Day in the Life of an Idiot

 First of all, WorldCON sent out their final schedule today, so now I can officially announce where you can find me (virtually) in Glasgow next weekend (August 8-12).  My panels are online, unless otherwise noted:

• Let Them Cook - Food in Anime (THURSDAY: 1 pm GMT/8:00 am CT) - hybrid
• The Immersive Possibilities of Horror Audio (SATURDAY: 7pm GMT/2:00 pm CT) 
• Everything We Love (a Little or a Lot) About Fanfiction (SATURDAY: 10pm GMT/5:00 pm CT)
• Help, I Got Reincarnated Into a Worldcon Panel! (SUNDAY: 10pm GMT/5:00 pm CT)
• If I'm Not Kira and You're Not Kira, Who is Writing in the Death Note? (MONDAY: 1pm GMT/8:00 am CT) --hybrid

Three out of the five panels are, as you can see, anime and manga panels, so I guess I have made myself a kind of reputation? To be fair, on the questionnaire when they ask about your specialties, I always point people to my manga review site, so... I reap what I sow, I suppose. And, I'm not really complaining! In fact, I'm thrilled! I am particularly excited to talk about Food in Anime, though, as I told the moderator, I really hope that we can mention manga, too, since that's where most of my favorites exist. 

But, so I have a couple of early mornings, both for hybrid panels. We'll see how this goes. I've had some bad luck with hybrid in the past--not being able to hear the other panelist and basically being Max Headroom in a corner and so not getting called on to participate a lot. But, I am hopeful!

As for reading, expect a lot of manga over the next week and a half!!

This week, of course, it's still been all cyberpunk, all the time. I finished a re-read of Gibson's Nueromancer, as that's the subject of our most recent podcast (which should be dropping later today or early tomorrow), and I started listening to the audiobook for Klara and The Sun by Ishiguro Kazou. I just finished watching Star Trek: Prodigy's second (current) season, and really loved it.  Every time my family looked over my shoulder while I was watching this they had some disparaging comment about the animation, but I thought it was fine. Not my favorite style, but the story made up for it, IMHO. 

In my TBR pile, I have a supposedly cyberpunk graphic novel called Twelve Percent Dread by Emily McGovern, a bunch of random manga that I will now probably dump to read later, since I need to focus on food and isekai (another world) manga. 

What about you?

Last night, Shawn and I watched the season finale of "Victoria" in which it is revealed that Prince Albert invented Christmas.  I was actually surprised to discover that was mostly true (obviously the pagans did it first, but)--he very much popularized the Christmas tree and some of the other traditions we tend to think of as eternal. 

I have to say that [SPOILER!] I'm going to hate to see Albert go. I like the actor a lot, and he's managed to make an historical character I knew almost nothing about (beyond the fact that Victoria never stopped mourning him and that he's apparently 'in a can'*) and made him very engaging and interesting. It's funny, too, the extent to which history acts as a spoiler/tension builder. Shawn and I are forever trying to count how many children Victoria and Albert have, because we know how many they manage before Albert dies.  So, we're like, "ARGH! They already have five!!"

I found myself talking to the cats in a bad German accent in the middle of the night. I blame PBS.

Also, I've learned way more about syphilis than I ever wanted to know. Albert's brother, Ernst, suffers from it in "Victoria" and then, by chance, Shawn and I also started watching a new Netflix show starring Sean Bean called "The Frankenstein Chronicles" and his character also has it.

I despair that we'll finish that one, however. Shawn is even worse at binging TV than I am. She'll start out strong and watch three episodes in a row, but then she almost never feels like going back to things. We left "Fortitude" right when( actual spoiler ) was getting started and haven't been back. I think maybe she decides she doesn't like the show, but doesn't want to tell me. I'm actually fine quitting "Fortitude," but I'm weirdly intrigued (kind of despite some bad, repetitive writing) to find out what's going on in "The Frankenstein Chronicles."  I suppose I could finish watching it on my own, but I don't like watching shows during the day when I should be doing housework or writing--with the only exception of anime while I do the dishes. (In case you're wondering, I'm still working my way through Natsume's Book of Friends, though I'm thinking about checking out the Ancient Magus' Bride, since there's a limited number of those and I'm pretty sure Natsume goes on forever.)

What's funny, of course, is that Shawn watches a ton of TV without me.  She'll watch dozens of episodes of things while sewing together her strips of fabric for rugs.  She's seen most of "Stranger Days" and "The Crown"--both of which are the kinds of shows everyone I know is watching and talking about, but which I've seen none of.

