorns herself. “Wait a minute,” I said. “You’re telling me that they’re telling them that those guys–” I pointed out the window to indicate which direct object I had in mind at the moment–“are real cows?”

“That’s what it said on the news.”

“Oh, good night.” I turned on the tiny set that I kept next to my keyboard to ensure I
wouldn’t miss a single episode of All My Children. The black and white screen faded in, shimmered a little, and settled into the middle of a newscast:

“–front of Dallas City Hall, where sometime during the night, a crew of suspected pranksters stole all fourteen longhorn statues from the front of the river display.”

“Pranksters?” I said. “They have to be kidding.”

“The replacement cows, which were painted to look like the metal cows, are being
checked out by veterinarians. Authorities suspect that the pranksters are UNT Dallas students from the Department of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, although no arrests have yet been made in the case.” Change of scene. “An 18-wheeler jackknifed on I-35E early this morning, causing a traffic backup at the 360 interchange that extended all the way south to Houston–”

I snapped off the set. “For God’s sake, they’re not even reporting the real story.”

“No, it’s true about the 18-wheeler,” Cheryl said. “I live out by 360 and this morning it
took me 20 minutes just to get to Starbucks.”

I rubbed my forehead. “That’s not what I meant. I mean why would anybody bother to steal fourteen metal cows that probably weigh two tons apiece and replace them with fourteen real cows painted to look like metal cows?”

“I think that’s why they’re looking at college students,” Cheryl said, helpfully. “Because only a college student would think that something like that makes sense.”

“Cheryl, they’re not real cows. They’re metal cows that have somehow come to life.”

Jenz First-and-a-Half NaNo Post

I have had a couple of requests for the rest of that scene. This makes for a pretty long blog post, but what the hell. Here 'tis.

Now, you’d think a herd of metallic cows that suddenly sprang to life, did a little moseying and then settled down for naps might be done with their brief return to animation (arguing that they were animated in the first place; they’re metal, for Godsakes). And again, given the source of this information, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find the whole herd back by the fake river, striking their usual poses and waiting for tourists. But I’d be wrong. When I showed up on the Tuesday morning after Veterans Day, they were still there, the whole herd of them. The pile of smelly metallic turds, no longer smelly, was also there. What was more, the cows were standing right under my office window - and when they saw me, the whole herd started to moo.

I’ve been freaked out plenty in life, but having a herd of metal cows moo at me was a new one. I took a startled step backward and dropped my keycard. Nice going, Annie, I thought to myself as it hit the ground. If you broke it, there goes next week’s pay check. Not that it’s really possible to break a key card. I think about that whenever I drop anything. It all stems back to a high school music class and a really expensive metronome named “Dr. Beat” and look, I don’t wanna talk about it, okay? It was kind of traumatic.

“They’ve been doin’ that since yesterday,” said the crazy homeless guy, whose name, as I was about to discover, was Bill. He was a big African-American dude, six feet or maybe a little taller, hulking in his thick navy blue coat and scarf, and wearing a red stocking cap.

“Doing what?” I demanded as I retrieved my unbroken key card from the sidewalk. “Mooing like that?”

"Naw. Standin’ under the windah. Lookin’ up at it.”

“That’s my window,” I said, and though it was, the cows might have been looking at any one of the seven windows above and below it. I was, after all, just the Chief Auditor. The deputy mayor’s office was above mine, the mine inspector’s office was above that one, and all the way at the top, where prestige knows no bounds, was the office of the Catering Director. Without her we would all starve to death, so we gave her the best office in city government. Only the Mayor’s is higher and more ostentatious.

“Mebbe they want you to feed ‘em,” the man suggested. “Course, they doin’ okay with the grass and all.”

There are days I wish the library would just open up at seven a.m. so I could walk to my office unmolested, but this was not one of ‘em. However disturbing crazy homeless people may be in a city that’s pretty much determined to pretend they don’t exist, they’re good company when confronted by fourteen metal cows with pointy horns. Long horns, too. Or did I say that already?

“I’m Bill,” he added. “Just call me Bill.”

“Hi, Bill. I’m Annie.” Homeless people disturb me, too, but I wasn’t about to be rude to him. He might hide behind me when the head longhorn decided to charge. “Uh, how long has this been going on?”

“What?”

