A Cabin on the Lake? YES, PLEASE!

I complain a lot. This is not one of my more redeeming qualities. I don't know why that is -- I am a grateful girl, glad for the lovely things and wonderful people in my life. But I'm also a high-strung individual who works a lot, who is always looking for new work and new ways to keep busy. I live in an expensive city secondary to Husband's career choice, so work is very necessary. Good thing I'm not great with sitting still. 

But I sometimes feel like a factory child of the Industrial Revolution (she says from her padded chair in her heated house with access to a coffee pot and an almost-fresh package of American Oreos) who is only allowed to Work and never allowed to Fun. So imagine my great glee when my darling friend Jane said, "Hey. Come out to the cabin this weekend sans enfants and let's chill and watch our favorite movies and eat fun foods and pretend they're calorie-free." Don't quote me. It sounded something like that.

GUESS WHAT I DID? I left my house. For real. And it didn't involve a trip to a child's school, a doctor's office, or the bookstore. I did not stop for tampons or toilet paper; I did not go to the soccer field or piano school. I went instead to Cultus Lake, British Columbia, a scant 70-minute drive from my suburb, where I was given my own room in a beautiful lakefront cabin. For 25 hours, I was quiet. 

It was so nice.

See?

That's me, with my camera. I use it sometimes.

Cultus Lake, very still. Earlier that morning, it was shrouded in fog. Then the sun came out. No polar vortex in British Columbia.

Quiet winter docks, missing their jubilant summer friends.

The willow in Jane's yard, waiting for the sun to stay long enough so spindly arms can yawn and stretch skyward.

Going home, we stopped at the lake's eastern side for a quick snap of the setting sun.

Goodbye, sun. Thanks for a lovely day.

When I wasn't being quiet, we watched this (OF COURSE WE DID):

Jane hadn't seen it. I felt that was a wrong begging for rectification. She enjoyed it, as I knew she would.

Because, well, vitamin Henry. #needIsaymore (See here for more justification.)

The point of this exercise, however, was more than a desperately needed mental health break. It was so I could spend uninterrupted, child-free time with my latest editorial letter. Yes, Sleight, the Little Book That Could, is still having her feathers rearranged. Every time, it stings a bit, but once the sting abates (usually after slathering my internal organs with copious amounts of sugar and caffeine), I LEARN SO MUCH. I don't know what I did right in this lifetime to deserve the editors I'm working with, but yeah ... it's pretty damn awesome. Lots of arguments slap back and forth across the Internet about traditional vs. self-publishing, and while I can happily call myself a hybrid (Jenn Sommersby + Eliza Gordon), I will forever be grateful for the experience traditional publishing has granted me. Every time this manuscript returns covered in Band-Aids, I rip off one at a time, and the skin underneath is so much prettier.

In other words, it's f**king rad what they do. HOW DID I GET SO LUCKY?

Thanks, Hadley, for believing in me. 

And thank you, Jane, so much, for sharing your cabin with me. When can we go again? I have this book that needs another coat of paint here soon ...

IN OTHER NEWS:

If we're not Facebook friends, you're missing out on the fun stuff I've come across. Such as:

Game of Thrones Bad Lip Reading

 

And the Jaguar Superbowl Ad with MARK STRONG et al:

And who doesn't love some MALEFICENT:

And then I rewrote the opening to Romeo and Juliet when my youngest and I decided en route to the elementary school that the drivers of the two daycare buses should have a death match for parking in our very congested school turnaround:

Two daycare buses, both alike in color,
In fair Coquitlam, where we lay our scene,
From months-long grudge break to new pissing match,
Where driver’s fists makes the other driver’s nose weep red.
From forth the yellow tube emerge these two foes
Fighting for prime parking among the strife;
Whose inability to park straight leads to raised voices
Do with warring chants screamed from car windows.
The fearful passage of their tiny charges running in fear,
And the aggravation of many parents' rage,
Which, but their children's safe entry into classrooms,
Is now the two hours' traffic of this congested street;
If only the principal would give an arse about our choler,
What here shall go unscreamed, our horns shall strive to mend.

