Today, we walked out into the living room to find a puddle on the floor behind the couch, and water falling from the 2nd floor hallway ceiling. There hadn’t yet been rain in our neighborhood at the time, so we knew it had to be coming from an internal source, and Fuzzy quickly found the culprit. One of the a/c units has a hose that keeps coming unsealed.

He stuck the hose back in place, and we mopped up the leak, and then I fired up my computer, and opened Excel, which I use as much as a financial reporting software solution as just a convenient place to keep all the various account numbers and phone numbers and passwords that one acquires along with a house.

I did not sacrifice a goat, but I did thank my mother for hammering the necessity of a home warranty into every client we’ve ever had. Why? Because I listened, and we keep renewing ours, and so whether the a/c problem is a simple little pipe de-clogging and filter changing job, or whether they have to replace the whole unit, it won’t cost me more than $55.

I’m not as certain that our insurance will cover the damage to the ceiling, and even if it does, I don’t think the cost to cure will be remotely close to our deductable. It’s a ceiling that doesn’t have a weight-bearing floor above it, and isn’t the inside of a roof. It’s literally a piece of dry wall, some tape, paint and texturizing goop, and maybe two hours of work.

While I was on the phone with the home warranty company, I also asked for service to fix the broken drain in the master bath, because bubble bath weather is fast approaching. That’ll be another $55, and a bit more dry wall, and maybe some caulking, but totally worth not having to pay for an actual plumber’s actual billable hours or parts.

Excuse Me?

I write for a living, but somehow I separate that writing, which is mainly car reviews and articles on demand, from writing I do here in my blog, or any kind of fiction. I’m technically a working writer, but I think of myself as a marketing professional, because otherwise, otherwise I’d feel like a hack, or that I’ve sold my soul.

Strangely, doing paid posts in my blog does not make me feel like that. Possibly it’s because I choose the topics, and the money is “found” money – extra cash to pay for stuff like my perfume habit or pedicures, or the vast collection of blank note cards with pretty pictures that I’ve acquired. (I have a “thing” for note cards.)

Truly, however, when I think I’ve writing, I think of Jo March in her garret, with her special black hair bow, ink stained fingers, and baskets of apples, and even though I don’t have a garret, and my 2nd-floor home office overlooks the treetops and the pool, I try to channel that mood, that sense of place and purpose, when I’m working on writing I actually care about.

My dream, from the time I was eight years old and wrote a bit of bad poetry (well, it was good for an eight-year-old, I suppose) about it, has been to publish fiction. I now have a vast body of work circulating on the ‘net, but it’s all the work stuff I mentioned before, and much of it isn’t attributed directly to me. I’ve published some essays and creative non-fiction in literary magazines and e-zines, and I’ve succumbed to the pull of fanfic and posted some of that both to my fiction blog at MoonChilde.com, and at fanfiction.net.

I’m working on a series of cafe fiction, as well. That’s my baby right now, but while snippets of it ARE available on the ‘net at UniversalBlend.net, I haven’t really made a point of asking for feedback on it. The few trusted friends who’ve read it say it’s good, but I can’t get myself to believe in myself enough to DO anything with it, and while I know you don’t have to have a finished work to query agents, just sample chapters, I’m terrified of doing so.

Pink hair has made me braver on stage, but I can’t find the courage to do anything with the one thing I love more than any other: writing.

I wish I could.

From: Sunday Scribblings

For those of you just tuning in, Alliterative Saturday is when I use alliteration as a jumping-off point for sharing the highlights of my week.

Fall: It’s not technically autumn, but signs of fall are growing more prominent. Pumpkins have appeared in local storms, spiced cider is back on the display menu at Starbucks (they have it year-round, but only advertise it in fall), as has the pumpkin spice latte, and even though we’re still reaching the 90’s for high temp of the day, the evenings are cooler, and the temperature doesn’t LINGER at the high, just reaches it, then cycles downward.

Fashion: Tim Gunn is one of my personal heroes. If you’ve seen Project Runway, you know Tim as the gently snarky guiding soul of the show, part host, part confessor, part cheerleader, part color commentator. On Thursday his new show, Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style, premiered on Bravo. It’s a little like a more refined version of What Not to Wear coupled with the sensibility of Queer Eye, and like the latter, it offers fashion advice to the DotW (disaster of the week) in a way that is both frank and kind. It’s the kindness, the obvious intention to help people, that I think makes it work, though Gunn’s snark is also a crucial part of the mix. Thursdays at 10/9c on Bravo. Check it out.