“The cows,” I said, thinking with mild annoyance that it should be fricking obvious I was talking about the fricking inexplicably animated metal cows.

“Oh. Since yest’day about one, I think.”

“Have the police been here?”

“The po-lice? What they come here for?”

I looked up at him to see if he was for real. He seemed to be. “Well, I just figured, if you’ve got a bunch of animated statues walking around, the police might want to know about it.”

“Girl, them po-lice ain’t interested in nothin’ unless we smokin’ weed out front of the liberry,” Bill told me. “And they ain’t really even interested then less’n we got some to share.”

“Okay,” I said, although it wasn’t okay. Animated metal cows are not okay. Police who smoke pot in front of the library aren’t okay, either, though I only had Bill’s word to go on that. “Well, uh, Bill, I’m gonna go up there and give ‘em a call, okay? You know, just to like make a report and all that?”

“Sho,” said Bill. “Do whatever you want. They ain’t goin’ noplace.” He paused, as if he’d forgotten something. “Oh. You gotta quarter?”

I did, and I gave it to him with a handful of other change. I backed away from the cows,which continued to stand there, cowlike, until I got up to the main doors. I waved my keycard and the door gave a clunk. Still backing up, I eased myself inside and pulled the door shut in front of me. The cows stood there. Well, they stood a little closer to the building, but they just stood there, not trying to follow me. But it was still me they were staring at. Bill, who was moseying off in the direction of the library, didn’t get so much as a passing sniff.

“Okay,” I said out loud to myself. The word echoed in the empty entrance hall. No one ever gets here this early but me. Which sucked, at the moment. It would have been nice to have someone other than a crazy homeless guy who called himself Bill and chatted about pot smoking in front of the library to comment on the phenomenon of animated metal cows. It would be even better if the someone could say, “Oh, yeah, I handled it” in the kind of offhand way that I find so reassuring from law enforcement personnel and so irritating from my junior accountants.

But, no. It was just me. I backed away from the doors. The cows followed me with their metallic eyes all the way to the elevator. It wasn’t until the doors closed in front of me and I started up to the third floor that I was free of iron eyeballs. The sensation was a great relief for the twenty or thirty seconds it lasted. Then I got out of the elevator, walked down to my office, and there they were again. All fourteen or so of them, staring up at my office window as Bill ambled away into the distance. And, yes. It was my window they were looking at. Not the Mayor’s, not the police chief’s, not the Director of Catering. Just me and mine.

I could tell already that it was going to be a long day, and I hadn’t even put my lunch away in the refrigerator yet.

Jenz First NaNo Post.

(In case you don't know what the hell a NaNo is, go to this site: National Novel Writing Month. Here's my profile.)

I wasn’t there the day the longhorns came to life, but I heard about it.

I’m not talking about the Texas Longhorns here, though God knows they could use a little life even if they did manage to beat OU this year. I’m talking about the longhorns in front of City Hall. Fourteen or fifteen of ‘em, sculpted in iron or brass or whatever material they make realistic cow sculptures out of these days. The way they’re positioned, they look like they’re coming down out of a canyon or something and heading to a creek for a drink. One of em even has its head down in the water. I mean, they’re cute as a bug’s ear, or a cow’s ear, or a sow’s ear, or something like that. Tourists come pose in front of ‘em and take pictures. I’ve always been kind of fond of the longhorns. If nothing else they’re a nice distraction from the usual crowd of homeless guys that hang around in front of the fountain and yell charming if incomprehensible things at me when I come in to work about seven a.m.

But, anyway. The longhorns. From the way I heard it, the one with its head in the creek suddenly lifted its muzzle and sniffed the air. Depending on who you ask, this was accompanied by a loud shriek of metal that stopped once the longhorn was upright. It turned its head both ways, gave a kind of cow shrug, and started forward.

A few seconds later, the next longhorn started to quiver. This one was just standing at the head of the fake trail, looking interested, so there wasn’t any shriek of metal. It just started to turn its head to check whatever was happening with its friend there by the creek. After a minute or so it ambled down to the water, stuck its head in, took a drink and followed its friend.

The guy who told me about this – who was, like most of the other witnesses, homeless and a bit crazy – said that it didn’t happen all at once. It was first one statue, then another, and then another. Some of them started to nibble at the grass. Some of them checked the water out. Some of them just moseyed around, as if the whole becoming-animated thing had messed them up and they’d forgotten where it was they were going. One of them even lifted its tail and left a pile of smelly metallic turds next to the fountain. You gotta feel sorry for a cow that’s been sitting on a load that size since the early 1970s.