We learned about the skincare for Throwback Thursday:

And I failed in the kitchen. Again. Like I said, WORK.

Coming soon ~ My rave review of Kenneth Oppel's upcoming THE BOUNDLESS, on sale April 21, 2014:

All aboard for an action-packed escapade from the internationally bestselling author of Airborne and the Silverwing trilogy.

The Boundless, the greatest train ever built, is on its maiden voyage across the country, and first-class passenger Will Everett is about to embark on the adventure of his life!

When Will ends up in possession of the key to a train car containing priceless treasures, he becomes the target of sinister figures from his past.

In order to survive, Will must join a traveling circus, enlisting the aid of Mr. Dorian, the ringmaster and leader of the troupe, and Maren, a girl his age who is an expert escape artist. With villains fast on their heels, can Will and Maren reach Will's father and save The Boundless before someone winds up dead?

Mr. Oppel and I share the same editor at HCC (I can't believe I get to say that ... is this real life?), and I ADORED this book.

*****

Plus, the fantastic folks at HarperCollins Canada sent me a boatload of books for giveaway during my upcoming participation in a middle school literacy conference. As such, I will put together a post so you can share in the literary fun time and add a bunch of great upcoming titles to your TBR list!

Off I must. Words need making.

Bonne nuit!

(And speaking of Nuit ...)

She won't catch her mouse, but she will catch a BLT. #truth

Film Score Lovers Anonymous: My Healthy Obsession

I would be a much happier (read: saner) person if I could just live in the movies. All. The. Time.

I do this thing where I find a film that resonates for whatever reason -- no matter what the reviews or critics are saying -- and I obsess over it. I watch it again and again, sometimes twice on the same weekend night. In the last year, it's been Pride and Prejudice, The Hobbit, Welcome to the Punch. Past years, Shakespeare in Love, Gladiator, all the Lord of the Rings films. I recognize this is not a healthy habit. But I'm not a drinker or user of substances other than dangerous quantities of sugar, so if movies are my drug, bring on the popcorn.

It bears repeating: our family likes the movies. Pretty Princess blogs (Truly Luminary) and starts journalism school in January toward her dreams in  entertainment coverage. The Other Half of my heart works in the film biz. He's worked on a lot of awesome flicks in the last 25.5 years, including but not limited to The Fugitive, Army of Darkness (for you cult fans out there), Titanic, lots of X-Men films, Tron, Seventh Son, Percy Jackson, et cetera, et cetera. Most recently he did some time on George Clooney's next supersecret project before hopping onto the epic build for a flick based on a VERY popular video game.  When he comes home covered in foam and silicone, it's because he's recreating a world that only exists in our imaginations. Glamorous, huh? Tell that to my washing machine.

In 2012 he worked on Man of Steel. Sculpted the saddle Jor El rides on his winged horse/dragon hybrid (H'raka); built the mushroomy pool where the Codex Skull is kept, the bed/chair structure newborn Kal El lies in when his parents are infusing his cells with the bits and bobs from the Codex. 

Built the EPIC sets we can barely see in the council chambers when Jor El says YOU GUYS THIS IS MADNESS WE'RE DOOMED and naughty Zod storms in and shoots his guns and yells loudly (Michael Shannon, you are the best kind of villain). 

And then there's that awesome spaceship buried in the permafrost where soon-to-be-Superman goes all manly and says to an injured Lois Lane, "I can do things other people can't ... This is going to hurt." All of these incredible sets come from the hands of REAL people. #proudWyfey 

Lately, the object of my obsession has been Man of Steel. I don't even know why. I tear up when Kal El's parents say goodbye and again when -- oh, wait -- no spoilers, in case you haven't seen it. Despite mixed reviews and haters galore, I love this film.

Maybe it's because so much of Husband's sweat went into it. It's special to us.

