Day in the Life of an Idiot

 Mondays are our physical therapy days and Shawn was, once again, a star. Still holding steady at a 128 degree bend, but officially down to 2 degree straightness. Go Team Shawn!

While she was getting put through the paces, I hopped back in the car and got Mason and I some fancy coffee from our favorite local coffee shop. On the way back, I stopped at the post office. Our post office, in its infinite wisdom, is down one outdoor mailbox RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS. Thus, when I attempted to put my mail into the slot, it actually couldn't go. There were mail pieces sticking out, the post box was so full. I ended up having to park and run inside and put my mail through an inside slot. Crazy! It seems like an incredibly foolish time of year to remove one of the post boxes, considering Christmas is one of the few times most Americans send actual snail mail.

Shawn and I were home for about half hour before we had to take off again.

Unrelated to her knee, Shawn had a neurology appointment scheduled for today. She would have cancelled it, but they're booking out into February (or were when she considered cancelling, who knows how far out it is now?) Neurology, however, equals renewals on migraine meds. And if your name is Shawn Rounds, migraine meds are critical. So, despite having hauled ourselves to PT and back--not to mention Shawn being put through the paces at PT--we dragged ourselves back out into the car to drive to Maplewood (an inner-ring suburb of my city for my out-of-town and international friends.)

We picked up a takeout lunch on the way home.

Immediately after lunch, Mason and I got BACK in the car and got our Christmas tree. 

Now it's just after 4 pm and I feel exhausted. Luckily, we had already decided we'd get delivery pizza tonight. We don't normally eat both meals OUT like this, but it was kind of a crazy day and I think it's justified. 

I have some thoughts on my various roleplaying games on Saturday, but I think I'll make those a separate post.

 'Twas the night before the night before Christmas, and...

ONE OF OUR PIPES FROZE.

It's been cold here in Minnesota (as, I understand, much of the US.) We live in an old house. Our downstairs bathroom is a late addition to the house. Even so, I can't remember a time when we've had to deal with this problem. But, I went to take a bath in the downstairs tub on the night before the night before Christmas and absolutely nothing came out of our hot water faucet. Nothing. Not a single drop of water. 

At first, I thought, "What's wrong with the faucet?" 

But it also doesn't take a genius to notice that the pipe in question not only runs right next to the outside of our house, but also goes down into a fully UNHEATED crawlspace that's cold in the middle of summer.

Shawn immediately went to Google and we discovered all the things one is supposed to do to fix a frozen pipe. The answer: a lot of space heaters (and/or a blow dryer, though, interestingly, the internet was divided on whether or not you should apply heat DIRECTLY to a pipe. Later confirmation with a plumber was, yeah, no. Better to heat up the pipe slowly and in a broad area.) Even though it meant clearing out the utility closet, we knew we had an access panel to the back of the tub. Shawn brought down a space heater from her home office in the house.  After a few hours we got the tiniest drip.

And thus began our vigil.

It probably took...? 10 hours? It's hard to know because we discovered this problem in the evening on Friday and so we went to bed after having started the process. Shawn woke up at 2:30 am and was extremely nervous about the whole thing, so I got up and promised to babysit pipe and space heater. As soon as the plumbers were open I made some calls. (FYI, local peeps? Bonfe are assholes. MSP Plumbers are awesome.)  I was worried that we might have a busted pipe somewhere, so we had a guy come out. But, he confirmed that it was just frozen and that time and heat would take care of it, especially if we continued, as we had been, keeping the faucets open. 

Probably about four hours after the plumber left (and when I had gone upstairs to nap) the water line opened up (in a good way!) 

Yay!

The whole thing--which I was worried was going to bankrupt us, especially if we'd needed plumbing work done on a holiday--cost us $80.  Not bad for a home visit on said holiday, and honestly, for Shawn's peace of mind I would have paid a lot more!

Yesterday, one of the cool things that happened is that Christmas came early.

Shawn had been wanting a sewing machine that could handle hemming her rag rugs and finally a Singer came on sale a week or so ago that fit the bill. It was still expensive, but the price was irresistible. So,I bought it for her for Christmas. This is, of course, a ridiculous distinction since all of our money is merged, but so she turned around and bought me another years worth of my language program. We sang Christmas songs and called it done.

Obviously, we'll buy a few little things for under the tree once the snow flies and the season comes, but the pressure is now, officially, OFF.

