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Month: September 2008

The Wreck Of My Office Chair

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What did I do this weekend? I’ll tell you what I did. I went to see Gordon Lightfoot in concert, that’s what I did.

Now, if you are like most of my friends (except for Bronwyn Green), you will be asking yourself, “Why?”

Because he’s Gordon Lightfoot, that’s why! Because he writes songs that tell beautiful stories, and so what if some of those stories don’t make a lot of sense and seem to be induced by “hard living,” if you get my drift (and I think you do)? The man is a modern-day bard, a wandering minstrel selling his songs. And he’s still doing it while pushing seventy. That, my friends, is true devotion to one’s craft.

However, pre-Gordon, there was a tragedy. And it happened in my house. It happened to my butt.

Back in the day, when I posted about my office and included pictures, I showed you the nightmare of my office chair. The chair that was the very reason I called my blog, “My Office Chair Is Real Uncomfortable.” I kept that chair, despite the fact that it often popped apart and pinched me, despite the fact that it made my rear cheeks fall asleep, because it had seen me through several manuscripts and was a trusted friend. But now, it has betrayed me.

Here’s how it happened: I’m replying to a fan email (I actually do that, despite all evidence to the contrary. It just takes me a long time and I don’t get all of them) on my BlackBerry, and I lean back in my trusty chair. And as my texting thumbs fly over the tiny keys, I hear this queer sort of groaning sound. Then, a cracking sound. Then, the physical reassurance of the chair at my back is no longer, and I am sliding, too slowly for it to be sudden, to quickly to do anything about it, off the back of the chair and onto the floor, where my tailbone makes a brisk acquaintance with the wood laminate.

Holy God, was that humiliating. Yup. I broke a chair. Sure, it was already broke, but come on. I’m super huge and pregnant here, let’s not add insult to injury. If I was meant to have a bruised posterior this weekend, it would have been just as easily accomplished by some method that did not point out my super lardassness.

Here is photographic evidence of the carnage:

And that’s my dog, looking guilty, though he had nothing to do with it. He just has a guilty conscience. He’s Catholic.

Onto brighter things, though. Here is a picture of me and the lovely Gena Showalter at Meijer in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Gena was there signing books on the Levy book tour, with some other authors. But I was there for the Gena, because she was one of the very first authors I ever met after become a “real” writer, and she has always been ever so nice. Please to be looking at Gena and not me, the person with the swollen face and the hair that is in bad need of recoloring:

AND THEN I TOTALLY DIED

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THIS IS ALL CAPSLOCK BECAUSE IT IS THAT IMPORTANT ALSO THERE WILL BE NO PUNCTUATION BECAUSE WHO HAS TIME FOR THAT WHEN THE BEST THINGS IN THE WHOLE WORLD HAVE JUST HAPPENED

THIS IS THE NEWS OUT OF DISNEY TRON 2 IS GO FOR LAUNCH FOR REALS Y’ALL THEY ARE MAKING ANOTHER TRON MOVIE ALSO TIM BURTON IS DOING ALICE IN WONDERLAND WITH JOHNNY DEPP AS THE MAD HATTER AND OH YEAH I ALMOST FORGOT

THEY ANNOUNCED PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN FOUR I THINK I JUST SHAT MYSELF WITH EXCITEMENT.

HERE IS THE FULL STORY AT AIN’T IT COOL NEWS NOW I NEED TO LIE DOWN FOR A LONG TIME BECAUSE I AM DIZZY.

*IS DED*

A Morning Of Disappointments.

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I found the following things disappointing this morning:


  • Came home from dropping the kid off at school to find Cleopatra on one of the movie channels, but I’d already missed the Rex Harrison parts.
  • Metallica is being inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, despite their general douche-baggery.
  • I cannot find the cord to connect my camera to my laptop so that I can share the fabulous picture of me and Gena Showalter standing by the bras in Meijer.
  • I just bought new long-sleeved maternity shirts and it’s going to be like, a bajillion degrees today.

Otherwise, things will probably go okay for me today.

Except for that Metallica thing, which will stick in my craw for quite some time.