Friends: I am blessed with some really cool friends. Clay listens to me whine about all my writing being fluff and drivel and gives me a good kick in the ass, and injection of creative energy even when I know he’s feeling depleted. Sky brings me back to grace, often without knowing it. Gin makes me laugh. Rana introduces me to things I’ve never considered, like bull riding, and is more addictive to gadgets than I am. Ben is really Fuzzy’s friend whom I acquired by marriage, but he and his wife Julia never fail to be interesting and supportive. (There are no links in this paragraph because I don’t have their permission – well, I link to Rana all the time – but the others write in less overtly public places.) There are others, of course, but these are the people I have the most, regular interaction with.

Fish: Sushi for Christopher’s birthday dinner last night was great. He had salmon. When I married him I had to force him to eat any kind of fish. 12.5 years later, he willingly orders salmon and ahi tuna at restaurants. (I had salmon also, but with sashimi instead of California roll.). There was a group of young women – college aged, we guessed – sitting next to us. Three Japanese girls and one American. Japanese as in “just got off the plane from Tokyo” and NOT Japanese-American. We were trying to figure out the relationship – were they friends from school? Foreign exchange students with their mentor? Who knows? We could have asked, but we didn’t want to make them feel self-conscious, and sometimes it’s more fun to speculate.

Freezing: My body temperature is shifting. I’m not sure if it’s an unlisted side effect of alli, or if my metabolism is shifting, but lately I’m always cold. I keep turning the thermostat up, or going outside to sit in the sun, and while I used to like the car a/c set to “iceberg” lately I can barely tolerate it when it’s mid-way on the dial. Last night, I was so cold that not only did I wear my warm cotton lounging gown to bed, but I snuggled so close to Fuzzy he could barely breathe and was almost choking on my hair, and didn’t make the dogs move. I suppose in summer it’s better to feel cold than uncomfortably hot, but it’s very weird.

Funny: I’m really not a funny person. I can pretend to be, sometimes, but the reality is that while I can make humorous observations, dish out snark, and be ironic or sarcastic, I’m not truly funny. I say this because while I’m still enjoying CSz, I feel like I’m coming close to the end of my time there, like I’ve gotten almost everything out of it that I can. I feel myself disconnecting. I need to think about this some more.

Fuzzy: Yesterday was Fuzzy’s birthday. While I celebrate mine with bells, whistles, announcements to the blogosphere, and copious amounts of chocolate, a day of sleeping late followed by presents and dinner was really enough for my sweet Christopher. We’re such geeks. I gave him a gift certificate to the game store so he could buy role-playing books without me having to spend vast amounts of time near the unwashed miscreants who lurk in such places, and the first season of Heroes on DVD. And a heart-shaped rock, because I thought it was cool. He’ll be away all week, and I hate that, but at the same time, I kind of like not having to account for his food tastes or plan meals around his schedule.

I went with Fuzzy to his office tonight so he could pick up a wire labeler he needs to bring with him to San Jose on Monday, and was caught off-guard by the quality of the tile in the reception area. It’s lovely river-rock tile with blue-grey grout, and I commented, “That would be fabulous in our bathroom.”

Fuzzy glanced at it, the way geeky guys do, and said, “I guess,” which from him means, “Yes, I completely agree.”

“Speaking of the bathroom,” I went on, “When you come home, I want to go looking for shower faucets. I hate ours. I’ve hated it since we moved here, and I really want a better control, and a hand-held shower head.”

“We’d have to break into the shower wall,” he said. “I don’t want to do that.”

“No,” I said, “I don’t think we would. The plumber didn’t have to when he came to fix the leak two years ago. We just have to pick something with a splash plate that matches the existing hole.”

“That may be hard. This house is funky.”

I gave him my best, you’re-going-to-wish-you-hadn’t-said-that look. “Sweet boy,” I said, using a phrase I picked up from a piece of fanfic in which the lead character used it sarcastically to warn her partner that he was being anything but sweet, “we live in a tract house. Yes, the neighborhood has five models instead of one, and yes, they’re all landscaped and painted a little differently, but I’m fairly certain all the parts are standard.”

He changed the subject at that point, deflecting my lecture on which of us worked in real estate finance for half her life, and instead asking, “So are you up for Japanese food?”

You know, planning a bathroom remodel seems less important when there’s a plate of sashimi and tempura in front of you.

…died last night. She was one of my favorite authors, and her works have been important in my life.

I wrote about it here.

Appetizer
Using only one word, how does grocery shopping make you feel?
Anticipatory.

Soup
What is your favorite part about the season of Autumn?
I’m not sure if it’s the cooler evenings, so that when the sun goes down I can hang out wearing flannel pajamas, but still wear short sleeves in the day time, and so that I can open the windows wide, and not use the a/c at night, or if it’s the smell – that smell of leaves and rain and wood smoke, mixed with a dash of pumpkin. I think, actually, it’s kind of both.