Ah, well.

How about all of you? Are you watching anything good lately?


---
*this comes from a childhood phone prank in which you'd call a store and ask "do you have Prince Albert in a can?" (some kind of tobacco product, apparently. Even as a kid, I had no real idea what this was,) and then, when they said they did, you were supposed to say, "Well, let him out!" and hang up.

We were very sad before the internet and had to entertain ourselves in ridiculous ways.

Shawn and I have been trying to watch the TV show "Grimm." We've DVRed it, so we have most of the episodes to date, though we haven't quite caught up yet. I WANT to like this show. I love a lot of the side characters, particularly Monroe, or, as someone (i09?) calls him, the "Pilates Wolf." He's a Big Bad Wolf, a Blutbatt, who is mostly reformed his ways, and who is an awesome enough character he totally deserves a spin-off. Because our hero, the Grim: Dull.

Dull. Dull. Dull.

As I complained on FB last night, dude has no superpowers. He has the second sight, but that's really all he's got. No grim reaper scythe, no zanpakto, nothing. In fact, in the episode that we watched last night his big ability was to bleed on to one of the big bads. Seriously. *I* can bleed.

People tell me this last Friday's episode actually involved a weapon and maybe "punched things up a notch", which it would be nice to see, because... man. Dude is also the world's worst detective. Like Batman in reverse.

But I end up watching for the side characters and because the universe of Grimm is weirdly compelling. Like, what's up with the French speaking captain? So, I'll keep watching --probably while complaining the entire time. But, hey, there's a long tradition of shouting at the TV in my family.

I've also been watching "Black Butler." I finished FMA (the 2004 version), and was thinking about starting up on "FMA: Brotherhood," but I just felt kind of burned out on Al and Ed for the moment. Anyway, I like "Black Butler"... it's sort of a creepy Anime version of Downton Abbey, with a demon butler, so that works for me. I will say though, that "His Butler, Escaping"... holy sh*t, can anyone say torture porn? Yowza! (And yet SOMEHOW there is no fan fic on Archive of Our Own yet.) Still, I find myself wishing that the story would go less into what's being served at tea, and more into what kind of demon Sebastian is, and his back story more and, like, why is the prospect of devouring little lord Phantomhive's soul worth all the hassle that little brat puts him through. I have been teased that some back story is coming (by Sebastian himself in the "next episode" teaser, but I've learned not to trust those after the corset scene... also, EEEK,), but we'll see if I'm really satisfied.

I'm about half way through Season 1, Part 2, for those who are interested. I also picked up the Manga from the library because someone I talked to implied that it was "darker" and that turned out to be untrue. It's almost verbatum to what's on the show. (Including the cut out scenes of food porn, which actually I find charming in both the Anime and the Manga. I just want more Sebastian.)

I have to say, in general, I need more information about the Japanese version of the grim reaper. It confuses me. Three shows I've watched have shinigami (aka death gods/grim reapers) in them: Bleach, Black Butler, and SoulEaters. I've only see the first episode of SoulEaters, but they seem to all be going to Grim Reaper Academy (am I right?) At any rate, I was really confused in Black Butler that the reapers seem to act as an intermediary between souls and heaven/hell (which seems pretty standard), but that there are also angels as well as demons. Is this typical of some mythology I'm missing? The shinigami seem to generally be non-partisan in that a reaper will deal with hell-bound and heavan-bound souls, and demons are clearly eaters of souls, but I am still not sure what the angel is up to in Black Butler (though I'm enjoying that she seems to be a villian of sorts.)

In other Real Life (tm) news, there isn't much to tell. Mason and I are planning to hit B&N tonight after school because one of his authors has a book out today, Rick Riordan, who has another one of his Egypt mythos books out. Mason is particularly fond of this series, even more so than the Percy Jackson books. So tonight promises to be fun for him. I was hoping to get to KSW, though we'll have to see how all that plays out.

The Internet has taught me that other people lead much more fabulous lives than I do.

I mean, according to Twitter and Facebook, a bunch of you are flying off to conferences, learning new languages, dancing the Tango, or are just plain clever.

I, meanwhile, am looking forward to a day filled with errands. Shawn has to go off to get her haircut around 1 PM. I need to change the big fish tank. Then, I need to pack an overnight bag, as this evening, I'm going to board to shuttle to LaCrosse so I can hang out with my mom tomorrow while my dad has hip surgery.

