Thirteen Ways of Looking At The Vampire Diaries

1) I don't like Stefan. Not Good Stefan. Or Ripper Stefan. The writers give all the good lines to Damon, therefore Damon is the one Elena should be with.

2) (Though I don't give a shit about Elena, lately. You know what would be awesome? Besides having Elena and Damon take a bath together in Damon's Bathroom of Superlative Fabulosity? Elena and KLAUS. Zing!)

3) Oh, hi Lexi! I love Lexi! I hope they bring her back.

4) EXCEPT: that ghost gimmick, where they can resurrect dead characters? Changes the stakes for actual character death now.

5) What was up with Alaric's hair? And they've seemed to settle on calling him 'Ric' which is a complete abomination. And am I seeing things, or did he have some blond hamburger meat peeping out of his shirt collar last night? MMMMM...blond chest hair...

6) How much does Caroline continue to rule? Last night she was in her full of splendor of kick-assery.

7) And while Bonnie usually bugs, last night I liked her. The spell with her Grams was especially good, I thought.

8) I miss Klaus and his red lollipop lower lip.

9) Klaus' dumb sister can be gone forever, though. She blows. She looks like she wandered in from the set of 90210 by accident.

10) Where was Tyler? I wanted his hybrid minion bad self to tear it up and he was AWOL. His mother can go hang, however. Why does she have to clog up this show? PARENTS, blah.

11) Where was Mikael-With-A-K last night? Did I miss something?

12) Who says Jeremy can't bone his ghost girlfriend? It's not like Bonnie's a much better choice, the way she's always flinging herself sacrificially every time there's some new fatal emergency cropping up.

13) Are there enough _____________ in this show?
a) Official Town Founders Events
b) rentable dungeons
c) creepy caves with shocking secrets
d) magical devices and jewelry
e) instances of Damon getting impaled

Attention, YA Writers

Enough with the following:

1) Outdated clothing terms. No modern teenaged girl wears a 'blouse' or 'slacks.' Only old ladies or business women who work at corporations wear 'blouses' and 'slacks.' If you're a teenager, it's a Shirt. Or Pants or Jeans. God! It's not hard.

 Also?  The only appropriate time to wear sweatpants is NEVER.

(OKAY: this sweatpants thing reveals my age and personal bias. According to Sid, my 15-year-old nephew, a lot of kids wear sweatpants to school in completely non-athletic capacities and are not shunned. However, nothing grosses me out more than seeing a main character who wears sweatpants while he's kissing someone. Same with 'briefs' for boys. I realize that you might wear brief underwear, Boys of the World. But I never want to hear about it.)

2)  The face cup prelude to kissing. I've spoken about this before, I think, but it's not getting through. This is that gross move when a boy puts his hands around a girl's face before he lays one on her. UGH. No. Consider the amount of time it takes to put on make-up. Consider how controlling and awkward this move is, to have your face gripped and studied in this way. Just kiss her, and put your hands elsewhere, boys. The t-zones of girls everywhere have enough trouble without your grimy mitts mucking it up.

3) Girls who don't care how they look. ALL GIRLS CARE HOW THEY LOOK. Even the ones who look like they don't care. Especially them.

4) The word 'date.' I know that news hysteria programs like 60 Minutes would like us all to believe that modern teenagers just have transactional sex - hook-ups - and nobody gets picked up in a car and taken out to dinner and walked to the door for a goodnight kiss anymore. But I think that Car-Dinner-Front-Step-Kiss model is a limited notion of what kids' social lives look like, and the term 'date' seems stuck in that connotation. And while I know that hook-ups exist, I'm not confident that anyone this age uses the word 'dating' to speak of their romantic interaction.

Things I Would Like To See More Of:

* Two nerds who fall in love and remain nerds. Too often in YA stories, there is crossing of the cliques when it comes to romance. Unfortunately, the social streams just don't collide that much in high school. Kids are aware of their standing in the looks/popularity race and usually match up accordingly.

* The Eternal Saga of Acne. Not just ugly outcasts have acne. Everyone has acne at that age at some point. I had an okay complexion myself, but still remember how one rogue zit on my nose amounted to a complete day-ruiner.