Plus, Shawn got a new sewing machine.

In other exciting pre-holiday buying news, the charity anthology His Magical Pet will be going live SOON. In the meantime, here is the cover as a teaser!


Image: The cover for the anthology, His Magical Pet, which includes a story by me (Tate Hallaway).

Remember: All proceeds from the collection will be donated to OutRight Action International, which fights for the rights of LGBTQIA people worldwide.  Even if this wasn't for a wonderful cause, you should buy a copy anyway because not only is there a super adorable story by me in it, but a veritable QUEER METRIC ton of other amazing authors and stories!!  MAKES A PERFECT HOLIDAY GIFT FOR ANY QUEER HOLIDAY (which, let's get real, is ALL of them!!!) Queer Halloween! Queer Thanksgiving! Queer Christmas!!!  You'll need a copy for each season!!!!

I will let you know when the link goes live (should, with luck, be within a couple of days.) 

Shawn's favorite OB/GYN moved into private practice in Burnsville, so we drove down to the new clinic this morning. I'm waiting in the waiting room, so I thought I'd catch y'all up on the exciting news of my life.

Since many of you may be hoping for some fannish bits and bobs, I will lead with a new review I did for Mangakast. Last night, I was bored and so I did the thing I do sometimes when I'm looking for a new manga to read. I have the categories/tags page bookmarked on Baka-Updates (which is a great site that is kind of like a catalogue of all manga published and bits of information about them, though it's NOT a place to read manga.) and I will pick a subject I'm interested in, like "pen pals."  I'll hunt down the list until I find one that looks interesting and has been scanlated.

Yesterday, I found Omamorishimasu, Dokomademo which briefly mentions pen pals, in a cute way, but is mostly a mob family drama with a little bit of m/m romance. If you can't tell, I was 'meh' about it.  The mangaka, Junko (not my fannish persona, alas), is one that I enjoy, as she wrote Kiss Him, Not Me, a reverse harem that an otaku girl gains when she loses a ton of weight after her anime 'husbando' dies on the show and she goes into depressive mourning (which sounds TERRIBLE when I describe it that way, but it's actually done with a lot of love.)

The link takes you to my review, so feel free to read that and explore my other reviews, as you like.

Otherwise, Sunday was about decorating the Solstice tree.



Mason's D&D group ended up cancelling, but he wasn't much help since he fell asleep on the couch.  Shawn spent the day fighting off a migraine, so I did most of the actual decorating. This year, I could NOT get the lights right. For some reason I ended up plugging a "male" plug into a dual plug and got to the end of the string only to discover that I had the wrong kind of plug. It should have just been a quick matter of finding the plug and flipping things around, but somehow, even though I was testing each string, I ended up with a bunch that weren't working. I must have done this rigmarole a half-dozen times. BUT, I finally got everything working and plugged in properly.

We bought our tree from the Y's Men, who set up across University Avenue from us.

We buy our tree there every year and do our traditional mad dash across University Avenue (which is a four-lane busy street with a set of light rail tracks running down the center of it, as well.)  We decided this year that the light rail actually makes the running with the Christmas tree hoisted between Mason and I a little easier, because it acts like a safety island (there's a pedestrian pass or we'd NEVER be able to do this.)  I'm sure we look ridiculous scurrying across all the traffic with a giant tree between us.

But it's part of our ritual, so you know.

Driving would be weirder, since University is now set up as a series of one way turns from our house, so it's actually several blocks LONGER to drive across the street, than it is to walk.

The picture of the tree is blurry because I have a new smartphone and am learning out to focus it.  Many apologies. You get the general idea of the thing, at any rate. Big tree. Many lights and shinny bobs on it.

Since my family left me in charge, there are a lot more birds on our tree. Being pagan, I like to make sure there are a lot of bird ornaments and such on the tree. Sun symbols and spiders and deer also abound.  I will talk more about what we do for Solstice as the time approaches, but, since both Shawn and I grew up with Christmas, we kind of celebrate both Solstice and Christmas. We exchange our meaningful, family gifts on Solstice and have a bonfire--though it's actually just a fire in our chiminea outside, and then exchange another small set of gifts on Christmas eve, mostly just to mark the day.

What about you? What are your holiday traditions?

That was me today, only in the not sexy way. It's that time of year. PLUS the Midwest is expecting a gigantic snowstorm, and so Shawn had me go to the grocery store and buy ALL THE THINGS.

