Day in the Life of an Idiot

This was a surprisingly busy weekend for me. On Friday, I was pretty much in radio silence because Mason had a school concert on Friday morning.





Shawn and I spent the day doing all the "Parent Involvement Day" -- things like drink the caffeteria's horrible coffee and eating frigthening pastries. After the class concert, we were invited to hang out with Mason's class while they went to the library to listen to (seriously) a guest lecturer talk about her job in HR (human resources.) Then, we went back to the classroom where kids read the stories that they'd been working on. Mason's story was amazing. I may have to post some of it here, but the funny part was his "teacher" demeanor before he began. He sat in his chair and admonished fellow students that they'd have to sit still and be quiet before he started. Ah, my little controlling nerd! So adorably anal!!



Saturday, Mason had his swimming lessons. We always arrive early and Mason sits and reads before class starts with his goggles and glasses on. (Note: you can also clearly see a page of my Shonen Jump.)



Sunday, we ended up having an impromptu sleepover because Intersession has begun at Crossroads. Mason is going to be home with me now for about a month. But, this also means all his friends are off school now as well (or at least those who chose not to do Intersession classes--plus most of the Mondays are off this Intersession for everyone for some reason, too.) At any rate, Mason's friend Donte wanted to come over again, so we had him come.

I thought that the snow and sleet and rain might keep them away, but they braved the weatther. As a bonus, thanks to Donte, I got to watch most of the new Spider-Man movie. Shawn declared this to be her new head canon, but I was less convinced. I did like scientist-Peter Parker, because that's one thing about him that I'm glad Bendis and crew always remember in the New Avengers. Maybe they got Peter too right, because I'm not a humongous Peter fan typically. I really, really liked JMS's Amazing Spider-Man run, but partly because he built on the history of all that had come before. But I also tend to like grow-up Spider-Man over angsty teenage Spider-Man so that may have been part of it. I shall think thinky-thoughts.

Mason, my little ambassador of geekiness, desperately tried to convince Donte that he wanted to become a Bleach fan. He showed Donte the first episode, but it... (gasp!)... failed. (This is truly amazing to me because even Eleanor Arnason found the first episode compelling while trying to watch it in a busy coffee shop at Mason's insistance.)

I think, perhaps, the subtitles threw Donte more than he was willing to admit. Donte isn't a huge reader, and it can be daunting to have to try to read while watching TV. Mason, my baby-otaku, would rather DIE than watch Bleach dubbed into English, so there was massive fail.

I note this because usually where there is this...



...zanpakutou names get shouted out at high volume (in Japanese) around my house. It was almost eerie to hear Mason not call shikai on any of his favorites. But, he did use ice powers at some point, which I'm fairly sure are NOT standard Force Powers in the Star Wars universe (which is the common fandom that Donte and Mason share).

It was incredibly darling to listen to Donte and Mason chat all night (well past midnight) and FINALLY we had a taker for the top bunk. Mason has a bunk bed specifically for this reason--to have a bed for a sleepover friend. However, in the past, sleeping bags have gotten piled on the floor and no one has wanted to try the top or the bottom bunk. This time Donte decided it was THE COOLEST THING EVER. And they sat together up there for several hours telling each other jokes.

But now everyone is cranky and tired. Donte left at 8:00 am this morning because we had to get Shawn off to work. Mason and I have already had a squabble over the TV (though we did manage to watch 3 more episodes of Bleach.) And in about fifteen minutes we're going to have to pack up to head off to Mason's dental appointement.

My life is truly glamorous, no?

Oh, yeah, and later I have to FINALLY get to the revisions of Samurai High.

I feel very much right now like I'm in a British novel, as I'm eating beans and toast. And tea (although my tea is green and not chased with milk.)

I also feel like a loser, because Kelly is currently kicking my butt in our word count race. (If you're curious check out the sidebar on the Wyrdsmiths' Page. As I noted, I had a lot of running around to do yesterday, and sometime around noon I realized I wasn't going to get much else done. I did end up with a little time in the evening, but I only managed to pull 400-some words out of my butt. (Perhaps I should try my brain next time, eh?)

The worst part of this contest is that I swear Tate is writing shorter and shorter books. I'm only on page 150 or so, but I think the action of the novel is already 2/3rds done. I'm going to end up with a 250 page first draft... which is significantly shorter than the last book (DEAD IF I DO), which closed in its draft form somewhere around 60,000 words. (I eventually got it up to 74,000, and I don't feel like any of that ended up to be just "padding" or it would have been 80,000).

But, I've determined not to over write. I'm going to stretch the plot to the end and see where I am. Then, after my readers take a look at it, I can figure out what's missing and how to expand the bits what will need expanding. This, alas, is going to end up throwing off the "contest," because if I declare myself done at 60,000 or 65,000 words, that's not fair to Kelly would will surely write exactly as many words as required.

Ah well.

It's not like there's anything REAL riding on this contest anyway.

Tonight is the Carnival at Mason's school. I'm baking a tardy cake for the calkwalk. By that I mean, I'm late with the cake. It was supposed to have been delivered by 1100 today, and that's one deadline I didn't even notice whizzing by. I decided to work out this morning because Mason is off Monday (MLK, Jr Day) and Friday (no good reason day) of next week, and I've been lax in working out because of "feminine complaints." ("I'm too much of a girl!" Oh, not *that* complaint.) Anyway, I knew that would push my making the cake time back to "late." Mason, if he were here, would be freaked out. He's been telling me all week that the cake needs to be delivered by 11:00 am.

In other Mason news, yesterday his class took the gifted and talented "test," which Mason described as a series of fun puzzles which he, in his own words, "totally aced."

Before he knew it was just going to be fun puzzles, Mason was worried about this test because, our little early reader, read the notice which went out to the parents to remind them not to let their kid miss that day of school because it was VERY IMPORTANT and ONLY HAPPPENED ONCE A YEAR. Mason admitted that he kind of built it up in his head like one of his favorite picture book series "The [fill in the blank] from the Black Lagoon," which in this case I guess was, "The Gifted and Talented Test from the Black Lagoon."

In the books, our hero Hubie has some new experience he's confronted with (new class, new teacher, gym, the nurse's office, dentist) and he imagines it as horrible and filled with monsters, which, of course, in the end turn out to be nothing. But Mason worked himself up to tears over this. I had to talk him down by reminding him that, for our intents and purposes, the results didn't matter. Even if he "failed" (which I explained was NOT how this test works, anyway,) it didn't mean he wasn't a bright, wonderful person. Nothing would change, I explained, even if he "totally aced" it either. Until/if Mason is ever bored with Crossroads, we're not planning to move him to a gifted and talented magnet school. His friends are at Crossroads. Crossroads has an awesome I-Zone and a full-time librarian (not to mention a fabulous library, in general.) I explained to him that as long as *he's* happy there, we're happy to keep him there. All the test meant, I explained, was that there might be more opportunities presented to him if he *does* get bored. If the tests don't think he needs them, then he probably doesn't. This seemed to calm him down.

We've tried very hard not to put any academic pressure on Mason and it frustrates me deeply that my kindergartener is worried about his chances to get into Harvard, as it were, metaphorically speaking.

This morning I happened to catch a cute video of Ms. Ball (one of our cats) chasing her own tail. If I get a chance to download it, I might post it to YouTube (and link it here, of course.)