*sigh* No Tatoo For Me

Well, I was going to go get a tatoo tonight–I have one on my arm that features a pictograph of the children’s names, and I need to add Ladybug… (her name is really Arwyn Star–she gets the crescent moon with an 8 pointed star) Anyway, I was writing on BITTERMOON and I couldn’t get my ass out of neutral to go. Ladybug will have to wait another day.

It’s been that sort of day, really–the sort where my ginormous ass was locked in neutral, and even the stuff I did do wasn’t really productive. Yesterday felt like that too. Examples?

Yesterday, I got the aforesaid mentioned ginormous ass out the door with the little ones. I cried as I dropped them off at the babysitters because I, the terrible mother who can’t do my job worth ostrich shit, was going in to work on Easter vacation to enter grades because what I had in the computer was EMBARRASSINGLY OUT OF DATE. I get there and start to enter grades and…

And everything is off line. The net, e-mail, the grading program…now, last Thanksgiving, an administrator that I usually admire almost got his face ripped off because my grades were terribly behind and he assumed I would be in on Thanksgiving break to catch up. “It’s cute,” I said, “That you think I’m going to desert my babies during a holiday to come in and deal with something I probably could have done if my fucking computer worked in the first place.” (Yes, I drop the F-bomb with administrators. Yes, they frequently look at me like some sort of Savant with Tourette’s syndrome. Yes, I do have a student with Tourette’s syndrome who has probably never used the F word in his whole life as often as I’m about to in this post–the irony does not escape me. Neither does the link between my propensity for profanity and my habit of alienating anybody in authority–I don’t know why these two things go together, but they inarguably, inevitably do.) So anyway, flash forward five months, and here I am doing exactly that. And all I can say to this situation is the following: If I am going to haul my ginormous ass into my un-vacuumed, unair-conditioned classroom to do work I might have gotten done if even one thing that should have worked this semester had actually worked, then motherfucker, your shit had better fucking operate to specifications if you want me to use my time for anything other than knitting socks for the cave troll.

Which turned out awesome, by the way.

So, having finished one project, it is the rule that no matter how many things I have on the needles (after I finished the socks, I had three) I do get to cast on another project, and while I was dithering as to what that might be, I came up with that goofy little wristlet with the buttons sewn on it. The Cave Troll loves them.

I have not yet made one for Ladybug because she loves to eat them. (No pictures of that, by the way–I was too busy wrestling the wristlet with the giant ladybug on it out of her mouth to take pictures–but I do have one of her being adorable.)

Anyway, so after those things (which felt like being stuck in neutral, even though they were magic gratification) I decided to finally start those fingerless mitts for myself–Louiz it was kismet–you planned your pair out of Julie’s yarn and I’d done the first 6 rounds of mine out of Julie’s yarn…no pictures of them this time, just not enough done. There’s not enough done because I’m working on a project for Ladybug that I started (HELLO!!) in August…creechy! Talking about swimming in neutral!!!

And as for the other thing I did today? (And watch it, there’s going to be swearing again…) Well, four weeks ago, I sent out a packet to an agent who supposedly had a turnaround time of 2 weeks. Now, it’s not like I expected my life to change in two weeks, but I was looking forward to being rejected–hell, going backwards is at least going SOMEWHERE, right? Anyway, no rejection letter. So I found these people on the internet and sent them a polite, cheerful, not-at-all-ironic e-mail asking what their expected turnaround time was.

What I got back was something to the effect of “Well, if you didn’t have a phone number, e-mail address and SASE, we can’t contact you. And if you did have these things, we lost them. You have to resubmit.”

I have to WHAT? Okay, not like we’re dumpster diving, but every time I print out a packet of this shit–it comes to about 75 pages, right? I have to pony up for another print cartridge which is about $25 and holy cucking fats people, what are you doing with my submission packets, crumpling them up and stuffing them in the walls for insulation? So I’m pretty pissed, but I’m getting my packet ready to resubmit, and then I take a good look at the address on the net and then I go back to my address on my letter of submission and then I doublecheck the letter on the submission with my (2006) writers market for agents and then…

The two addresses don’t match. These fuckers MOVED? I get the sacharinne sweet “In the highly unlikely event that you didn’t fuck this up, oh well, our bad” e-mail and these fuckers MOVED? Could she not have mentioned that? “Hey–our address is not the same as it was in a couple of highly creditable publications that you might have used to get it and maybe that’s what happened…” No…no…it was “You are probably a freaking moron–we’re sorry. Grow a brain, asshat, and THEN we’ll talk to you!” I mean…DAMN. *pant pant pant*

So I got my ginormous ass out of neutral and resubmitted the damned packet. All I can say is they had better send that rejection notice on the fucking wind, or I am going to be pissed!

And that’s it. Me in neutral. About the only thing I HAVE done is finished the first actual love scene in BITTERMOON. (No, no more free tastes…I’m starting to feel like a secret pimp for pornless porn.) What I have done (and this is both satisfying and amusing) is red-inked all of my ‘questionable’ scenes for BITTERMOON. There’s nothing like looking at my manuscript on the computer and giggling to myself. “Hyuk hyuk…dirty book…hayuk hayuk hayuk…” *ah* simple pleasures, simple minds:-)

And on that I’ll end with an idea… so, I think my e-mail is under my profile…if you guys can e-mail me, if you want, I’ll sign book plates and send them out… (I need to go somewhere and look for bookplates that will let me write long involved notes on them…) Or, you could send me a book plate and I’d send it back. Or something. I’m all flustered and embarrassed even bringing this up… but, uhm, some of you had asked… (I’m such a dork. How could you possibly want my signature?) Anyway, it’s an idea. Or a partial idea. Nevermind, forget I mentioned it.

Amy:-)