* Ginger-haired boys who get the girl. Usually the ginger boy is presented as comic relief, cf. Ron Weasley. However: RON WEASLEY IS AWESOME. I believe deeply in the Ron Weasley Winner's Way.* Don't discount it.

* Camp stories. Summer camp is such a great setting for hijinks. There are no parents, it's often a co-ed situation, and everyone's up in everyone else's business. Exploit it more.

* Trick-or-Treating. Just because it's that time of year and I'm in the mood. Plus, a lot of way-too-old kids show up at my house for candy. Imagine running around getting free candy while you are high! So funny.

* Crappy jobs. A lot of teenagers suffer with this. They meet creepy older people at their losery jobs. They are demeaned by an awful uniform and degrading tasks. Huge minefield for drama. Sara Zarr does this very well in Story of a Girl, as does Kirstin Cronn-Mills in The Sky Always Hears Me (And The Hills Don't Mind).

* Pet death. Not that I like to see this, mind you. But if you get a dog when you're 5, chances are high that the animal will kick it when you are 17. It sucks and it's hard, but why not use it?

* Kids who come back to school completely changed after one summer. Physically, I mean. Who doesn't remember that shrimpy boy with the Adam's apple that could slice you to ribbons coming back to school all filled-out? Or the girl whose hair grows out and braces come off and whoa, she's a babe? A different person. Usually kids - or their friends - don't handle this great-before-and-after well, either.

* Private universes of slang words. E. Lockhart does this brilliantly in The Disreputable History of Frankie-Landau Banks, as does Lili Wilkinson in Pink.

* Ensemble casts of friends. I know it's difficult to manage the body count, but it's so much more realistic. Usually we have a pack of friends at that age and they all play some specific role in the group. Lili Wilkinson's Pink manages two separate ensemble casts, the Pastels and the Stage Crew geeks. And Sarah Dessen does this all the time in all her books.

(Q. What can't Sarah Dessen do?
A. Nothing. Oh, wait. Except make her characters have sex. They really need to do more of that, I think.)

*The Ron Weasley Winner's Way. In which boy of average looks manages to get the girl because he is funnier than hell. Funny = Money. Live it, Learn it, Know it.

Oh, Matt Saracen. You Had Me At "Hi, Missus Coach"

"Yeah, well Jason Street's out East and Tim Riggins is in prison. It's Matt Saracen's time, yall. That's right. No more of this Mr. Nice Guy Making Grandmaw Take Her Pills shit."

On Dancing

In 10th grade, just as we started the ballroom dance unit in gym, I came down with mono. So, while I was glad to know the reason why I was nodding off in class like a common loadie, it wasn't much fun to have to write a paper about ballroom dance instead of just dealing with the sweaty-handed-ness of doing it.

CONSEQUENCE:  I don't know how to ballroom dance.

For the rest of high school, dancing occurred at school dances, after I'd chugged a few beers behind the grocery store, skated in and fooled the teacher I wasn't drunk and then air-guitared my head off with my friends to Motley Crue and Ace of Base.

CONSEQUENCE: Probably I looked like a dumbass? But it was very fun.

For most of my college years, there was also no dancing. Unless we sneaked into a bar and saw some faux-hippie jam band. That just involved swaying and nodding, though, no actual dancing. I believe there also may have been some dorm-room dancing with my girlfriends, to say, something like "Me and Julio Down By The School Yard" or, worse yet, some piece of shit Grateful Dead song (barfs), but that also involved intoxication and sounds much more fancy/titillating than it was. Also, there were weddings I attended in those years, which was a mix of free beer and jamming out to Billy Idol.

CONSEQUENCE: Still believe that dancing involves mood alteration. This is not good, kids.

