All I Want For Christmas Is PeriOrbital Hematoma....

Want to hear something funny? Okay, not funny maybe from your point of view. I had a horrible migraine last night, took a nap that lasted 6 hours and woke up with the headache still bothering me. After an hour of messing around the house (and Internet), I decided to try to sleep again but the migraine had worsened and my head felt like exploding.

Needing a visit to the bathroom, I did what I have done 1,000,000 times before when I had a headache--I stumbled, with my eyes half-closed, toward my bathroom. This time, I somehow missed the doorway, stumbled to the right too far and HULKsmashed the right eyebrow area against the door frame. I swear I saw lights. I finally managed to turn on the lights and lo and behold, the area above my right eye had swollen up into a soft goose egg in a matter off seconds. I looked like one of the Walking Dead. It hurt. Yet it didn't. Because the migraine was gone! I could see!!!

I put an ice pack over the bump and it's now gone down except over the right eyelid. But this is how to cure a migraine! Smash your face on the door or wall, folks!

Update: The swelling is gone but as I became vertical this morning, the area around my eye is getting more and more purple and black. Oh, the ribbing I'm going to get on the roof all day....

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What Really Happened In That Fairy Tale

Once upon a morning I was standing outside by the bayberry tree--bleary-eyed, hair a-tangled, dressed in old jammies and wearing a mismatched long-sleeve grungy shirt (squirrel armor), still in my chewed-up bunny slippers--shaking down the teeshirt and doggy peepad from the squirrel manor.  It's become known throughout the feathered and furry community that at this particular time of day, food is available near that tree because of the leftover nuts, leafs, bark, branches, moss that a VERY SPOILT squirrel hasn't eaten.

This squirrel leftover is the main morning attraction and if I stand very still after doing the shaking thing, squirrels and birds will move in on their breakfast.  So, within a few feet of my bunny slippers, little animals hop around and fly in and out, sometimes even coming close enough to peck at those bunny noses. 

And if it's cold enough that the angel birdbath is frozen, I even bring out, much to my dogs' indignation, the big dog bowl, filled with water, so the birdies can eat and drink and be merry.  I enjoy the show enough to stand out there in inadequate warm clothes even during those really cold mornings.

Sometimes we get interrupted.  My neighbor and their cute terriers would cause an instant racket of barks and back-and-forth scolding from my animals as they rush off.  But if I time it just right, I'm all alone in my little animal kingdom.

Who would show up unexpectedly but my grumpy friend who don't care much about nature?  The driveway was far enough from the tree that my little friends couldn't see him.  He stood there watching the scene for all of ten seconds--the rumpled hair, the bunny slippers, the cute little creatures around me.

"Well, what do you know," he drawled.  "It's that crazy Snow White and her 100 squirrels."

Charming.

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Purple Is The New Green

The Florida weather has turned into Seattle weather this year. It's been very cold at night, and during the day, when it should be WARM, I needed to wear long sleeves most of the time. This affected my wonderful fashion statement of teeshirts with smartass sayings and stretch pants, and instead, I've been seen in sweaters and sweats. In daylight! Horrible!!

Needless to say, my wardrobe has been rather limited to just this small collection of cold-weather clothes. Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day and I found out that I was out of anything with long sleeves that had even a touch of green. I actually searched through my clothes (a very rare thing when it comes to dressing for work, let me tell you) because you know, it's tradition to wear green, even on a roof. Nope. Not even my handy-dandy army pants were clean.

The only thing left that would keep me from shivering on the roof was this purple Halloween shirt with a sequined witch flying on her broomstick silhouetted against the orange moon. I mean, you can't miss this witch, for sure. And a pair of purple sweat pants.

So, I said to myself. Hmm. Who said you have to wear Halloween clothes only on Halloween? I wear Springbreak tees during summer all the time and no one says anything. Right?

Nice unnoticeable purple witch teeshirt it was then. And don't forget the very inconspicuous dark purple sweatpants.

When I got to work, everyone was asking me where my "green" was and I snottily told them purple was the new green. That was the phrase of the day, "Purple's the new green, man!"

We went to eat lunch and the restaurant was serving green tea and green bread for fun. Lots of people there with their leprechauns and four-leave clover shirts. Many stared at me, and the server observed, very loudly, "It's St. Patrick's Day! You have a Halloween shirt on!"

Duh. I looked down at my shirt in horror. Slapped my chest. "Oh no! It was so cold this morning, I thought it was Oct!" Slapped my forehead. "I knew it was some kind of white people celebration. Oops, wrong occasion!"

"She's foreigner," my roofing friend told the waitress helpfully.

