Twenty-Four Thousand Eight Hundred and Seventy-Three

That's how may words I have to write in the next five days to make my (set months ago) goal of making it fifty-thousand words in the book I'm working on by the new year. (That should get me up through the Italian restaurant dinner, the people who think they're hunting vampires, the reality show celebritard,  and the guy from the EPA. Also, at least two more squid attacks. Maybe three.) I have the entire week off from work and I plan to spend every day latched to my computer*, writing my little heart out, chasing down my artificial deadline.

I'm pretty sure I'm not going to make it.


UPDATE: I'm not going to make it.

UPDATE II: I didn't make it.


*Except for tomorrow afternoon, when I'm getting together with Abigail in the city. Also, lunch.

I'm Not On a Boat

Unless you're reading this at some point in the future* when I am. But for the moment I remain landlocked.

The cruise was a lot of fun, if a little on the cold and wet side, and I will get into that presently** but it's almost Christmas and it doesn't seem like the time. So for now I'll just leave you with the knowledge that the trip has been completed, and that spiced rum combines quite nicely with Coke.

*Or, less probably, the past.
**Also, the rather significant issues I have with Princess's approach to customer service, but that's a Whinesday all its own.

I'm On a Boat

Or at least I will be by the time you read this. We're leaving this morning* for a short pre-holidays cruise out of Los Angeles, where it is projected to be raining steadily for the next four days. But that will be okay because, as I mentioned, we will be on a boat. (Or we already are, see above.) If you're good, I'll take lots of pictures and bring them back here to show you.


*Side note: Nine-thirty seems like a perfectly reasonable time for a flight, if you don't think about how early you have to get up to make it to the airport.

Random Product Endorsement: CoverGirl Smokey Eye ShadowBlast

It's like being a corporate shill without all that annoying money!

As an international supermodel* and renowned beauty expert,** I am often asked what products I favor.*** So I thought I would say you all some trouble and tell you about this one before you tired yourselves out asking.

What is it? Basically it's a two-ended eyeshadow stick, with a paler base color on one side and a darker accent color on the other. It's easy to use and the colors come pre-coordinated for your convenience, which is handy for someone who would have flunked out of freshman art***** if art teachers held with any bourgeois notions like grading. There are detailed instructions for the titular****** eye on the back of the package, but I throw those out, since I've ripped them trying to get it open anyway and besides, they're too complicated. Instead, I just slap the base coat over as much area as I feel like covering and smudge the darker color near the lashline; exactly the same way I have been applying eye makeup since the nice lady at Sephora managed to restrain her laughter at the fact that I had made it into my twenties without any clear idea of what makeup was for long enough to explain the basics to me and sell me a bunch of stuff.

So, in summary: easy to use, nice colors, cheap, not a model, also not artistic, late to the party on the makeup thing, summary, footnotes. I think that pretty much covers it.

Any questions?


*Not true.
**I have a mascara wand and I'm not afraid to use it.
***Typically phrased as, "You want fries with that?" But I digress.****
****A lot.
*****Taken as a senior.
******Ha! I am, apparently, twelve.

After a Fashion

Even for professionals, the world of fashion can be confusing sometimes. For example, recently a trend for "bib necklaces" cropped up, and has been doing brisk business among people who, when they wear a necklace, have no interest in doing the thing halfway. They vary from the cute to the ridiculous, but they do have one thing in common: They are all clearly necklaces. However, this:

Is not a bib necklace. This is an actual bib that has been attacked by someone with a bead store, a glue gun and no taste whatsoever*; the sort of thing that a person without a clear idea of how babies work would put on one for a dinner out because it matches their purse. If you wore it, you would look like, well, you would look like this model, only not as happy because you wouldn't be getting paid for it.

On the plus side, if one of your dining companions became enraged at your ridiculous devotion to overpriced trendy junk and tried to stab you with a fork, you would probably be safe.


*I think I just came up with my idea for an Etsy store.

Shoesday: Fasten Your Shoe Belts

Oh Sigerson Morrison*, why can't I stay away from you? I have lovely flats, as many as any rational person could possibly need, but then you have to go and release a style with cool buckles and a sweet rounded toe, and it's all I can do to wait for them to go on sale. But it ends here-- it's this pair and nothing more. At least until these reach further markdown. Or these. But not these.



*And your diffusion line, Belle.
*Also, while I would probably not personally wear them, these may possibly be the sexiest boots known to man.

Air Squid II

I'm not saying why I keep posting links to stories about squid that propel themselves through the air. I'm just saying: plot point.

Merry and Bright

I don't know about you. but where I am it is cold and gray and rainy, and someone is out of Trader Joe's frozen lunches, so she has to walk all the way across the parking lot* to go to the cafeteria. So let's look at some lovely things to cheer ourselves up, shall we?

Pretty!

Shiny!

Sparkly!

Feathery!

Spiky!

Insanity!



*It's a big parking lot.

Shoesday: Jingle Shoes

If you happen to have visited my twitter or Facebook or have been within about ten feet of me in the last couple of weeks, you may have heard about how I just sold my short story "Schrödinger's Cat Lady" to the fine people at Escape Pod, for publication as a podcast and text in mid-January. That would be excitement enough all on its own, but making it even better is the fact that they have become successful enough to pay professional rates for their stories which is very exciting indeed. So, of course, I did what I always do when faced with an unexpected financial windfall, and spent it on shoes.


I love these shoes. They're a great shade of candy-apple red, there's a hidden platform that keeps them from being too high and padding in the footbed to make it possible to stand in them for more than ten minutes at a time.

But the best part (and the problem) is what's on the back:

Awesome, yes? I could never bring myself to get any additional piercings on my body, but I love them on my shoes. And the metal heel is just the right touch of basassitude for the holidays. But there is a problem.

You know what happens when a metal charm hits a metal heel? Clinking. Jingling, even. But that's okay. I figure either I'll where these to a Christmas party and the noise will be blamed on someone else's novelty sweater, or a club and pretend it's just part of the music.

Because, jingling be damned, with imaginary cats as my witness I promise you this: I will wear them.

New Camera!

Rumpole, Pensive

That's right, I'm using the fact that my poor, elderly Canon Powershot s410 finally gave up the ghost as my excuse for why there has been no Shoesday/Thurscheese/etc in the last week, and totally denying that it has anything to do with me being completely lazy. But now I have a new camera, an SD1300, which is a whole 890 plus a D better, so at the very least you can expect a 1000% increase of cat photos.

Although sometimes he moves:

He's coming for you

And his ideas of posing are not necessarily traditional:

Hey, if you could scratch your neck with your foot, wouldn't you?

And, like any good model, he doesn't get out of bed without a sufficient payday:

Kill. Kill. KILL!

(You think this is bad? Just wait until I figure out how to upload from my video camera.)