My last year of college was spent in South America. This is where people dance a lot. They dance at parties, they dance at discos, they dance in the driveway after a costume party as the sun comes up. I couldn't avoid it. I was chastised for being a stiff American who didn't know how to move her hips. I was taught to salsa in my host family's living room by a man named Micho who was 6 foot 5, and instructed me while smoking a cigarette. It was hard to grasp, because Micho's thighs were in my chest, and I was mesmerized by his bronze belt buckle. I was terrible but the host family wouldn't give up. Every family function involved some new relative trying to instill rhythm in me. One night, I went to this disco strip with some Columbians and some of my gringo counterparts and drank too much rum and lemonade. Rum in Spanish is 'Ron' which cracks me up, still. Anyway, that night I drank a ton of 'Ron' and then did actual Saturday Night Fever style disco-dancing, which was super fun. Also, I made out with a boy. In a taxi, I think? Or behind the disco? God. 'Ron' blurs things. Anyway.

CONSEQUENCE: Bad dancing is more fun than being taught to merengue on the patio by someone's deaf abuelo.

Then the rest of my life, dancing isn't an issue.

My best friend Heather does mention that I should call myself Grace, since I have none of it. My friend Heather is one of those magical people who studied dance for real, with, like, toe shoes and what not.

I also notice that my father never dances with my mother at weddings unless she does something drastic like twist the top of his ear.

And then one time, I ask Adrian to dance with me at a wedding. Matilda is about five years old, and she's already out leading up a conga line on the dance floor. The band is actually appealing, it's a country-style band, but it's fun and the singer is good and I've had a bunch of gin and tonics. We dance and Adrian's face is all squinched up and annoyed. Like it gets when I try to describe to him how I do math problems in my head, and he's all aesthetically disgusted by my lack of elegance and surfeit of idiocy. We sit down after one song and he explains that I'm terrible, that I try to lead, that I don't know where my feet should go, and in what order or rhythm. It's physically awful to move about and touch me at the same time, in other words. I don't believe him at first, but he's so earnest and the look on his face is painful as he describes my shittiness. Like he's telling a little kid she's ugly or something.

Needless to say, I order another drink. Because I feel so spectacular about all this.

CONSEQUENCE: Have come to believe that we should take ballroom dancing classes together. Not in an effort to revive our marital bliss (barfs), but so I can learn how to do it, actually, and not have shame at someone's damn wedding.

On Football, Ctd.

Adrian pointed out to me that a safety is worth 2 points, not 3.

So. Whoops. Football-Loving Dream Wife FAIL.

I don't have anything to add but maybe you'd like to look at some Dillon Panthers? Yeah? M'kay:

"Everyone's looking at me, QB1. Just get used to it."

On Football

True fact: I have started looking at football for the first time in my life because I loved Friday Night Lights so much.

Basically, everything Mo Perry says in this article is what I also think. Which is handy and saves me a lot of time. Thanks, Mo Perry!

So, I'm sitting on my arse this Sunday, looking at the football with the Mister. I'm also crocheting and reading Balzac's Lost Illusions. Because, what? You expect me to just sit there like a corpse and stare? Half the time nothing's happening; it's just the hammy man-announcers with their giant SuperBowl rings having a big hen party about every stupid thing.

Anyway, I learned a new football rule, beyond the football rules I picked up while mooning over Tim Riggins' shirtless goodness (what it means to 'take a knee,' why quarterbacks don't learn to block, how the coach tells you what plays to run and if you don't, there's big trouble in little China, and probably you should not sleep with the coach's daughter, either, to name a few).

The team we were playing managed to score a safety. Or we managed to score them a safety. From my understanding, a safety is three points you get when the other team sucks so bad, your team can't push them any further back down the field, because they're already in the endzone.  I'm guessing it's considered a bit unseemly to smush them against the goalpost and into the stands, I suppose. Which seems like a funny thing to me, a kind of deterrent rule put in place for idiots like me who don't understand the purpose of being on the gridiron to begin with. So embarrassing.

Also, I guess our team sucks this year, which is unfortunate, now that I'm endeavoring to be a Dream Wife and look at football with the mister. But, you know what? It's really boring to watch your team losing, especially when there's no underlying tension about whether the fullback is screwing the former quarterback who's now paralyzed's girlfriend to keep your mind nimble.

On Thinking During Running

Here's an example of what I think about while I'm running.

