A List of Wierdness

* First of all--I write as a profession. I have yet to be able to spell the word "weird" right without electronic help.  Thought that worth mentioning.

* Isn't it odd, how, every year, sometime in August, just when you think you won't be able to live with your progeny for one more minute if you have to hear them arguing about video games again, this marvelous institution opens up, and they are expected to attend for part of the day. And this happens several days a week! It's... it's amazing. It's practically magical. I wish this institution on every parent. I mean, I understand that there's a growing malignancy in our government that wishes to keep its citizens as stupid as possible and is gradually cutting money to this institution, but in the meantime, before it disappears completely, I'm going to take advantage of it.

In fact, it just might save my sanity.

*  Another magical place is Starbucks. They make both caffeinated beverages and high-calorie sugary snacks, and when you didn't get a lot of sleep the night before because you had to shuttle children to their institutions, well, Starbucks too is a magical place.

*  Tomorrow, we are taking children (and Big T!) to Lake SugarPine with my parents. For those of you who have read Rampant, yes, THAT Lake SugarPine. I'm actually looking forward to swimming in it--it's cold A.F., but there's something about swimming around in a real lake that makes me feel like all that time spent in aqua aerobics--which has not lost me a single pound, mind you--is at least IN TRAINING for something larger. Like swimming for an hour without touching in a mostly clean lake.

*  Of course, this leads to one of my biggest irrational fears--and this is where I conquer it. I do it every so often--I go swimming in water dark enough to not be able to see my feet-- or the bottom.

I've told this story a lot (and recently I asked a bunch of people about it on the blog tour for Red Fish, Dead Fish,) but I once thought I'd try to write this little phobia out of my system by putting a scene about it in Vulnerable. Cory goes swimming in Folsom Lake and a hidden vampire grabs her ankle.

Ha! Take that, hidden fear! Take that! My heroine shall rise above you!  Right?

Uh, no. Now I'm REALLY freaked out about what's under my feet when I can't see. Imagine all those old Nordic woodcuts about sea monsters that will eat you, except make them three times as ugly with too many pointy teeth-- THA'TS what's under the water, waiting to nibble on my toes.

So yeah. Going swimming in the lake? If I can hold my shit together, it makes me really damned empowered.

And if I can't, my family gets a good laugh out of that too.

*  The adolescent children are exhausted after the first day of school. This means I get to write a little earlier. This means I might go to bed a little earlier.

Wow.

The magic does not stop giving, does it?