"Well, no candy or green tea for you!" she scolded me.

I sniffed. No tip for you, then, bi-otch. But I didn't say it :-). Because I'm not rude like that.

Think I'll wear my Santa Claus hat to keep warm tomorrow.

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Oh Gennita No!

I finally got to meet John Ringo, great military SF writer. I've enjoyed his books. John Ringo is also famous on the Internetz for the phrase "OH JOHN RINGO NO!" because of A SERIES OF SEAL BOOKS he wrote, in which the protagonist did a lot of horribly sexist and offensive things. Definitely NOT a romance hero, 'kay?

This link is a short summary from FANLORE of how the phrase started. For those who want the whole darn thing in stereo, here is the whole livejournal review (VERY DETAILED) by the reader, hradzka, who coined this phrase and made it so famous. Here is the intro:

GHOST is Ringo's own admitted Lord King Badfic, his id run wild. By his own account, he was trying to write several books he was actually contracted for, but GHOST kept nudging at him, and finally he just wrote the damn thing to *make it go away* so he could get back to fulfilling his contracts. Ringo locked the spewings of his id away on his hard drive, until he mentioned in passing on an online forum that yeah, he'd written another book, but it was *awful* and would never see the light of day. Naturally, folks were curious, and when Ringo posted a sample, nobody was more surprised than him to find that the response was, more often than not, "Hey, man, I'd buy this."

So his publisher put it out, and the books are now doing pretty well for them. I'm sure this is a pleasant surprise if you're Ringo or his publisher, but it's also got to be a little embarrassing; he's committed the literary equivalent of charging money for folks to watch him roll naked in a pile of dead and smelly fish. And then being begged for encores.

This entry was so popular that John Ringo replied to give it the thumbs-up.

Anyway, OH JOHN RINGO NO! is on teeshirts and cups these days, used by those to express dismay at any boneheaded acts or books. I met the rascally John Ringo yesterday and told him to ravage me like Mike Harmon (the SEAL in this series). Here is the pic:

And then, after I* ravaged him, he signed his book:


Heehee. Loved it.

Just another OASIS-22 Convention encounter to remember. Anyway, I do recommend John Ringo's books but this particular series of SEAL, ahem, adventures are over-the-top crazy, so Buyers Beware and Be Ready to yell out OH JOHN RINGO NO! a lot.

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And Meanwhile, Female Conversation Might Sound The Same...

but we're definitely more introspective AND clever (unlike THE CRAZY DUDE of the post below) in how we talk about our private lady things:

"Are they real?" "No, you made them up."

This wonderful lady celebrates her boobages with great humor and insight. I loved her references--"agents of fascination," "largely parasitic," "industrial sized," "the Rambo of bras." Even if I don't have her physical generosity, I feel that her description of how puberty (and her growing breast size) affected her thoughts and self-awareness was on target with every teen girl. Certainly, I have no problem nodding and grinning at the some of her experiences.

My new phrase: My agents of fascination bring all the boys to the yard. (Looking down at meagre melons...okay, probably not...)

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Post #3: My R-Rated Book Trailer

Here comes trouble. That was the first thought that crossed Jaymee's mind when she saw him walking around.

"I'm looking for work," he said. "Do you have any job openings?"

Jaymee's eyes traveled down the length of him.... If he could roof, she thought, then she could build a rocket ship.

She arched a brow at him. "You need tools," she said.


"I'm good with guns," he told her.

Nick's eyes narrowed a fraction. She was going to be trouble. Her ass, for one thing, roused his interest. Very much.

Jaymee blinked. Oh no, she had seen that look before. It was the Big Bad Wolf! He was neither nice nor safe.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX-RATED

Oh-oh, mutant pombabies might be on the way in 60 days.... Sigh.

Big Bad Puppy sez: "Hee hee hee."

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Oprah, This Is For You

Here is an amusing article:

http://gawker.com/5119868/oprah-winfreys-liars-club

If you haven't heard, Oprah's recent picks of sad autobiographies have hilariously turned out to be all lies, from Frey's recovering druggie to the Holocaust runaway who was reared by wolves to the latest, a Holocaust survivor who claimed to have met his wife at the fence of one of the camps. Every one of these writers were praised by Oprah and recommended by her reading club, and thus, shot up in the bestselling lists.

I hope Oprah won't give up on memoirs. Because I'm writing one. Here's a short synopsis of my book, tentatively titled Every Little Step:

When I was a little girl, I ran away from my brutal stepfather who planned to sell me to this older man who already had eleven wives. I was determined not to be the twelfth. So I escaped on foot from the family castle. Unfortunately, in those days, I still bound my feet.