For example, this song comes on my iPod. And instantly, I'm transported back years to when Vision Quest featuring Matthew Modine was my obsession.

I mean, how can you not love the training montages? Jake Ryan with a mohawk? Madonna before she turned all yogic and British?  And this Warm-Up Before The Big Match Scene?




There were so many things about this movie that I loved.

First, Louden Swain is the best name ever.

Second, do you know how hard it is to jump rope like that?

Third, in the book Vision Quest, of which the movie is based, the ending doesn't show Louden wrestling Brian Shute. It just ends with him charging onto the mat, ready for battle and no certainty of his victory. Point goes to the novel, in this case.

Still, I loved this movie. Despite Linda Fiorentino grossing me out as Carla with her husky man voice. The main reason why is the whole endeavor Louden makes now that he's 18. He sets a goal: to wrestle two weight classes below his current one, against the advice of his coach.

I've never trusted athletic coaches much. I've never understood why they holler and freak out and send you through hellacious drills that you doubt they could complete themselves. I've never seen them as leaders I ought to listen to, because I've taken such a dim view of sports, even as I played sports myself in high school.

So the challenge Louden makes to himself seemed unusual to me. Very badass. No one was making him get up early to run and do push-ups. No one was making him go to his job or study medical textbooks during his down time. It was a self-determined, noble proposal, coming from within rather than without, appealing to my would-be rebel self, thus kicking off the best training montages I've ever seen on film.

(Also, nobody could rock that hairstyle (the mid-90's flop, though Vision Quest came out in 1985) better than Matthew Modine. Arguably, he's the only one capable of it.)

Wrestling is a sport that inspires so much snickering. What with the tights/singlets/whateveryoucallthem. (Even the coach wears them during practice! Hee!) But wrestling remains, like boxing, one of my favorite sports to watch: direct sweaty contest between two bodies getting at the heart of what it means to struggle.

ANYWAY. This is what I mulled over for 20 minutes today while I ran.

The point here isn't Whatever Happened To Matthew Modine or to argue that Rocky has better training montages. The point gets at the reason why I bother running in the first place. I once asked an IronMan finisher what he thought about while running, to get his mind off the pain. Thinking he'd have some amazing techniques, that he worked out puzzles or chess moves or quadratic equations while he ran. But he just said, "Oh, not much. I think about my breathing and how far I'm going. Just stuff, I guess." Nothing more to say than that.

This astonished me. Which is why, I guess, I think it relevant to share with people the thoughts I have while putting my body through this agony. Though it's a bit strange, that during my own training montages, I think about the training montages of someone else. The training montages of someone else who is fictional, no less. Strange, but not surprising.

On Proper Terminology

Years ago, my piano teacher told me that you don't call your selected music a song - it's a piece.

So I retroactively felt dumb about how I'd told my relatives about the 'song' I was playing at my recital.

I'm going through a similar panic about terminology. Do I sound like a dipshit when I talk to people about my unpublished novel story-thingy?

What do I call it? A manuscript? My work? A piece? A novel? A story? A book?

I hate the word manuscript. It makes me feel like I should wear a beret and smoke Gauloises and discuss semiotics.

I also hate referring to my writing as my work; it makes me sound like I've got a prodigious back catalog, full of fifty-foot bronze sculptures or a series of operas or whatever.

My work sounds better for visual art, though I don't think that's quite right, either. But 'work' connotes something onerous and while I dislike query letters and revision is hard sometimes, there is something so delicious about writing that 'work' is the farthest thing from it. I wonder if visual artists might agree? I tend to think of 'work' as cleaning toilets or digging ditches or, as the poet John Engman put it:  "doing something truly hateful for a low wage."

My unpublished novel is not a piece, because it's a whole. And though it's formatted as a novel, I wonder if it's presumptuous to call it that when it hasn't been endorsed by the publishing industry. And something about story doesn't seem fair, either. A story is something I tell my friends over dinner, something I blabber and embellish with too many details, something gossipy or trifling. Or something I read to my kid that includes illustrations.

(Yes, I know, technically, it's a story. I get that. Though story somewhat diminishes how goddamn long it took to create. God, this is asinine.)