We are now stocked up on Things, all the edible things--so if somehow we are actually snowed in, we have absolutely no need to go anywhere this weekend.

Yay.

I also stopped by Mischief Toy Store today for the first time ever. Their branding, intentional or not is: geek-queer. I was looking, specifically, for fun stocking stuffers for Mason and Shawn. While I ADORED the store, I was actually kind of bummed that they didn't really have exactly what I was looking for (which is a little unfair of me, since I can't really quantify WHAT I was looking for, exactly.) Now, if Mason was Jack Jackson (the son of our friends), I would have had the stocking completely covered, because they had an AWESOME collection of all the hot new graphic novels (as well as individual issues of certain titles.) There was also a Black Panther plushy that I would have totally bought John (because I'm fairly certain John has dreams of cuddling up to Prince T'Challa.)  But, I kind of struck out for my family. I did find a few things--which I can't name, because, you know, while my family actually rarely reads my blog THIS WOULD BE THE TIME THEY WOULD.  But, I dunno.  I might actually have to take a trip to United Noodle to see if they have any new, exciting Japanese treats that might make good stocking stuffers (and of course if I just HAPPEN to buy a few things for myself, well... finder's fee, am I right??)

Ah, Shawn just called. Even though it's not even snowing at all, she wants to be picked-up early. I love how Minnesotans are both really "heh, we can handle all the cold" and at the same time being all, "It MIGHT snow 12 inches?  F*ck it, I'm going home early."

I see that I haven't updated since before Christmas. Yikes! Shame on me.

Let's see... perhaps I will try to work backwards to recount all the goings-on at chez Morehouse-Rounds. The New Year was quite lovely. We broke with a long-standing tradition of an early night and snoring before the ball dropped and actually decided to be down right social on New Year's Eve. Our friends, seanmmurphy and his wife, invited us out for a candle lit walk at Snelling State Park. Unfortunately, we were having a no-good-rotten day from almost the start. Shawn woke up with a killer migraine and Mason woke up... a teenager. (He was amazingly whiny, sullen, and angry about nothing and everything all at once.) Even though Shawn was feeling better by evening, I wasn't sure I wanted to inflict Mason's mood on the Murphy-Carlson's so, I volunteered to hike in the woods sans the rest of my family.

It was actually very lovely. If my family was more energetic and athletic, I would try to make it a family tradition of our own. There was no snow, of course (the storm blew in just as we were headed back to the car), but the park volunteers had lit the trail with lovely ice and plastic bucket candles. We walked and talked about mainstream fiction vs. science fiction and people we knew and our genetic/ethnic backgrounds and all sorts of things that one rambles on about with good friends. We had such a lovely time that Sean's wife offered to bring the wine and cheese over to Shawn and Mason, rather than having me have to fetch them over to the Murphys'.

When I called Shawn, the overall mood in the household had improved dramatically, so it was a go. We had munchies (added to by the things in our fridge, and I am please to report we could even offer a few fancy cheeses ourselves,) and sparkling juice for the majority of us, and bit of wine for those that wanted. We talked until nearly midnight, when the Murphys decided to head home and we rushed upstairs to watch Dick Clark and the ball.

The day had turned around quite nicely. I should say too, that in an effort to try to have a happier day, we had gone book shopping earlier. Uncle Hugos needed more copies of the AngeLINK books and so I brought what I had, and we made a nice trade. Mason got a ton of those punny MYTH books by Robert Lynn Asprin (I LOVED those when I was a tween,) and I even walked out with a book or two for myself. Then, since it was the one day when the shops were still open for a while, we zipped back to St. Paul with the plan of hitting Kowalski's for last minute food supplies before the holiday wasteland. We drove past our other favorite bookstore: Sixth Chamber, and we decided to drop Shawn and Mason off for a look-through and I went and fetched the milk and eggs and other sundries. When I came back to retreive them, they were just ready to walk out. I asked Shawn if she'd remembered to try out the secret password. On Facebook, Sixth Chamber had a deal that the first five people to walk in and say "hedgehog" would get a gift certificate. Shawn said she hadn't, so I marched up to the counter and said, "hedgehog!"

I won.

I was the very last person to offer the secret password. I got a t-shirt, a Japanese eraser (kitty!), and a 20% off coupon.