Not really Twitter-worthy, you know?

The only other thing I can report is that Shawn and I took advantage of a child-free house yesterday to catch up on "Dexter" (Season 3, I think -- anyway, the one that introduces the Trinity Killer.) We've been having trouble finding time to watch it because of the excessive swearing (and violence) and Mason's tendency to lurk just outside of the TV room. Predictably, I dreamed I was Dexter again last night. I don't quite know why, but my subconscious spends a lot of its noctural hours trying to figure out how to be a sympathetic serial killer.

As I was telling Shawn, I continue to really love the episodes of that show where there isn't so much of the killing as Dexter trying to grapple with human emotion and other baffling things a sociopath has to cope with. (Makes me think of the new Sherlock and his "high functioning sociopath!" Anyone know when those new shows will air? I'm a huge squeeing fan of the new Sherlock.)

Maybe I have a thing for sociopaths.

Fictional ones, anyway.

I’m not used to living without a car.

A friend was able to pick up Mason and bring him home from school, but he didn’t get back to me to tell me he could until I was already on the city bus. I’m glad Jason called me back when he did, because even though I left an hour before I was supposed to pick Mason up, I wouldn’t have made it in time. I forgot how slow buses can be and how much time you need to build into arrival times.

Though, I have to say, city buses are much quieter than I expected/remembered. When I last rode the bus regularly, cell phones were just starting to be a common part of daily life. People used to spend a lot of time shouting into their phones. Now, people seem to text more, and it was much less noisy. But, I was just as happy to bail at Lexington and hoof my way back home down University.

We went off to kuk sol wan afterward, and I was really, really tired by bedtime, what with all the walking and running around.

Today, we got up early and I ordered a taxi. Let me recommend City Wide Taxi to you. The cabs are clean, the drivers are friendly, and there always seems to be someone available. (Oh, AND they take credit cards!) We dropped Mama off at the History Center and then Mason and I got off at Crossroads. I got him to class, and I started walking to University down Dale. At University I caught the 16, and then realized that it was almost 10 am and I hadn’t had any coffee yet. I decided to bail at the Border’s on University.

I forgot that they don’t open until 10 am, so I ended up having to stand around outside for a while. I took the opportunity to check on the car, which the shop said would be going for a test drive and then be done. That made me incredibly pleased. They ended up having to do a lot, so I knew the bill was going to be steep, but I’ve needed new front breaks for a while. I had them do the breaks, struts and the springy-thing that came loose and started all this trauma.

As I was waiting to get in to Borders for my coffee, a guy struck up a conversation with me. We’ll call him Orange Wolverine, because he was one of those guys who kind of over shares but is really quite harmless. He and I talked about places to buy cheap shoes and what we liked about Borders, and out of the blue he pointed to the purple tinsel Christmas tree in the window and told me he thought that purple matched my personality. Skeptically, I asked, “Is that a good thing?” Then he went on at great length about how awesome I was. Seriously. It was weirdly flattering to have a stranger tell me that I was confident and smart and personality-plus, without being arrogant. Then, he told me that he was “orange.” I said I thought that was a good, solid, strong color, but he said that he thought of it as changeable – strong, but also laid back. I could see it. Then, the door opened and he followed me like an attachment upstairs to the café. I ordered a mocha and he bought me a piece of coffee cake, which I let him do, because even though he had the vibe of being a lost puppy that had just attached himself to me for life, I decided that kindness was kindness even if it was a bit un-Minnesotan.

When the Border’s barista asked if he had a Border’s membership he said his email account was wolverine-something at yahoo. So, I asked him he chose it for the superhero or a sports team. He said, “Neither, for the animal,” and then began to wax on about wolverines and grizzly bears, engaging another woman in the queue in our conversation. I shook hands goodbye and began the long trek to Sinclair on Wheeler and Grand.

As I headed to Summit, I passed a much crazier African-American lady, who had the classic luggage/shopping carts, paced the sidewalk, shouting loudly to no one in particular. She ACTUALLY said, “You need to hop on to the satellite and turn off the police frequency!” I just nodded and said, “Yes, ma’am, right away.”

I had to smile, though. I mean: what a classic “city” experience! If there had been more than just me on the street, it could have been New York instead of St. Paul.