It can't be a book, either, because a book is paper pressed together with a binding by a publisher, which hasn't happened yet.

I don't know why this is bothering me. I don't usually have this problem, naming things I love.

Fashion Trends I Will Never Pull Off

- Wearing a bandanna as a belt. My body has no waist. Bandannas are not that big. Ergo, that trend back in The 80's is not accessible for one such as myself.

- Leggings. I'm just too damn short. And have too many horrible memories from that decade of sartorial grossness, The 80's.

- Neon. This is not appropriate for human coloring. There is a reason it is used for road signs. Road signs don't mind if they look tubercular.

- Empire waist dresses. What with the no waist and the boobs, this look just equals pregnancy. Also, these days, many dresses of this cut appear to be hemmed too short, so you'll pull a Lohan if you bend over to fetch a dropped item.

- Wide-leg denim. Yuck. Not if you're my height. And possibly not if you aren't.

- Gladiator sandals. I'm afraid I will never be in a position to fight a lion or a Christian to the death while wearing footwear that cuts off my short legs at the most unflattering point (and why must these things be festooned with baubles and sequins? I am imagining lion shit full of spangles. Lovely.)

- Cable-knit sweaters. See above notes regarding The 80's.

- Stripper heels. These are the platform ones, with two inches beneath the toe box and five-six inch spike. Look, I've never pretended to be glamourous, but hell if I'm going to toddle around on forced-church days or job interviews in something designed to roll up my Achilles tendons like a broken window shade.

- Scarves. Not having much of a neck, these present a visual problem. Also, I'm not wearing things that don't serve a purpose. If I'm cold, I'll crochet a muffler. But in the middle of the summer, I see no reason to swathe a piece of raggedy-ass cloth around me just for style points. This trend reminds me of the wardrobes sported by the flamboyant, free-spirited English teachers of my youth, which I cannot align myself with, no matter how much I fit that profile in reality.

- Corset belts. Look, enough of this life gives me indigestion. I don't need to barricade my innards in patent leather to make it happen on purpose.

On Anxiety

If you aren't sleeping well, it's worse.

If you aren't exercising daily, it's worse.

If you try to deal with it all by yourself, it's worse.

If you aren't telling anyone about how you feel (physically and mentally), it's worse.

If you assume that it's all situational and you should buck up, it's worse.

**

If you avoid caffeine and nicotine, it can get better.

If you tire out your body with work and exercise, it can get better.

If you talk with your doctor, it can get better.

If you take medications, it can get better.

If you get proper sleep, it can get better.

If you talk with a counselor, therapist, social worker or psychologist, it can get better.

If you practice yoga, meditation or other healing therapies focused on relaxing your body and mind, it can get better.

If you explain to someone else about your heart racing or your stomach gurgling or your fears, no matter how ridiculous they sound, it can get better.

If you avoid situations that trigger your anxiety for a little while, it can help. But this is not a sustainable solution. The world is a random, beautiful place and when you practice avoidance, you make your world shrink until it's smaller than a coffin. And you'll still probably feel anxious.

Anxiety sucks. It's a life-limiter. There will always be something to remind you that the world is a scary place. But anxiety isn't a response to a cruel world or a capitalist society or the fast-paced modern era. Anxiety is a physical condition manifested in behavioral ways which can be treated so you can know peace.

To learn more, visit: http://www.adaa.org. And know you are not alone.

On Suburban Life

I like having neighbors.

I don't like that my neighbors can see into my bedroom, though. That I could toss a rock into their upstairs from my upstairs and hit them in the head.

People who live in the suburbs and don't give away Halloween candy to trick-or-treaters are assholes.

I wish I lived out in the country sometimes, alone with my unmowed yard and junky cars and lackadaisical attitude toward raking leaves and pulling weeds that grow up in the cracks in our driveway.

I would like to retire in an apartment in the city. No car. No yard work or garden. No shoveling the walk.

I don't know why people spend their retirement masturbating over the state of their lawns, though. Is that what you've been waiting for all these years - so you can decimate dandelions and maintain perfectly green, chemically-treated grass that you never lounge in for one moment?

