Sugar, Skunks, and Sleep Deprivation

*  Skunk nailed us last night. I'm not sure if it was killed, or if it just wandered under our house to check it's plumbing, or maybe it just decided to share the joy, much like Pepe le Pugh.  Honestly, don't much care.  It smelled so bad I couldn't sleep-- and I spent the rest of my morning stabby. And now you know why!

*  I also spent two hours on Berry Jello's couch, knitting, eating ice cream (hence the sugar) and watching Orphan Black while her 70 lb. dog tried to make out with me.  I shit you not-- with tongue.  I sort of adore this goofy ginormous pit bull who thinks she's a Shitzu.  She's like… candy magic in a giant muscular package.  Or like Clopper, but a different breed.  Considering I wrote that story before I met Sula, I think that's sort of cool.

*  I wrote THIS about Black John today and Dani posted it on Love Bytes!

*  The Bells of Times Square is up for Book of the Month at Love Bytes too!

*  Don't forget-- Monday is *Kermit Flail* and I've spent some time begging and we have some amazing people for you coming up.  *does happy dance*  You all will be so surprised!

*  Mate traded his phone in yesterday, because he got nothing else for Christmas, that's why, and because his old one didn't charge anymore, and he sort of needs one.  Anyway, his camera does slow motion.

The puppy, running in slow motion, is enough to make you pee your pants and fall off your chair laughing.

*  I went to Kinko's and made a small spiral bound printed version of Candy Man to give to Darrin, the guy who helped inspire the book. They put tiny bound volumes out in 6x9.  It's sort of adorable--but a lot more expensive than owning a Kindle and reading it that way.

*  And given that I've got *Kermit Flail Monday* to post tomorrow, Imma keep this one short for you, okay?  But don't hold it against me… I'm leaving you with something good…

*  Lights, Camera, Cupid is up for pre-sale on Riptide's website.  This has a short story giving background on secondary character from The Deep of the Sound which will be out in May/June.  It's an anthology of shorts from a number of the awesome, amazing authors writing stories for Bluewater Bay, and I'm really excited about the story inside, and here's a very brief excerpt (unedited, so forgive me!)

Nascha was seventy-one the night he threw the water in his grand-nephew’s face and reduced him to a crying heap on the ground.  Cal lay there, shaking with fever and being slowly crushed to death with caring for two people who would never get better.

He wasn’t sure why his age occurred to him then.  It wasn’t like he could remember any other goddamned thing ever. And Jesus wasn’t that a kick in the nads.  A man who prided himself on his memory, who had made a living gambling for the sake of earth and sky! Oh, Bluejay the fucking trickster was having himself a big old fucking party at Nascha’s expense, that was for damned sure. 

Nascha pulled himself out of his bitterness and helped Cal up to the couch, toweling his face off and covering him with the blanket.  Cal cried himself weakly into a restless sleep as dawn peered through the window, and Nascha brushed his hair back from his forehead.  He was getting lines there, when he was barely twenty-four, and crows-feet from scowling.

Beth! Beth—do something about your son. He’s working too hard!

But Beth had been dead for six years, and she’d left Cal and Keir to him, and damn him, his mind was failing him, and it wasn’t fucking fair.  He’d given up everything for his sister’s daughter, and she’d taken him into her home so he’d never have to sacrifice for her again.

And now, when he wanted to give her son his life, his mind was failing, and Cal was…

Cal whimpered, and his forehead was hot.  Right now he was sick, and tomorrow he’d be tired, and forced to care for his brother who wasn’t pleasant. 

Cal had been such a laughing child.  A laughing teenager, too.  But the man who snapped orders to Nascha and Keir like they were wayward children didn’t look like he could laugh anymore.

“I wish you could laugh,” Nascha said out loud, his own voice startling him in the decaying house.  He looked around self-consciously at the warping floors, the unpainted walls, the dusty, bent blinds—all that was left of his niece’s dream. God, he’d spent a lot of time in places like this.  Had worked his ass off so Beth would have an education so she wouldn’t have to live like this if she didn’t want to. 

And now her son was dying in a rotting house with no hope in his soul.

The bitchy thing about old age was that it didn’t know when to give irony a fucking rest.

Nascha was used to drifting back and forth through time by now.  After four years of Alzheimer’s, he was lucky he could remember his own name, much less Cal’s, and he had the bone-stripping magic of Exelon to thank for what he could remember, he was well aware.  But this was a deliberate shift to a room like this, with threadbare carpet and dirty walls.

And a big bed with used sheets that were about to get used again…

*TTFN!!!