Ironically, though, I try not to think too much about the reality behind the film. I usually leave the room when the family scoots around to watch behind-the-scenes stuff because I LOVE THE FANTASY of it. When Lord of the Rings was in its prime, and now with The Hobbit and the MUCH-ANTICIPATED Desolation of Smaug, I want to believe that Middle Earth is a REAL place and not just pretty New Zealand, that if I overcome my fear of huntsman spiders, I will go to Mata Mata and see Hobbiton and while there, Frodo and Gandalf and Aragorn (*swoon*) and Thorin (*double swoon*) will appear and we will have wine with fruity bouquets and eat wheels of cheese and sing songs with our pipes puff-puff-puffing away.

Shit, that was a long sentence. Hadley, I'm so sorry.

I want to believe that hunky Kal El is a real guy, that the sonic booms that ring over our neighborhood are him blasting through the atmosphere, that if an oil rig falls on my house, he will -- shirtless and beautifully muscled -- be there to catch it.

Hello, Kal El. Thank you for saving my house from that collapsing oil rig.

I'm not a purist. Hell, I'm not even a FAN of Superman. Never read the comics, didn't swoon over the earlier movies with the late Christopher Reeve. Didn't care a sniff. Not until Zack Snyder gave us Henry Cavill and Russell Crowe in tights.

Seriously. You GUYS.

THIS is why I'm a writer. I was not beautiful/thin/talented/smart/brave enough to make it in Hollywood, though I dreamed those dreams so hard, I would cry myself to sleep after working at one of three jobs to save the money to move to LA. (I tend toward the dramatic. And I really did work at three jobs at one point to save money to move to LA. Then I moved to LA and had to get another suffocating job to pay the rent. I'm not great with planning, I know this.)

Along with these movies, though, is THE MUSIC. Let me set the scene:

INT. - CHURCH BASEMENT

Banner made of dot-matrix printer paper hangs haphazardly from wall. In crayon, reads "FILM SCORE LOVERS ANONYMOUS." Chairs set around a table holding docked iPod. Side table with silver coffee carafe; plate overflows with frosted cookies shaped as musical notes.

JENN walks in. Chooses a cold chair.

GROUP LEADER

Today I'd like to welcome our newest member, Jenn.

JENN

Yes. Hi. (waves) I'm Jenn, and I'm a film score lover.

GROUP

(in unison)

(many in costume; looks like ComicCon in here)

Hiiiiii, Jenn ...

And so on and so forth.

Thanks to the demigod we mortals call Hans Zimmer, Man of Steel has a FANTASTIC score. Oh, people, honestly ... if you're not listening to Zimmer, I'm not sure if we can continue this thing we call friendship. The Dark Knight/Rises? Gladiator? Inception? Pirates of the Caribbean? Sherlock Holmes? The DaVinci Code?

I KNOW.

It feeds my obsession. The music is the meaty leg warm with pumping blood; I am the leech. I am insatiable. 

And so it has gone for the last months, my thirst unquenchable, as I've labored over yet another draft of Sleight. I quietly turned it in yesterday. No, I do not know what this means. Other than I LOVE it. Other than we wait. This freight train is not under my control.

But the music is. Because when I write, I imagine the actors playing the parts I have breathed life into. I dream about the book being made into a film (we all do) and who we'd get to do the film score. (I have my short list.) Because of this weird obsession, you can see why the movies and music and words are all on one plate for me. Like the bacon with the lettuce and tomato. I cannot have one without the other.

Recently a friend made the mistake of asking for recommendations for music to write by. As a proud film score lover, I answered accordingly:

~ ANYTHING by Alexander Desplat (though Tree of Life is a little odd for my taste); the Twilight Saga's New Moon is arguably one of my top five faves. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is beautiful. Oh, and Zero Dark Thirty. Awesome.

