I have the tendency to walk on the outside of my feet, so I have new heel inserts (I originally typed “hell” inserts) that straighten my foot. I have a feeling I’m going to be writhing in pain soon. Fun fun fun for the whole family!

If your chapbook can be purchased via PayPal, tell Jude Goodwin here. Chapbooks as prizes! Woo!

Somehow, I slept on my face wrong. I look like a creased Stay-Puf marshmallow. The cats scattered.

But I can hear it.

I’ve never heard voices before. These voices sound suspiciously like the guy with the Ford dealership just north of here. He looks a bit like Mum-Ra, though without those weird stretchy spittle lines.

And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you are no child of the 80s. Bah.

I have painted my bathroom. It is now uglier by a factor of approximately a googol than it was before I painted it. My god. What the hell was I thinking?

… but this is ridiculous!

I just got a call from Steve who is still in St. Louis. Turns out that last night when I wasn’t feeling well (actually I still am not feeling so hot), he was also sick.

We’re like the Corsican twins!

(I am 35 years old and I still miss “The Electric Company.” *sniffle*)

I use the Firefox browser and, for some reason, it has decided lately not to show me refreshed versions of my own blog. Very annoying. And I think it used to have a setting under options to tell it to check every time, but it no longer does. Bah.

I had to go muck around in the configurations directly to fix it, but I hope I will no longer be double posting messages.

Speaking of double posting, I paid my mortgage twice yesterday. Yes, I am a doofus, thanks for asking.

Added a sound file. You should see a blue arrow to click for streaming audio.

Hitting for the cycle
“It is designed to break your heart.”–A. Bartlett Giamatti

That makes it easier to shrug, to close the book
on some tragic character falling ill, so irrevocably ill
while the leaves dance down in their long bright autumn.
It’s meant that way. It’s meant to be. Six months
and you’re out. Sixty years and you’re out. A quick
signing of a sixty day lease and then, by god, you’re out
with a Costco bag clutched sweaty and all of your regrets
poking out the sides.

This is how we shove new petunias into the ground,
deadhead with a flick, tearing petals with their old meat
smell thick on your fingernails, and purple. Nurse them
along, but as callous as an orderly with the demented,
oh they were better dead. It is designed, these gardens
blooming brief and hot, every year, every page turned
and something somewhere ends.

When I was a kid, every time my parents would travel I’d fall ill. I think it was just coincidence, and frankly I was a pretty barfy kid.

But now Steve is away, and I don’t feel so good. Maybe I should call my mommy.

Cailleach of Barbara’s bleeuugh has tagged me with a book meme. Questions are hard.

I have to edit and bump this because Cindy of Quotidian Light retagged me, and her meme has a couple of different questions. Find out below!

1.One book that changed your life?

Er. I am drawing a blank for this question, though I’ve thought of a few candidates. I think I’ll go with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which I got for Christmas when I was 6. I was thrilled by this book in a way I still can’t describe. It’s so boring to say that it was magical, so I won’t. The Faerie Queene changed me forever. So did Pride and Prejudice and Far From the Madding Crowd. So did Jonathan Strange and Harry Potter. I think it’s more reasonable to ask what books didn’t change my life. I am Mutability, hear me roar.

2.One book you’ve read more than once?

So many. The most recent reread was Greg Keyes’s The Briar King, which I needed to reread so that I could read the second and newly released third books in the series. Lovely writing. I am a rereader. There are times when I’m not intended to reread, but there I go and suddenly I discover that I’m 1/3 of the way into a book I’ve read four times already. I think my most read book is probably The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, by Joan Aiken. I don’t even know how many times I’ve read that book. Pretty much every couple of months for a handful of years in my childhood, plus a few times since.

3.One book you’d want on a desert island?

Remembrance of Things Past! With a backup of Homer, in Greek! I once had the life goal of translating The Iliad. But, I once could read Greek. Now, not so much. Now, in fact, not at all. Still, maybe someday.

4.One book that made you laugh?

Visions of Sugar Plums, by Janet Evanovich had me giggling so hard I had to put my head on the table. Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Patrick McManus, Jon Stewart, Jane Austen, Erma Bombeck, I laugh at anything.

5.One book that made you cry?

So many! I can barely read two lines from Charlotte’s Web before I get teary. I can recite the whole ending of “The Dead” and if I am even reminded of it I start bawling.

6.a. One book that you wish you had written?

Ohhh, To Kill a Mockingbird.

6.b. One book I wish had been written:

The sequel to The Walking Drum that Louis L’Amour was planning before he died. I love Louis L’Amour.

7.One book you wish had never been written?

The book I wrote that got lost in a massive computer crash. Bastards!

Otherwise, that damned Curious George. When I was in kindergarten, the teacher made me read in front of the whole class. I was mortified. The book? Curious Goddamned George. My husband likes to go into bookstores and find a copy just to torment me.

8.One book you are currently reading?

A Shadow in Summer, by Daniel Abraham. It’s very good.

9.One book you have been meaning to read?

Too many to list. Some I need to wait until I can give them my full attention, some I’m waiting to find copies of, and some I just keep forgetting about.

10.a. Five people I am tagging:

I’m tagging all of you lazy bums! Yah!

10.b. One book I’d like to write:

I want to write YA novels. I have one in my head for someday. I’ve written a mystery and a romance, one of which I might try to get published someday.