Oh, the pain of running in bound feet! Every step was torture, like big iron tongs burning my three-inch stumps. Only the thought of my future husband, the evil Wascally Wang, and the knowledge that he'd surely subjugate me as his property, made me hobble along even faster.

I made my way through the Malaysian jungles, which were filled with thorny bushes that cut into my bound feet, right through my bindings and bloodying my tender mishappened flesh underneath. My brutal stepfather's minions was coming from the left. I could hear my evil betrothal's servants coming from the right. I was trapped!

Then two giant dodobirds appeared from nowhere! One took the horde on the left; the other went after the one on the right. It turned out, my saviors were the last two surviving dodobirds in the universe. They were females and knew they were the last of their kind. Because of my injuries--my poor bound feet were ripped to shreds--they took me to their dodonest, hidden among the deep thorny forest, and adopted me.

I found that dodobird saliva had special healing powers and I spent years soaking my three-inch deformed pancakes that I called feet in that special slimey juice. It smelled bad, but I got used to it. My dodobird mamas lovingly took care of me. When I was finally able to look at my feet again, lo and behold! Miracle of miracles, I had normal human feet!

To my sad horror, my dodobird mamas were disgusted at the sight because they'd thought they'd saved a dodobird, since dodobirds walked funny. Like the way I used to. But I no longer do. I walked and skipped like a normal human being and they were disgusted.

My heart broke when they cast me aside. I had to wander off alone. I hitched a ride on a rhinoceros out of the forest. After many years, I saved enough money to go to the United States to look for freedom because you know, everyone was free there. I paid off a pirate and he exported me as a cheap computer part. That was tough but not as bad as having bound feet.

Today, I can safely say I stand here strong and independent--the innovative owner of an import/export company of rare medicinal dodobird spit--and very proud of each and every one of my feat.

What? It's a tearjerker, come on! Surely Oprah would love it because it's a story about feminism and strong females against the world and winning. Come on! No cackling over there! I'm sitting here waiting for my six-figure advance.

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The Annual Bugman Incident

Yes, it's that time of year again. I never know when it comes, but it's always just around November and it's always when I'm not thinking about it, and when it does, it's inevitable. It's the annual moment of extreme horror, when Bug Man Meets Crazy Bedraggled Author.

I always forget the day he has to show up and of course, the appointment is always at 8 am, just ripe for a seizure on both sides.

So there I was--hair uncombed, mind un-caffeined, in the middle of one of those "I'm too busy writing to care about looking in the mirror" days. Thank God, I had on yesterday's clothes. Last year, I nearly gave Grandpops Bugman a heart attack by appearing in my garage (which I forgot to close the night before) in my half-buttoned nightshirt and giving him a morning eyeful while trying to cover myself with my little bags of garbage.

This year, with my luck, they sent a young Studly Bugman. I'm imagining Grandpops had a heart attack from last year's incident and simply refused to come back to That Author's place this time. So they sent Studly Bugman, with Bug-Finding Stick and Bug-Instruments.

It's funny how we women authors are. We don't care how we look until some cute guy comes to the door. If I were a male author, freshly woken from a couple of days' of "not caring about personal hygiene because it's my damn weekend," I'm sure my first thought at looking at the manly Studly Bugman wouldn't have been, "ArgKKhhh! My hair! ArgHKKhhh! I stink!"

You have to understand. In the morning, before the Uber Me wakes up, the Entity Known As Me (TEKAM) shuffles around the house like a hunchback on Prozac. TEKAM moans a lot. TEKAM wants to just sit there and let the dogs run free. TEKAM is the one that insists on munching on a few chocolate bars with Hawaiian bread for breakfast because nutrition is whatever tastes good and chocolate tastes good every morning for some reason. Also, TEKAM tends to be monosyllabic and prefers to grunt; even the dogs can hold a better conversation than she.

A quick sneak peak in the bathroom mirror as I followed him around the place confirmed my worst fear. Yes, "it" (the Author) did look like I feared. All I needed was to leer at the poor young boy and cackle with evil glee.

Nervously, he asked questions, shining his flashlight into corners. I grunted--then changed it to a cough--and tried to make full sentences that make sense. Bad Puppy was demanding everyone's attention; he didn't like any male in the house, of course, and especially one who was walking in and out of Mom's closet, complaining up a storm with "why, that's MY playroom, so get the eff out before I pee on your weird-stockinged feet, you Bug Guy. I'm studlier than you. I have four women in this house. Mine, mine, MINE!"

"You have to excuse him, this is his first year of Bugman visit," I told the Studly Bugman, in my crackly, not-quite-human 8am voice, as I limped around behind him, trying desperately to comb the tangles out of my hair when he wasn't looking, and grabbing Bad Puppy whenever he lifted his leg threateningly.