A half hour later, I walked into the repair shop and paid a zillion dollars to retrieve my car. Now I’m sitting ONCE AGAIN at the Discount Tire place waiting for the guys to put on a new – FREE - tire. Actually, I had to pay 16 bucks because they had to special order it, or its mounting, but that’s still a good deal.

And, man, am I happy not to be walking everywhere any more. Although, I have to say that I really enjoy a good, long walk, even in these temperatures. The sun was really bright and shiny today and I used the time to talk to myself and daydream and tell myself the sorts of stories I used to tell myself when I walked around all the time.

Speaking of stories, I had Shawn Netflix “Spartacus: Sand and Blood” for me. I have a completely unhealthy interest in gladiators, and it sounded like this cable show was exactly the kind of soft porn trash I was looking for. I have to say, I was disappointed. Shawn and I made it through the first three episodes. But, the third episode, “Legends” promises to be something it isn’t quite. What I want from my gladiator porn is awesome arena battles where the underdog rises up and flips off the establishment by winning over the sympathy of the crowd. This episode started down that road. Spartacus (not, it turns out, the real one) starts using his brains to get ahead in the gladiator school. He starts tricking the other gladiators into injuring themselves so he can move up in rank. He even does a clever ploy to earn crowd favor at a party intended to get patrons for the big battle. Thus, I got hopeful that he would use this sort of clever thinking to his advantage in the arena.

Let’s just say, it _so_ didn’t happen. In fact, despite his awesome name, Spartacus was a total DUD in the arena. My fantasies are better, alas. Plus, I’d have better sex scenes. What’s the point of being in Rome without any boy on boy action?

“Spartacus” will return to Netflix unfinished. Sads.

One thing I’m really looking forward to tonight is a private lesson at kuk sul wan. They have a deal where if you walk (or ride the bus/bike) six times to lessons, you can get one free personal training session. Mason and I live so close that it’s a crime to drive. So we’ve already earned our free private lesson. I have no idea what they’ll do with us, but it’s sure to be fun. Best birthday present EVA!

My battery is running down and they’re sure to be done with my car soon, so I’ll sign off for now. Hope you’re all having a wonderful day full of crazy people like I am!

The Book Butterfly posted a lovely 10-question interview with my alter-egoon her blog, which you should check out: "Ten Tantalizing Questions with Tate". Alas, I have since learned that RESURRECTION CODE won't be out until March 2011. However, just for fun, let me reprint one of my answers as a teaser here.

--
"If you could inhabit the life of one literary character and dive into their world for just one day, who would you choose and why?

It’s a well known fact that I want to be Captain America from the Marvel Universe. Actually, I’m sort of surprised I haven’t gotten the casting call for the new movie. Something about my gender and only being 5’2”, I guess, I’m not sure…. ;-) The super soldier formula could come in really handy when I need to catch a bus is all I’m saying.

--

Also, if you missed it, there was a nice feature article in the Pioneer Press on Sunday: "St. Paul Author Introduces Her New Novel About a Vampire Princess.".

Oh, and don't forget, tomorrow about this time (starting at 10 am) I'll be _LIVE!!_ on KARE-11's "Showcase Minnesota."

Yeh, which is all just a big build-up to Saturday, August 7th, where I will be in two places at once. First at Uncle Hugo's starting at 1:00 pm, I'll be signing Tate's books for her, and then I'll disapparate and reappear at the HarMar Barnes & Noble for a reading and signing of the same book at 2:00 pm. Actually, I'm a muggle, so I'll drive like mad and probably be a little late (the event organizer already knows to expect me to be a bit tardy,) so there will be cookies and lemonade for any of you who show up precisely at 2:00 and I'm not there yet.

I'd complain bitterly about all I have to do, but, honestly, I LOVE this sh*t! I mean, what't the point of being an author if you can't do this fun promotional stuff???

But, back to reality, I spent much of the weekend cleaning out the garage with Shawn. Okay, actually, Shawn did the hard work of hosing off the roofing crud from all the stuff we had stored there, and I mostly worked on finishing painting (finally!) the neighbor's side of our fence and paiting a couple of cubbies that we salvaged from our OTHER neighbor's garbage. The neighbors to the north are moving, alas. We liked them. His name was Brad, and, though I was introduced to her, I spaced her name almost instantly, so we've been calling them Brad and Angelina for the year or so they've lived next to us. Brad works as an announcer on the radio station for the blind, and, they have an awesome dog and a very noisy (but also sweet tempered) macaw or other large talking bird. We'll miss them. Unlike I imagine their namesakes might be, our Brad and Angelina were really pleasant neighbors.

