Speaking of Sunday Summary

Pardon My Dust: I'll be doing a cleanup on my tags because I have 7 million of them...

And more importantly, shortly, shortly, Salami & Orchids will be getting a new little sister blog, "Blauthor, Blauthor!", and all things writing and book-related will be posted over there. By me, of course, still by me. Blauthor will launch so soon, in fact, that the next book review will be posted only there. I'm in the process of moving copies of S&O's previously posted book reviews to Blauthor for convenience/posterity.

Anoter aspect of Blauthor, that I'm very excited about, is I'll be blooking (blogging a book) my novel Superstore, and hopefully other fiction works in the future. Stay tuned, fun stuff is coming!

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Speaking of Fun Stuff Coming: I won the Piney Woods Tatter's October Event! The package is on its way and I'm so, so excited. I haven't been able to tat much with money being so tight, so when the box arrives the lace-making will begin! I'll post pictures of the work- maybe even do a tatting tutorial-- how cute would that be? I've been meaning to post more crafty things. I will.

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Wednesday Weigh Ins: For real. Starting Wednesday. Lisa's getting married in less than a year, so I have less than a year to lose 40-70 pounds. You and me, we're doing this together. We're going to exercise, we're going to count calories, we're going to kick some major ass.

And I meant what I said about getting other bloggers involved. I want stats. I want stories. I want pictures. I want recipes.

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WTF Snow: When I write these things I keep a tab with the "Compose Post" window up and I leave little notes to myself so I remember what I wanted to talk about. The notes I leave are almost never the little titles I give at the head of each section because it usually needs to stew in my head a little before a satisfying pun distills.

This title, however, is exactly what I wrote. And it bears repeating: WTF Snow.

I figured I had another month before I would need to complain about snow, but no. No, not this year. In weather's defense, I heard a rumor that this was the first pre-Halloween snow since 1952. This shocked me because 1952 means it happened before my parents were born. Holy crap.

Now let me tell you about snow. No, let me tell you about winter. Winter is the bastard cousin of that most excellent of seasons, autumn, and ugly little sister of that second most excellent of seasons, spring.

In other words, winter sucks. Don't get me wrong, I dig the whole "cold" thing. My windows haven't been closed for a minute since my dad took my air conditioner out for the season. But I hate the dryness. I hate the general dryness outside, and I really hate that that dryness is compounded by the use of heaters. Blegh.

I have a humidifier in the shape of an elephant. His name is Archimedes, after my favorite Disney character.

Look how awesome this little guy is.

...what was I saying?

Right. Winter sucks and I don't like it. And it's encroaching on my favorite season.

Because winter's a jerk.

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Speaking of Things I Don't Like: It's Halloween. Not a fan, to be honest. I'm all for celebrating horror and dressing up and drinking (In college I hung out with theater kids, it's what they did once or twice a month. ...Come to think of it, my non-theater friends did it on occasion, too.) but...I just don't get into it when it's forced on me, I guess. Like Valentine's Day.

In high school I had a religious faze...like a seriously religious faze. Boy did I hate Halloween then! I remember grumbling about pagans a lot.

I am, however, looking forward gorging myself on candy before I start counting every calorie.

Mmm...candy.

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Upcoming Posts: Fuller Fashion, The Lion King review, Why I Love My Antidepressant, and the upcoming launch of Blauthor, Blauthor!

Do Not Touch the Baby

I played with the settings again today and so far I like it. Turns out, though, that I had commenting disabled unless people were members which is not what I wanted- I'm all for anonymous comments, especially considering the subject matter I veer into. I apologize to anybody who wanted to comment but couldn't because they weren't a member. My bad. 


So that's fixed. 


I've been taking a break from creating lately- besides this blog, I mean. I haven't been working on my novels, which you think I would considering I'm looking for agents (no new responses...) and I haven't been knitting, which you think I would considering I owe my brother a scarf for last Christmas and I have the materials to make 2 scarves for me- one to match my fingerless gloves and one to match my red coat. I haven't been tatting, either, and I owe my mother a pretty large doily from last Christmas. 


And my dad's birthday is coming up. Shit. 


I've also felt like drawing lately, which is unusual for me because I'm really bad at it. I had to take a drawing class for my degree so I've vastly improved but I still suck. I've been thinking about my style, which is basically teeny-tiny and very detailed, so I'm considering doing some teeny tiny little scenes about the size of stamps. I'm not one of those people that can write on rice, but what with sewing and embroidery I'm very comfortable working in a minuscule scale. For a while I was thinking about tatting tiny pieces for dollhouses...I still might one day. 


It is SO HOT here. According to the weather channel it's 95 degrees but feels like 107. I'm supposed to hang out with my buddy Four tomorrow, but goddamn it's supposed to be 101 degrees. Ick. I hate heat...so much so, in fact, I leave my windows open all winter.


Oh, Four. 


I'm friends with such amazing people I wonder why they bother with me. Four is a voice-over artist and comedian and a brilliant writer. One day I'm going to get to say I knew him when... He's pretty much the best friend I've ever had and I love him to bits. 


My parents, unfortunately, don't feel the same way. In fact, Four and I wanted to date for a while but my parents' reactions were awful and it was one of the worst times of my life as far as my relationship with them goes. My father, especially, is incredibly racist and proud of it and it breaks my heart. One of my parents' rationalizations for hating my relationship with Four and giving me such a hard time about it is that they're trying to protect me from "other people's reactions." 


I'm just going to say that after 10 years of hanging out with Four and being besties with him the only people who have EVER even given me a dirty look about it are my parents, so work out that logic. 


There was one time in my life where out in public, among strangers, I was given dirty looks and glares and stares was a few days after I came back from London a month before my 19th birthday. My nephew Manny (my brother Mick's son) was 3 months old at the time and my sister-in-law, Manny's mother Debra, and I went to the mall to finish up Christmas shopping. I was pushing Manny in a stroller, and Deb was walking beside me and you should have seen the looks. 


Stares. Anger. Fury. Disgust. People were looking at me like they wanted to run over and take Manny away from me. It was amazing. Debra and I were shocked. 


So I decided to play into it. At one point Deb was waiting in line to pay for something and I was standing with Manny a little bit away saying, "Manny, tell Aunt Debbie to hurry up, Mommy has to get home to do her algebra homework. Mommy doesn't want to work at McDonald's anymore. Tell her. Say 'Mommy needs to graduate so she can find a new job and meet a nice man to be my daddy. I wish I had a daddy.'" 


It was awesome. 


And can I just add, by the way, that if you see a little baby in the mall and it's not related to you, DON'T TOUCH IT? That was unbelievable. At one point I had to smack this guy's hand away. He talks to me for a second, "Oh, how old is he blah blah blah" and then he reaches into the stroller. So I say, "Please don't touch the baby." 


Then he reached in again! So I smacked his hand. "Do not touch the baby!"


AUGH. It's not your baby, people! Especially if you're out in public, who knows where your hands have been?! You could have herpes for all I know. Don't touch the baby. 


Like you always ask a dog's owner if you can pet the dog when you first meet them, to make sure the dog doesn't bite or have some kind of disease or is a seeing eye dog that shouldn't be bothered or what-have-you. Don't touch people's dogs, and don't touch the babies. 


You don't know what 5'2", 19-year-old, 130 lb. white girl is going to smack you for it. 


And if she does, you totally deserve it.