Anyway, the herd got itself back together into, well, a herd and moseyed over toward City Hall proper. Sorry for saying “moseyed” so many times, but if you’ve ever seen a cow move, you know they don’t walk. They mosey. And this isn’t even arguing about the fact that they’re flesh and blood cows versus large metal cows that have inexplicably discovered how to move. So, moseying along, they found themselves a large patch of grass and began to mow, as cows will do. This went on most of that Sunday until dark when, again according to my crazy homeless eyewitness, the cows sort of hunkered down in the grass and went to sleep.

Yep, it's the sequel to No Accounting For Reality. And I promise it only gets weirder from here.

The Paperback Is Out!!

Playing in the background: Rain. Lots and lots of rain.

Well, after a big wrangle with the Lulu powersthatbe regarding spiral wrap vs. perfect bind and the ever so important location of the bar code, the paperback version of No Accounting For Reality is finally out! You can buy it here. And somehow I was able to keep the price at $10. One of the reasons we finally went with the spiral wrap vs. the perfect bind, which I did like ever so much better. Oh well. It's an ugly business, publishing.

In case you're wondering what it's about: Municipal accountant Annie Sipkins tangles with Thor, Loki, the Dallas City Council and the end of the world while trying to save the Tree of Life from Dutch Elm Disease. Accompanied by Thor's (talking) hammer and a sarcastic house cat, Annie navigates the sewer of the collective unconscious, battles frost giants and fends off mashers at the PostMortemBar. Will she succeed before the last caramel machiatto in existence is sucked down by the black hole at the end of all time? Anyway, it's available and you can go get your copy now, or download it for $4 (still a cheap read for a short airline flight.) Enjoy! And yes, Childrens' Medical Center still gets $1 for every copy sold of the e-book through at least December. ($96 and counting, by the way. Which is pretty remarkable considering we've done it almost all a dollar at a time-most of my friends are as broke as I am.)

Hey, speaking of weird fundraisers, remember that guy who yelled "You lie!" at the President during his health care address to Congress? Well, he's a South Carolina representative named Joe Wilson. His Democratic opponent for the 2010 election, Rob Miller, has cleared $1 million in donations, mostly from out of staters, for his campaign war chest since Tuesday evening. Pretty remarkable, considering he only had $60,000 before that. If you'd like to contribute to Mr. Miller's campaign, go here. I sent him $10, myself.

While I was tilting at windmills (and stop me before I subreference again), my friend Kellum Johnson (no relation) also got his book published: The Encyclopedia of Beings from Faith and Folklore. I've seen a proof copy and it is magnificent, complete with art work from my amazing cover artist, Suzi Eberhard. If you like mythology, this is required reading; a fun, snarky, often irreverent look at gods and monsters and other interesting critters that have been fodder for campfire stories since we were all cave men. (And women.) That guy on the cover is a Native American monster referred to as Throws-People-Off-Of-Cliffs. C'mon, with a name like that he's got to have an interesting story. Check it out. Tell em Jen sent you.

Please excuse the shameless self-promotion, but it was either this or a maudlin retrospective on 9/11/2001 and the happy-go-lucky days that followed. Maybe I'll do that next post.

July Microfundraiser and Swim for Distance Wrap-Up!

Km swum in July, Swim for Distance Month: 41.1

Playing in the back of my head: "Keep On Rocking In the Free World" by Neil Young

Well, folks, July is (almost) over, and it's my best Swim for Distance Month ever! I logged 41.1 km, which is about 25 1/2 miles. I was only aiming for 40, so those of you who pledged some money by the km for the Childrens Medical Center microfundraiser, relax. I'm not gonna ding ya for the extra k. We'll just call it 40 and you can make your contribution here. If you haven't donated or pledged and you still wish to do so, you can to go to my fundraising page and toss some nominal amount into the basket. So far we have $78 and I know some of the pledges aren't in yet so it's looking pretty good! I'm pleased, anyway, and I'm sure the hospital will be, too. It is not easy to raise money in this economy. It'd be easier if I had a job with a nice law firm that wants to look good by contributing to local charities, but, you know, one thing at a time and all that.