Speaking of apperating, last night Mason and I finished GOBLET OF FIRE. He wasn't kidding me when he warned me I might cry at the end of that book. Cedric! Damn, I liked Cedric. We just started ORDER OF THE PHEONIX, and I'm already worried. Things are much darker, aren't they?

My big plans for today are to finish up an article I've been working on, maybe make it to the gym (my back has been sore, and I think it's from lack of stretching,) and possibly finishing up the cubbies (which, thankfully, I covered in plastic last night so the rain shouldn't have messed up my first coat too much.)

Oh, and freak out about tomorrow's TV thing. Why did it have to be live? Taped I could handle... now my brain keeps thinking of all the swear words I'm NOT SUPPOSED to blurt out.

I will be on KARE-11 on Tuesday, August 3rd for a live appearance on "Showcase Minnesota," which I think airs at 10:00 am. All I know is that I'm supposed to be at the studio by 9:45 am. It's confirmed. In fact, I just scheduled the hair and make-up person. hork-hork.*

Thank you to the one or two people who jumped in to tell me that I'm plenty cute for TV. I happen to agree with them. However, the reason I think of myself as having the perfect face for radio is because you just don't see a lot of people who look like me on TV, period.

I think about this a lot when people crow to me about how FAR we've come in terms of GLBT visiblity in television programming. Willow was gay, you know. I _know_, but her girlfriend was possibly the one person in the Buffyverse MORE GIRLY than she was. The women of the "L Word"? They wear more lipstick in one episode than I've worn in my entire life. You might get the ocassional hot-chick-on-hot-chick relationship surprise (or very special episode) on other shows, but I just don't see a lot of pleasantly plump butch women on TV on a regular basis.

I'm sure it will go fine. I got some pointers of a friend who's business it is to BE the media, and he reminded me to have a talking point, repeat it, and smile a LOT. Oh, yeah, and to keep my expectations low. He said that the host will probably spend most of *my* five minutes of fame explaining me to the audience and making it all about him or her (instead of me). It'll be over in a flash at any rate.

I did decide to go ahead an buy the professional hair and make-up person. She costs a couple of hundred dollars, but the last time I put on make-up I was in high school... or maybe the last play I performed in in college. And, frankly, I was never very good at it. This person's speciality is high definition TV and that makes her ten times worth it. I'm sure my sad attempts would look even worse under the magnifying glass of HDTV.

Things are just hopping, because I got a call from the Pioneer Press too. We scheduled my interview with them for Monday morning. That means I've got TV, radio, and newspaper covered.

I was standing in line here at the coffee shop talking to my writer friends about all this, and it suddenly HIT ME why I was getting all this attention. The book takes place in Saint Paul. And it's about vampires. That's a cute little story for a lot of local media. D'uh.

Speaking of which, though, I need to go off and get started on the proposal for ALMOST #3 and a few other writing related things.

One thing I forgot to mention is that Shawn has been having migraines on and off for several days again (knock on wood, she seems to be recovering), but so a lot of my franticness has been aggrivated by the fact that my partner has been pretty much down for the count.

Last night, though, she was feeling better. We're in the middle of catching up on last season's LOST, which is kind of bad timing because there are spoilers all over thanks to the new season starting this week. Still, I'm really enjoying this very much science fictional show. Time travel? Awesome. Mystical civilizations... Atlantis? Egypt/Aliens? I'm there.

We've also been watching the ocassional *cough* the Bachelor. *cough* Yes, I'm embarrassed, but there's something weirdly captivating about reality dating shows... or at least this season's. I think in some ways it's the utter artifical-ness of the thing that is part of its appeal. As a viewer, I spend a lot of time thinking, "How can he tell if she's sincere? There's a camera in the room!"

Also, Shawn was finally able to read through a proposal I developed for a new adult novel for Tate. She got through and gave me a very serious look and said, "Well, it's a solid cow mutilation story." We laughed about that, and discussed the fact that I'm a very quirky writer when left to my own devices and it's a wonder I ever sell, though (according to Shawn) I can write a proposal that can make a fairly lame story sound cool. This is why I've always thought that in another universe I would be a kick-butt marketing executive. Lame product, no problem! I'll sell it!

