I was in Oklahoma, with my skin volunteering itself as a burnt offering to the sun gods. I’ve been crazy busy, as I told you I would be, but if you were at my house you’d probably wonder just what exactly I had been doing. This place is officially on the FEMA watch list (not that they’ll make it in time to save us), and it’s because I’m awesome at things I like to do and completely incapable of doing things I hate. Like the laundry. I suck.
Anyway, while you guys were all out being normal people, I’ve been holed up at my desk or toiling away at an apartment-sized patch of dirt that could possibly produce actual food. Holly and I have two (count ‘em, two) plots at the Cameron Experimental Community Garden (a name I made up myself, which is not indicative of the liberal college community or its views on experimentation), so that means for all you non-Math majors (that’d be moi) that we have a 20′ x 40′ area to plant. We worked it out, though (mostly) and I think it’ll be all right. It’s hot out there, guys, really very exceptionally hot. It’s not right. In my overzealous jump into the community garden bandwagon, I didn’t consider the climate to which I’d be exposing myself. Every day. For hours. If nothing comes of it, I won’t ever do this again; hard work in the blistering heat is not a fair trade for a handful of green beans and some melanoma.
I’ve submitted a short story to at least two editors every week for the last month. There’s such a weirdness about simultaneous submissions that I try to limit myself or not do it at all, which I know limits my odds but it also keeps me from having to be rejected 17 times in the same week. I’m thinking that my little once-a-week story swap has been beneficial and helped me do some standing back from things I tend to look too closely at. We’ll see how it goes. In the meantime, I’ve cut back on my ad-copy work (like I promised myself I would) and ramped up my creative writing, which is making me a happy, happy girl.
This weekend I’m working on a seriously exciting application for a thing I’d really like to do. If all goes well, I’ll be rich, fat and happy as hell. If all goes less than perfectly, I’ll be just as broke, fat, and probably slightly less happy, but glad that I did it anyway because I am a masochist (and this is my plan for success). Send me good juju (those of you who have some to spare) and I’ll send it back when the occasion arises.
I saw Transformers 2, which wasn’t the best movie ever. It also wasn’t the worst movie ever, and for what it is (a movie about robot aliens who want to save and/or destroy Earth), it was okay. I think the bad reviews were unduly harsh (surely Ebert has seen a worse movie, too), but I understand why they weren’t glowy passages of Michael Bay-inspired warm fuzzies. The lamest part was that Shia’s parents somehow ended up in the middle of a full-on war of the worlds on a Jordanian peninsula. Uh, ok. If you enjoy Megan Fox, slo-mo running, lip gloss, or dirty men in uniforms and/or tattered hipster-wear, over-the-top CG and implausible plotlines, and the sort of self-mocking humor only a ridiculously over-the-top CG robot alien movie with lots of brown-eyed men and really hot chicks in lip gloss can provide, it’s ok. You might want to wait for the DVD if that’s not exactly your thing, though.
Next weekend I’ll be out of town for the holiday. We’re going to my uncle’s house on the lake for a few days of much-needed respite. I urge you all to take time to enjoy the weekend, to see the people you love and do things that can only be enjoyable in the unholy heat of a summer this close to the Apocalypse (2012 is coming, y’all; Nostradamus, the Mayans, and Mel Gibson can’t all be wrong). Personally, I’ll be trying not to spontaneously combust while I boat around Lake Eufala, drinking cold girly things and eating food cooked on actual fire. Real-life fire, guys. You should look into doing something similar.
Lastly, I want to direct your attention to the right of your screen, where there have been a few changes over the last couple of weeks. Check out the blogs i love section, especially, where my bestgoodfriend’s aspiring-writer-daughter is now residing, along with a few goodies I’ve run across lately. And if you have something (or know of a place) I should be reading/linking to, let me know (unless it’s porn, in which case you should keep it to yourself; only email me if it’s especially fascinating).