Then I came home and discovered a royalty check in the mail from Penguin for Tall, Dark & Dead (the book that continues to sell, sell, sell!)

So, I'd say that New Year's Eve was pretty auspicious. Money and fabulous prizes galore!

Speaking of TD&D, one of the things I did over the holiday was read the page proofs for the mass-market paperback edition. They sent it as a .pdf, and so I mailed it to Shawn's fancy new Kindle Fire, and spent a day reading my book on the Kindle. I found several typos, much to my surprise. But, the good news is that they'll be corrected in the paperback version. The other thing that was kind of awesome about that is that I discovered that one of my best selling books is also one of my quirkiest.

I don't know if you noticed, but Garnet is kind of a slut. There is a LOT of sex in that book, and sexiness. Sebastian is also surprisingly dark, and Parrish is... a total hustler, like literally, in that book. It's kind of amazing... and Garnet's friends are odd, a lot like my real friends, and the interactions in that books are very *me*.

Thus, one of the things that re-reading that has done for me is made me a bit more confident about my quirkiness as a writer. You see, in most cases, I have no idea if my personal brand of weirdness was a plus or a minus to sales. The AngeLINK books, which are very *me*, are all out of print.

This "failure" has caused me to believe that maybe I had no idea how to write to a popular market. But, TD&D is going to mass-market. It's the only book I've had that's changing format like that. As a trade-size book, it's well into its sixth or seventh printing. I've easily made as much money in royalties from that book as they paid me in an advance, probably twice as much... if not more.

My point is, I can now say, with confidence, that my quirkiness is _not_ a detriment to sales. IN FACT, a person could make a pretty strong case that... maybe, just MAYBE I know what I'm doing.

Well, we probably shouldn't go THAT far. But, at least, it seems to be true that a book that has a lot of my extra special weirdness smeared all over it isn't automatically headed for the remainder pile.

This was kind of an epiphany... during the Epiphany and everything.

Meanwhile, yesterday was our traditional day to take down all the Christmas decorations. You might not expect this of a couple of pagans, but we kind of go all out for Solstice/Yule/Christmas. There is tinsle! Bells! And all the other things that the Grinch absolutely detests. So, that was kind of the main event for the day. We hauled the tree out for recycling, put everything away into boxes... and, because it was the last REAL day of vacation, all this was interspersed with lightsaber battles.

Mason, I should warn you, is a dark sider. Which forces me, the Slytherin, to play the good Jedi. Mason, too, likes to make up the various Darths that he portrays. Yesterday, each Darth had the added power of the elements, a sort of Elemental Force power, so there was Darth Terrus (Earth) and Darth Inferno (Fire) among others. Probably the toughest guy was the one with water power because a touch of his lightsaber froze me with ice. In the Masonverse, too, the good guys do NOT automatically triumph, either. So, I died a lot.

Let's hope that old idea that how you spend New Year's Day is how you spend the rest of the year isn't true, or I'm going to be run through with a lot of lightsabers.

I probably just need more coffee, but I'll tell you something for nothing, pal: I don't feel like doing anything today. I just want to curl up in a corner and sleep!

Alas, that's not really on the agenda. I did manage to decorate the porch for the holidays. There is tinsel! Ornaments! Light! F*cking Cheer! And the entire time I struggled with the lights and such, I did, in point of fact, swear like a sailor. Not exactly in the spirit of the season... well, I suppose it depends on what season of which I speak. Since the days ARE getting darker, perhaps my equally darkening mood is completely within the realm of "seasonal."

:-)

We had a great time at kuk sool wan last night, which we did finally make it to. I love the kids/adult classes because we got to run an obstical course last night. I really, really wanted to get to the part where you had to throw yourself on the mats, but, alas, it turns out I can not walk backwards on a balance beam/straight line. Very sad! :-)

However, I always have a great time trying.

Trying and failing is FUN in the kids/adult classes.

I don't feel the same way when I go to the adults only classes. I don't know why anyone would go to them. The parent I talked to last night explained that he's "addicted to the adrenaline rush," which makes absoultely no sense to me. Perhaps, he's better at KSW than I am. Perhaps he gets a thrill from his own phsyical prowess. I'd have to be someone else entirely to experience that, however. I need, instead, to be happy being dorky. Luckily, this has always been my personal relationship with my body.

Well, I should go eat a little lunch and then try to get some revising done after all. I got through the first chapter! Yay, me.