Bienvenidos A Mis Baño

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So, it’s official. I’m probably going to die. Oh, the people at the doctor’s office acted like it was no big thing. Just bronchitis. But I know the truth. I have some creeping lung disease. I may not have spent much time in a coal mine, but I know what this cough means. Certain doom.

Also, I have a real stuffy nose. The above few lines, when read out loud, sound something like this: “I bay not hab spend much dime in a coal bine, bud I know wud tis cough means. Cerdin doob.”

Yes, cerdin doob, my friends. Your brave hero might not survive this one.

I have found a temporary way to alleviate the insidious symptoms of my disease. I can sit in the bathroom with the hot water running in the shower, and make a little rain forest for myself in there. It’s giving me Robert Plant hair, and I’m sweating, but I’m pretty sure that what I’m also doing is breathing. I haven’t done it in so long, it’s hard to tell, but I’m confident that this is what people are referring to when they talk about it.

So, this is my view, today:

I like the bathroom, because it has a natural place to sit. Also, it is convenient for when I start sneezing and coughing and hacking and wheezing and peeing at the same time. But notice how shiny the walls are. That’s a combination of being slick with moisture from the tropical climate I’ve introduced, and the fact that the guy who “helped” me at Lowes was like, “Get high gloss for your bathroom and kitchen!” Well, I don’t know what he thought I was going to be doing in those rooms that I would need vinyl-like paint that was highly susceptible to peeling (like, what, did he think I was going to make a homemade sweat lodge in there or something? Well, I DID), but holy cow, is it annoying. I hate my paint.

Check out my awesome bathroom reading, yo. I like to leave books in the bathroom, because I think it tells people, “I am a good time manager. I use every moment available in the day to broaden my mind and experience. Even when I am pooping.”

Okay, this is my shower curtain. I bought it because I thought it was so cool. Like, Enchanted Tiki Room cool. I brought it home, took down our old one, which was just plain white, and hung this one up, thinking it looked so awesome and that I was just the bestest, most funnest decorator ever.

And everyone makes fun of it.

My enthusiasm for it has not waned, but now there is an edge of spite to its presence. It’s me saying, “Screw you, world. I love my shower curtain. If you don’t like it, go to hell!”

Me and my shower curtain, against the world.

My husband complains that I have to much stuff on the bathroom counter. I say, “What the hell do you need so much space on the counter for? Are you going to do an autopsy in there or something? Shut up!”

The bathroom is an enormous source of marital tension, really, once you factor in the shower curtain and the counter space issue. I’m sure if we ever get a divorce, right next to “Reason for petition” it will say “Bathroom.”

Dime mas! you’re all saying. Okay. I will. These are the lights in my bathroom. They annoy me, because I bought the wrong light bulbs when two burned out, and they don’t match. I tried to make it look intentional by alternating them, or putting two of the same on the outside and the other two in the middle, but it’s just not working out. This is the best I can do.

So, that’s what I’m doing today. I’m sitting in my bathroom/steam room and pretending to be alive, when what I really want to do is curl up into a ball and die. But don’t worry, somehow, I shall soldier on, I’m sure. I always do. For I am tough.

Also, look at this turtle:

Is that not the happiest turtle you’ve ever seen? Look how thrilled he looks! No matter what awesome thing happens to you today (maybe an author you really like doesn’t die of lung collapse in her bathroom), your day is not going to be in anyway as good as that turtle’s day is going, I guarantee it.

So, I’m Pretty Sure I’m Going To Die.

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I think I have pneumonia. I’m not a doctor, despite the appearance of my shiny white lab coat (I just wear that to protect my clothes from spills), but I’m thinking the sloshing sounds coming from the vicinity of my lungs, making me sound like a human water bed whenever I move, might be an indicator. Also, the fact that I woke up this morning going, “Is someone making boiling water? Where is that tea kettle noise coming from? Oh, it’s me. Breathing. That sucks.”

Today, I’ll be giving a presentation at GRRRWA, after which time I will drive myself directly to the funeral home in anticipation of impending demise.