Sooner or Later, Everyone Goes to the Zoo...

(Name that movie, anybody?)

Anyway--we went to the zoo today. I love our zoo--lions and tigers and mangabeys, oh my! There were tigers laying on mama, margay's itching their chins, and chimpanzees throwing pooh--really, everything children need to see to grow up big, strong, and just itching for a summer internship shoveling shit for pennies.

Can I knit now?

Seriously--I've gotten caught in sort of a weird, non-knitting situation. I want to knit--but all of my knitting time has been sucked up by my writing time. And usually I manage this sort of thing better--but I've had a blessing fall into my lap, someone who has volunteered not only to clean up my query letter (in this case, my e-query letter) but who wanted to help edit the first three chapters of *Vulnerable* and you just don't say no to someone who is doing this, cheerfully, because she believes firmly in good writing and good karma (!) because your body is screaming "Knit! Knit now you kninny! Your mental hygiene is slipping and your thoughts are getting all nasty with cynicism and if you don't settle yourself into the simplicity of knitting, your face will assume that position...there...that one...with your eyebrows drown together and brackets at the side of your mouth...YES! THAT ONE RIGHT THERE! STOP LOOKING LIKE THAT AND FOR CRAP'S SAKE, KNIT!"

And it doesn't help that I don't deserve this attention. I mean, I must not. because here this nice lady gives me perfectly sound advice for how to alter that paragraph on the second page--the really long one, about cows rotting and mother nature not really giving a fuck--and I like her rewrites. I DO. They're solid, and professional and concise--and all she did was hit the paragraph spacer a couple of times. Voila! Better writing.

And I'm saying no?

Seriously--what kind of farging icehole am I?

Well. Apparently, I'm a farging icehole who doesn't deserve to knit.

Or publish big.

*sigh*

But the zoo rocked, the kids were thrilled--Ladybug can talk a lot, and she was making snake noises and tiger noises and chimpanzee noises. (We drew the line at the pooh-throwing. Really, there's only one genus that can do that, and it's not the human one.) The Cave Troll thought was thrilled--he's naked now, but he loved the zoo even when he was wearing clothes. (Okay--that didn't make sense--I just wanted to point out that for no reason at all he took off his threads and has been running around with his little Calvin ass flapping in the wind, and since Ladybug's bathing in the sink as i write this, I thought I'd just wait until she was done and put his naked-Calvin-ass in the sink after her. Since we still HAVE NO BATHROOM. 1.3 years, people. It's not funny anymore!)

So, maybe I'll have to stick with the mama thing, since apparently no one is willing to help me with that edit. A good thing too, because apparently I'd have to rip their throats out. Who knew I was such a ball of insecurity and fierceness?

(Yeah. You all knew, didn't you. You knew.)