Why do people put benches in their yards if they never sit in them?

It's nice when my neighbors notice who comes and goes. Ask which cars belong to you. Wonder if your husband is out of town. Know who bought the house that just sold and at what price.

We have one Childless Cranky Neighbor couple on our street. We nicknamed them "Dick" and "Bitch."

I like walking my dog around our local park and that he knows the other dogs and the owners know his name is Pablo (because Adrian introduces him and probably gets their names and tells him his blood type, too. I don't talk to the dog people like that. I just let the dogs sniff butts and smile and move on.)

Do people who use leaf-blowers realize that leaves can blow right back into their yards? Someone should inform them of this, I think.

I kind of wish my dog could just run free without people caring if he craps on their property.

I kind of wish other people's dogs would not run free and crap on my property.

Why are people watering their grass in October? Just let it die, man.

from Eireann Corrigan's Ordinary Ghosts, Pt. III

"What are you thinking?" Jesus Christ. Jade's pretty much the only girl I've actually talked to for years but I know this much about girls - they always have to know what you're thinking. What the hell is that? If it was worth mentioning or if I didn't think it was going to get me slapped, I'd say it.

                           from p. 308 of Eireann Corrigan's Ordinary Ghosts, Push, 2007.

On Writing Fiction

I think a lot of people think that fiction writers always know how their stories will end. That they've planned it, since endings can seem so natural, so inevitable. There's nothing natural about it, I think. Stories themselves are natural, but when I start to write one, I'm never sure what will emerge from the back end. And inevitability? I have a lot of unfinished stories.

(EXCEPTION: I think a lot of science fiction writers know their endings. Since they have to attend so carefully to the worldscapes they've invented. And I'd lay down money that mystery writers are aware of whodunit far earlier in the process than other fiction writers. But even P.D. James says she just starts with an eerie setting or a character's problem, not a twisty, complicated plot. That comes later.)

I don't think you need to know how things are going to end before you sit down to write. A lot of my students are under this impression. I think you start writing in order to get to know the character and then stuff happens and more stuff and more stuff and then you realize, Hey, now I know this person! Awesome! They are complicated and intriguing. Why did I make all that stuff happen to them?  The stuff about the car accident in the middle of Christmas Dinner? No, that's gotta go. And everything about the stupid second cousin. Except for the part about the insane asylum. That can stay.

I am rewriting the back half of the novel I wrote last year. Drastically changing the ending. Went through and chopped out the offending portions preceding this segment that set up for the previous ending, then chopped out the offending ending itself. Then I kind of listed along - dee, dee, dee - not sure where I was going. Wanting desperately to be done with it. Wanting a clear sign, that feeling that you get when plot clicks into place and you can't believe you haven't seen it before. Did some character sketches. Did some research. Swam a few laps in the pool of a new setting.

And last night, I figured it out. What should happen. How it should end. Just after I got my daughter to go to sleep for real (Adrian had hit the rack an hour earlier.) It was 11:30. I snuggled with Matilda and Pablo until they both were twitching with new dreams and then went out back to ponder my next move.

I had been writing all day. Monday I wrote. Tuesday I cleaned. Wednesday I wrote again. Almost all day. Neglecting most other household chores, including my run. Ideas kept coming and I couldn't ignore them.

But now I've got it. The new ending. The shape of the main character's story. How it's loose and messy. Because life's loose and messy. Because people don't become polished in one episode or one book. People have to learn the same lessons over and over and over.

Picture me, years from now, waiting for my family to fall asleep. And then it'll come to me, a new idea, an ending. If I'm lucky. Over and over and over.

from Martin Wilson's What They Always Tell Us

Even now, most of the gay people he knows about are on TV shows, funny and witty and sophisticated characters who live in big cities. Or else they are like the guy who cuts his mother's hair, or that male nurse from their church - what's his name? - men who seem more like women to James, with their girly way of talking, their constant hand gestures, their wide-eyed expressiveness and glued-on smiles. They're like friendly extraterrestrials, harmless but totally foreign.