The young Studly Bugman already had that look in his eyes. I could always tell because he kept glancing back at me nervously, probably thinking about Grandpops Bugman's horrific rendition of TEKAM flashing her wizened boobs at him, and you know it had to be a pretty horrendous sight to have given him that heart attack.

I shuffled forward, bending towards him. The Studly Bugman gave a sort of a stuck "eeep" in his throat and looked around in desperation. Relief poured out of him when he realized I was just reaching for the sofa to push it out of his way and since I was still in hunchback mode, I had to bend a LOT more than usual. I'm sure the sight was as frightening as his face was telling me.

Meanwhile, out of the corner of my eye, I spied Bad Puppy lifting his leg because Studly Bugman was standing ON his toys and pillow. I shrieked and leapt forward. Studly Bugman shrieked.

Pandemonium ensued. Much noise. Much apologizing. Much tissueing and touching poor Studly Bugman's pants while he looked at me like I was really the Big Bad Bug. Bad Puppy...well, he was the only happy thing in the room because he made his manly statement and ran off with his toy.

Studly Bugman left with a story about That Author. His initiation at his job was now complete. I've done my part in his training and I feel the Bug People should pay me or give me a discount.

Now, where's the coffee? I really need to comb my hair....

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Post #2: Gennita Here, Gennita Everywhere

If you really need another dose of me, of how I flew to the States and became a roofer, of how I mesmerized the whole State of California when I was seventeen, Marjorie Liu has revealed it all at her BLOG. Yes, go and read about me, my suitcases and the dream of...what?...Ohio???! Yes, but then, Paul Newman graduated there, you know.

I swear, the more tell about myself, the more embarrassed I am that I was such a green child, and the more I'm convinced that I'm protected by very tired angels.

Hope you enjoy GLOWTV as I promote Big Bad Wolf.

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Ranger Buddy Slaughters A Classic Act II Scene III

Man sitting at the restaurant table. Loud disgruntled moan. Woman looking up from the newspaper.

Man: I listened to three hours of lecture on The Hobbit last night.

Woman: Yeah, deep stuff, huh?

Man: (inhuman moan) I thought the story was about some rabbit looking things who like to stay home and smoke their pipes. Turns out they were some representation of some English folks. (rubbing his face wearily)

Woman: (coughing) Rabbit looking things?

Man: Yeah. They live down a hole. They have fur. Rabbits, right? She showed some pictures from the movie last night and they didn't look nothing like rabbits. Which made sense, actually, because when I read about the Eagles coming out to help them, I'd thought, why wouldn't they eat the Hobbits, which were rabbits, you know? But now, I guess they really weren't, so that's why the Eagles didn't eat hobbits.

Woman: (coughing harder) (trying to think of rabbits walking around onscreen)

Man: (getting into story-telling mode now, since he ALWAYS manages to launch to telling the whole story no matter what the question is) Then the wizard came and took the hobbit off to adventure, and hobbits, they didn't like adventure because they liked to smoke pipes and eat, but this one, he had something in his bloodline, and so he was off to do some adventuring, and the elves, they looked at the wizard and thought, "Why the fuck are you hanging out with this hobbit for?" (starts to gesture animatedly) Then they ran into trolls which represented the lower classes or something in Britain, and the hobbit stole something and that made the elves liked him a bit, but then he got caught and so again, they looked at the wizard, and was like, "What the fuck are you doing hanging out with this hobbit for?" And oh yeah, the owner of that ring was a snake which turned out not to be a snake, but was a damn hobbit. (big excruciating sigh)

Woman: (speechless with admiration of this brilliant synopsis of The Hobbit) (choking on lunch)

Man: And it's all about World War One (loud inhuman moan and smacking his forehead with paper). Rambo rabbits. I give up.

********

You sure you want to hear Ranger Buddy slaughters Shakespeare's Othello?
;-)

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The Tragi-Comedy of RB in English Class Act II Sc. II

RB: I need your help with my next paper.

Me: Okay.

RB (sssslowwly reading from instruction sheet): Write an analysis essay in which you single out an element in the plays A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, Othello, or the book, The Hobbit (i.e. setting, theme, character development, etc.). Make sure you carry this element throughout the play.

Pause.

Me: (thinking of the obvious thematic stuff to tell RB when he asks the obvious question) (looking at him expectantly) (putting on my professorial look) (smiling encouragingly)

Pause.

RB: (slowwwwwwly) What is I.E.?

Pause.

Me: I guess I'm writing this paper, huh.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

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