Salad
Have you ever had any bad experiences online?
I’ve been singularly lucky in that I’ve had a few minor annoyances, but nothing I’d classify as major, or even really bad.

Main Course
Name three things that make you happy daily.
– Fuzzy. Even when our only real contact in a day is kissing each other goodbye as he heads to the office (I work from home), there’s a twinkle in his blue eyes and a warmth in his tone that makes me feel loved and safe.
– The dogs. Zorro and Cleo nag me until I take them for walkies, thus forcing me to have daily exercise, and remind me that it’s a good thing to just sit on the deck and bask in the sun for a few minutes every so often. At night (like now) when I’m blogging from bed, they curl up next to me, and every so often, I run my fingers through their fur, and look into their sweet faces.
– My own imagination. I like people, really, but I’m also completely comfortable and at home alone inside my head. I feel sad for people who cannot cope without external stimulus.

Dessert
What one household cleansing or organizing item would you not want to be without?
Windex. Seriously, it does everything: counters, sinks, the top of my glass stove, the inside of the microwave, mirrors, and, oh yeah, it kills ants, too.

Questions provided by Friday’s Feast

I’ve been on a reading jag these past few days, reading novels that take place in France, and living with lamplight instead of bright overhead lights. This is a recurring theme with me; when the weather is cloudy there’s something so cozy about clicking on a single soft pink bulb and it doesn’t matter of the base it’s screwed into is an expensive piece by Murray Feiss or a ten dollar ceramic thing from Target, as long as the mood is right.

With my plush microfiber living room furniture all in cranberry, and warm tones on the walls and carpets, lamplight is especially cozy, and in my head When I move to the bedroom, everything is nautical stripes and medium woods and with the tiny bulbs in the bookcase headboard illuminating just the spot I most need, I pretend I’m in a ship at sea, and the sound of wind and rain beyond my window becomes the sound of surf instead.

Some may think this mental escapism is unhealthy, but I always know the reality of my location. The imagined space simply sets a mood.

Everything I know about poker, comes from one of three sources: Star Trek: The Next Generation, late nights in the common room in college, or my Uncle Joe. Sadly, the first is not interactive, the second is decades past, and the third died several years ago, having smoked himself into an early grave. He died happy, though, and there’s something to be said for that.

While I’ve seen ads for online poker, and I’ve been curious about such sites, I don’t have huge amounts of money to spend on card games. That being said, when I checked out Bet365 I felt like it was a safe environment. No old men in plaid pants waiting to scare you, no cigar smoke and one account lets you access poker, yes, but also bet on football or horse racing as well, all from the comfort of your own home.

It’s a safe environment – especially for women, there’s only one password and login to remember, and best of all? Green visors are optional.

Thirteen Things about MISSMELISS 13 Things that Begin With Q Q: One of the most delightful characters in science fiction. I refer here to the Q from Star Trek not from Bond, as played by John de Lancie. Pure mischief. Quadrille: “Will you walk a little faster?” said a whiting to a snail. “There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail. See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance! They are waiting on the shingle – will you come and join the dance? Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance? Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance? — Lewis Carroll Quail: My mother had two pewter quail on the table or the window sill as long as I can remember. Now they’re mine. Quail and pheasant are the same bird, by the way. Quake: I lived in California long enough to become jaded by earthquakes. After you’ve been through a few they are no longer alarming, and you only wake up long enough to identify the reason the room is shaking. “Are we being attacked?” “No. It’s just an earthquake.” “Oh, okay.” Quartet: I’ve played in string quartets but I much prefer to listen to professionals. My favorites are the Guarneri quartet, and a group called Bond. Quartz: When I was five finding a lump of translucent white “quartz crystal” was really cool. The word brings back memories. Quay: Like “strand” it’s one of those beachy, shippy words that are just romantic to me. Questions: If you don’t ask questions, you can’t learn anything. Quiet: There are times when I desperately need, not silence, but quiet. Silence is the absence of sound, but quiet is just the muffling of it, so it’s softer and more peaceful. Quills: Whether it’s a stray sea gull feather worked into art, or an actual quill pen, I have a thing for quills. They’re just so magical. Quilts: I’m still learning how to quilt, but that doesn’t diminish my appreciation for the art one iota. I love the way they’re colorful, and I love the lore associated with them – how certain kinds were used to signal stops on the underground railroad, for example. Fiber arts are so much more than just “things.” Quiz: A quiz is somehow less daunting than a test. It’s such a feisty little word, too. Plus, major points in Scrabble. Quotations: I’m fine with using my own words, but sometimes borrowing someone else’s (as above) are a better way to make a point.

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