Nathen is nothing like any of those guys. Nor is Alex, now that he thinks about it. They aren't girly at all. So what could make Greer think they're homos? Is there something James can't see? Sure, neither of them has girlfriends or seems interested in acquiring one anytime soon, but so what? That doesn't mean a thing. Hell, James doesn't want a girlfriend, either, and he knows he's not a homo.


Near the end of class Nathen glances over and stifles a yawn and rolls his eyes, then smiles. It's that smile again, that look in his eyes of total happiness. No homo would smile like that, never.

  -- from p. 184-185 of Martin Wilson's What They Always Tell Us, Delacorte, 2008.

Hitman Two, This Is Actual: I Heart Military Slang

1) Shit-tickets. That's toilet paper! Isn't that excellent?

2). Get some!  What Marines say to other Marines going into battle. What Adrian says to me when we're on the phone and I tell him I'm gonna go write or have a run. It's supposed to be inspirational, see.

3) The Staging Area. I love calling any place that's inconsequential but involved in some kinda process The Staging Area. Even if I'm just packing a suitcase or washing the dishes by hand. "This part of the counter by the coffee pot? That's the staging area where everything dries."

4) Cleared hot. When your commanding officer gives you the clearance to shoot at the enemy. I don't shoot at anyone so use it as a term of being ready to go, being given permission to make a move. "I've been cleared hot to order pizza - what you want on it?"

5) Oscar Mike.  On the Move. "The movie starts in 8 minutes, we're Oscar Mike!"

6) The A-O.  Area of Operation. Where the war's happening. Or some other full-scale production that involves a million details, like the dining room table where Matilda and I are making Halloween decorations.

7) I got your six. If you use a clock in these modern times, picture it this way. Twelve o'clock's dead in front of you, so six is at your back. So, it's like, "I've got your back, literally."

8) The head. This is the bathroom. Tee hee. See how I started with the bathroom and ended there, too? One of my many talents.

Thank God It's Almost Monday

I feel like killing my family.

Here's what Matilda has been doing all day: whining. Waxing at length about the indignity of her crushing boredom. Discussing how she's starving to death.

Here's what Adrian has been doing all day: fixing my sister's bathroom and then trying to kiss me when he's all gross and when I'm all gross (I've been painting the bedroom). Maybe I have a thing for dumb guys, but Adrian has a thing for sweaty and dirty - literally - women.

Here's how you get Adrian to be all over you like a hobo on a ham sandwich:  Just scrub out the toilet bare-handed, wearing your pajamas and no bra. Seconds later, he'll come running to work his man magic on you. Enjoy.

Here's what Matilda does when she's overtired and devolving into a stressed-out mess: whines some more. Complains about her boredom. Talks about the injustice of her life. Pooches out her lip a lot. Says, "I don't like your tone, Mom."

Here's what Adrian does when Matilda is overtired and devolving into a stressed-out mess: pours lighter fluid all over the situation and a box full of matches and whooosh, YEAH! Lots of yelling! Acting crazy and loud! It's 8:30! Let's freak the fuck out! Adrian's never been able to calm his only child to sleep. He lies down with her and promptly slips into a coma and she'll come into my office in her pajamas:  "Mom...I can't sleep."

AH FUCK! All of you - get out! Get out of my house! Go to your jobs and your schools! I have all this fiction writing to do and you're both surfing my last nerve and burning up every available synapse with all your petty real-life problems I don't give two shits about.

Oh, my Fake People! You are so lovely. When I want you to shut up, you just zip it. When I want you to go to bed, you're snoring.  When I want you to entertain me, you dance. This is the reason happy endings exist.

Sweet Child O' Mine

I go running when I can't think of my next move. Usually this means my next move in a writing situation. Though sometimes it applies to my big old hairy life in general.

Today I ran for an hour, double the time of my usual outing.

And all I got was this thought, at the very end, prompted by the song that made Guns N' Roses famous:

If you've never made out with a boy with a long-ass curly mullet while sitting on a broken barbecue grill in some stranger's dark backyard on a wet autumn evening after stepping out of a raging keg party and game of pfeffer to smoke cigarettes while the stereo blared this song, then, shit, man. There ain't nothing for it.