I did an interview (as Tate) lately where the question was: "If there was going to be a book about your life what would the title be and why?" My answer was WEIRD, BUT COMPELLING, which is the phrase my first agent used to describe my writing. I think it's also a pretty good summation of my personality.

Also, I should report that RESURRECTION CODE has officially passed the word count and become a novel. I still have a lot to do in the next week or so before deadline, but the writing is still going really well.

Anyway, speaking of, I need to go home have "a little lunch" as we say in Minnesota and get down to it.

Shawn and I are in between Netflix shipments, and so we were looking around for something to watch for Friday night movie night. We remembered we still had a stack of discs of Season 4 of BSG that naomikritzer's friend TiVOed for us... well, what, years ago now? Anyway, we dug out our episode guide and figured out where last we'd left our intrepid heroes. We ended up watching "Guess What's Coming to Dinner", "Sine Qua Non," and "The Hub".

As you know, I'd been a pretty huge BSG fan since the re-imagined version came out (actually, to be honest, I'm old enough to be a fan of the original series too.) But I've always found the series to be kind of spotty. There were times I swore it off for good, but then, like a puppy, I'd come lopping back when the new season started: "Squirrel!" I finally gave up when Starbuck returned from the dead and started seeing visions about the way to Earth.

I never liked the new Starbuck. She's too... wounded(?) for me. I like crazy on some women, but Starbuck? Not so much.

Plus (and this was the real killer) Shawn got off it. Shawn can watch shows and movies I'm not so keen on, because I'm often off writing on a novel in the other room in the evenings. Me? It's kind of got to be a "family" event for me to sit down and watch something. I *could* watch while Mason is off at school, but that just seems like the height of decedance. I mean, what's next? Day time soaps and bon-bons? No, I need to write or something productive during daylight hours. That's just the deal.

But someone at Shawn's work is just about as far behind as she is, and they started talking about it. Even so, Shawn wasn't quite up for a new episode... until we ran out of Netflix. (part of why we've run out is that Mason has adopted the "Loony Tunes" disc. So we're only sending back two of our three alloted films... and the last two were complete duds. We should learn: films in French are baffling. Even with subtitles. Period.)

It's surprisingly easy to pick up in the middle. I'm not sure that's a compliment, though. As Shawn said at one point during the multiple betrayals and double-crosses, "Haven't we seen this already?" However, for me, it was nice to see Roslin and Adama finally admit they're into each other. How many seasons did THAT take? As Adama says, "About time."

My problem with this series can be summed up pretty simply. I'm not a plot monkey; I'm a character junkie. This is why I never game mastered any of the D&D campaigns I was involved in. This is why there are plot holes in my novels you could drive a truck through. Those details don't concern me unless they affect characters. BSG is character lite. The characters are important, but they're secondary to the plot in most episodies. But I don't really care much about the mystery of the Cylon God (although I did enjoy the scene in "The Hub" when Baltar tries to discuss God with the Centurian) or if they ever fraking get to Earth. I mean, all that stuff can be interesting, which is why I keep coming back, but what I REALLY care about is how it affects the characters. Thus, "The Hub" was my favorite of the three.

Roslin attempts to be less of a cold automaton and more human. In a drug induced haze, Baltar finally confesses to his grandest sin against humanity. Adama gives up his throne for the one he loves. Three wakes up and mocks both Cylon and human for being a bunch of back-stabbing hyopcrites.

Nice. A good turn, indeed.

Friday afternoon, I also narfed down three more graphic novels in the HIKARU NO-GO series (Hotta/Obata). I can *not* explain my attraction to this particular manga. A bunch of Japanese kids try to become professional GO players. There's a ghost and several rivalries, but, wow, talk about "plot lite." Yet I'm totally riveted. In fact, I almost ran back to the library when I finished the last one to get the next bunch. Go figure.

Speaking of the library, Mason was cute yesterday. He has this weird love/hate relationship with the R. L. Stein GOOSEBUMPS series. They're still pretty scary to him, but he loves to look at the covers, read the back copy, and see how long he can read the book before it scares the pants off him. Well, at the library they were de-accesssioning a bunch of "Goosebumps." 5 for a dollar, in fact. By chance I had one dollar bill in my wallet. Mason was giddy at the prospect of buying some from the library and taking them home. I let him do the whole transaction. The librarian, too, I think, got a kick out of how EXCITED he was. Then, with them tucked under his arm, he danced all the way home. Quite literally.