Speaking of which, I have a second interview today and two possible document review projects about to start. So no matter what happens, it looks like I'll be working. We like working. Working is good. I'll keep you posted.

Next up in the great Swim-A-Thon, the Lake Travis Relays. It's in Austin in early October. I really wanted to do the Maui Channel Swim this year, but Maui being in, uh, Hawaii and me being unemployed, that's kind of not going to happen. Austin, though, is doable. Plus, I can take Joan, and she can hang around in Weirdsville while I'm getting wet with the gang.

Now, considering I can get sunburned walking to my car, I'm thinking three or four hours on a Texas lake might be beyond the capacity of even most sunscreens. (I've also gotten sunburned on all of my open water swims to date, though I just got a little pink at the Texas Tough race. And all of those were with heavy sunscreen.) So here's what I want: A burqini.

Is this not the coolest thing ever? It's a swimsuit designed by a Muslim woman to provide modest coverage during competitive or recreational swimming. And, okay, I'm not a Muslim but an outfit like this makes a LOT of sense for us pale folk. It's light, won't drag, and really is meant to be a competitive swimsuit. It comes in colors other than black, too, which is good because it's HOT in Texas in October. I'm not sure where I'm gonna get $200 Australian ($165 US) but the Lord will provide, I guess (says the Buddhist who wants the Muslim swimwear.)

Hey, I got a fan letter from a reader of No Accounting For Reality!! Thanks, Sharon of Frankfort, Kentucky! The paperback will be out shortly here and I'll be able to send you a copy in a few weeks. Still haggling with Lulu trying to get the price down to about $10. I may have to crack and make it $11.

July Microfundraiser!!

July Swim for Distance total to date: 1.9k

Playing in the background: The air conditioner. I shouldn't complain, though. This is the first month our electric bill's gone over a hundred.

What, you may ask, is a microfundraiser? Well, I'll tell you. Microfundraising is when you solicit small amounts of money from friends and family members who are just as broke as you are, but who might want to make some contribution or other to a worthy cause and feel better knowing that their contribution is being lumped in with a bunch of others to make a bigger difference. Does that sound like you? Of course it does. Read on:

When I swam the Texas Tough open water race a week or so ago, I somehow got shanghaied into raising money for Childrens Medical Center Dallas as I was celebrating my not-lastness. Well, that's okay. Childrens is a pretty darn nifty place, and they're having just as hard a time in this economy as everybody else. The hospital is listed in U.S. News and World Report's Best Hospitals issue. It's a not-for-profit Level One trauma center for pediatrics and also the pediatric teaching hospital for UT Southwestern. You can read more about 'em here.

(By the way, does the term 'shanghaied' have any negative connotations against people of Asian descent? If so, let's say I got hoodwinked into this fundraising thing. Unless that has negative connotations against people who, uh, wear hoods or something.)

There are a couple of ways you can help me with this endeavour. One, you can sponsor me for Dallas Aquatic Masters' Swim For Distance Month and pledge some amount of money (but no more than a quarter, please) for every kilometer I swim in the month of July. Last July I managed 34 kilometers (about 21 miles) and this July I'd like to make it all the way to 40 (about 25 miles). As of today I'm almost at, uh, two. Still, if I were to make it to 40, and you'd pledged a quarter per kilometer, that would be $10.00. (See what I mean about microfundraising? If I were hosting $100-a-plate dinners for y'all to listen to me talk, or something, I don't think it would go over as well. I'm just sayin'.) What's more, you don't have to pay me directly. You can just go to my fundraising page at the end of the month, click on the link and follow the instructions.

If kilometer swimming is too uncertain, buy my book. For the month of July, $1 of every copy sold will go to Childrens. Here's my Lulu storefront, which has the details. You also get a nifty tale for your trouble, and the price is still only four bucks. Cheap! Tell your friends. To commemorate your historic contribution to Childrens and my literary career, print out the cover page and mail it with a self-addressed stamped envelope to me at 1920 Abrams, No. 117, Dallas, Texas 75214. I'll sign it to you, your wife, your husband, your best friend's cousin's sister, or even just my name so you can sell it on e-bay once I'm rich and famous. That's entirely up to you. So tell your friends. Lots of em. That's the problem with microfundraising: You gotta hit up a lot of folks. Luckily, I know a lot of folks.

If neither of those options float your boat, you still have the option of contributing directly by going to my fundraising page. You can also check out how we're doing on the little contribute-o-meter at the bottom of the page. No more than $10.00, please. I think it's more fun one of the other ways, though. Besides, you oughta get something for your money, even if it's just me swimming for the benefit of all beings.

So that's what I'm up to this month, besides looking for work and driving myself bats here at home. Further posts on Buddhism, politics, writing, scary movies and other things of great interest to follow. Watch this space.

And The Father Is...

Meters Swum Today: 1700
Playing on the iPod: "Castles in Spain" by the Armoury Show (a classic!)

I had a dream last night that I was pregnant (!) I was working for some weird company that didn't allow pregnant women into one of its divisions because of some chemicals or something that might endanger the baby humans (the women were, I guess, disposable). They tested all the women every six weeks to make sure none of us were pregnant. It was kind of a joke because we were all gay, so I was chatting up the cute queeny guy who ran the blood tests when the machine suddenly went "Bing!" He said, "Congratulations, Mommy, here's your transfer to Division Six." (Presumably at the same rate of pay; UAW, et al. v. JOHNSON CONTROLS, INC. U.S.C.No. 89-1215 and all that.) I said, "Wait a minute. I can't be pregnant." (This is some of the old semi-lucidity again; there's always some tiny corner of my brain, in a dream or hallucination, that knows Something's Not Quite Right Here.) The guy said, "See that light? Means you're pregnant." I said, "Then it's a false positive." "Oh, no. We sometimes get false negatives, but never false positives." (More semi-lucidity. This is true of most over the counter tests.) He hands me a packet. "See you in nine months, Mommy."

So I go to see my doctor, the Anti-House. In real life she's like this, too. She doesn't like to run tests or play "What's My Diagnosis"; if you get better, that's just grand, and she doesn't much care what made you sick. She agrees with him that I'm pregnant and runs a sonogram. "See that?" she says, indicating a fuzzy blip magnified x100. "You're eight to ten weeks pregnant." "That's impossible," I tell her, which it is in real life unless I've been pregnant since the Summer Olympics in 1996, the vaulting finals. "Well, it may be impossible, but there it is. Who's the father?" "That's the million dollar question," I tell her, and go home to tell Joan about this.

Joan, predictably, hits the roof. Joan does not want kids. Joan has never wanted kids. By now I'm getting pretty upset myself. How could I possibly be pregnant? But it seems that I am. My pants are tight. I'm kind of roundy in the tummy. Later Joan comes in and says she's sorry, she didn't mean to yell at me, we can even keep the kid if I want to. I tell her I'm thinking of giving it up for adoption and we have this Big Discussion. "Who's the father?" she asks, and again, I'm kind of stuck for an answer. Isn't there a TV show like this? "Who's My Baby's Daddy" or something like that?

Anyway, I woke up not-pregnant this morning (whew) and I'm pondering What This Could All Mean. One of my friend's daughters just had a baby so I guess it could be something to do with that. Maybe all women who are pushing forty and haven't had kids and never will start having dreams like this. Sort of a biological wake-up call: "QUICK!!! Get knocked up or forever lose your place in the gene pool!!" Er, no thanks. Every time I've ever had the urge to give birth I've gone to SuperTarget during a big anniversary sale and that took care of it for quite a while.

It's probably about the book. Isn't everything? Wild Child sent me a "thanks but no thanks" on No Accounting for Reality (made it up to the chief editor, though, whoo hoo!) but said they'd take a look at anything else I might have. I never know if they say that sort of thing just to be polite or if they really mean it. Well, I decided to take them serial and I do have something else; Mindbender, to be precise. Genre-wise it's about as far from No Accounting as a book can possibly get (Light-Hearted Fantasy/Comedy, meet Darkly Serious Thriller, Darkly Serious Thriller, meet--etc) So I wrote them back and told them about it and they want to see it and part of what they want to see is Ye Olde Synopsis. Oh great. I wrote a synopsis for it once. It sucked rocks. I wouldn't send this thing to the Library of Congress. I'll have to write a new one. So that's my mission for today; write a synopsis that doesn't suck rocks. On my lunch hour. Yeah, that's kind of like giving birth, come to think of it. Hey, if anybody wants to be the baby's daddy, get in here and help me. I'm serious.