~ EVERYTHING by Hans Zimmer, as mentioned -- but especially Man of Steel

~ Harry Escott's Welcome to the Punch. (I may have peed when Harry Escott followed me back on Twitter. I'm afraid to check if he's still following me. I don't think I can handle any more rejection.) This score narrates brilliant action sequences, stitched seamlessly alongside haunting emotional overtones. (OMG, I love it when the boys cry.)

Now for crying-boy montage:

Mark Strong (my sweetie). Crying because he is a bad good man. (Low Winter Sun)

Cries over dead son. (Welcome to the Punch)

Russell Crowe (Jor El, Man of Steel) almost crying over sending son away to a foreign planet.

Definitely crying here. It's okay, Kal El. C'mere. Let's hug it out.

DAAAAAAAAAAD! More crying. *swoony sigh* If you don't tear up in this scene, you're soulless.

 Something is wrong with me if I like it when pretty boys cry.

MORE MUSIC PLEASE JENN:

~ The score for the film Oblivion (M83 and Anthony Gonzales) is great, as is the score for Disconnect (Max Richter).

Here's a list of brilliant composers to make it simple:

• Danny Elfman (Oz the Great and Powerful, Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride, 9, Silver Linings Playbook, tons more -- he's Tim Burton's go-to composer)
• Clint Mansell (The Fountain and Requiem for a Dream are my faves)
• James Newton Howard (most recently Hunger Games: Catching Fire releases 11/29; also Snow White and the Huntsman and a zillion others)
• James Horner (Avatar, Titanic, Legends of the Fall, Aliens)
• John Williams -- ICONIC -- Harry Potter, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, et cetera. You know his music.
• John Debney (Passion of the Christ is beautiful; Elf, Iron Man 2)
• John Powell (Shrek, Bourne franchise, PS I Love You, How to Train Your Dragon)
• Andrew Lockington (Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters)
• Henry Jackman (X-Men First Class, Wreck-It Ralph, Captain Phillips, Kick-Ass 2)
• Marc Streitenfeld (Robin Hood, Prometheus, Body of Lies)
• Michael Giacchino (Star Trek / ST Into Darkness, Up, The Incredibles, Super 8)
• Howard Shore (all the Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit films, Twilight Saga: Eclipse)
• Thomas Wander (Anonymous)
• Marco Beltrami (The Wolverine, World War Z, I, Robot)
• Carter Burwell (Twilight fans rejoice!)
• Ramin Djawadi (Game of Thrones!!!)
• Bryan Tyler (Thor, Iron Man 3)
• John Ottman (Jack the Giant Slayer, X-Men 2)
• Craig Armstrong (A gorgeous orchestral score for DiCaprio/Luhrmann's Gatsby)
• Steve Jablonsky (Ender's Game, Transformers)
• Johann Johannsson (Prisoners)
• Steven Price (Gravity)
• Olafur Arnalds (short but powerful score for the BBC's Broadchurch)

Not to be overlooked: video game scores. Assassin's Creed Revelations is awesome. And it's a TON of music for an incredible price. Halo is solid too.

If you're a film score lover like I am, and you think you might need an intervention, we meet twice a week in the church basement on the corner of Angst Avenue and Brokenheart Blvd. Bring your appetite for cookies and inspired tears.

Before we go:

This blog post is a rambling mess. I'm sorry. But today I'm sort of a rambling mess. Turning in a beloved manuscript after yet another round of painful rewrites causes this. Some people cheer when they write the end. I never write those two words because they make me too sad. I've spent most of the day fluctuating between joy and desolation. Giggles and tears. Sunshine and darkness. I did, however, stop feeling sorry for myself long enough to shower and apply makeup. You know, in case that oil rig thing happens and Superman shows up on my porch.

One more for the road:

Hey, Superman ...

Au revoir, mes amoureux ...

Friday Funnies ... and Someone Make Me More Coffee

FRIENDS! COUNTRYMEN!

Go out to your car. If you don't have a car, borrow the neighbor's. They won't mind. 

While still in park, put your foot on the gas pedal and rev. Get the engine just below that red stripe, what, at about 6-7 for some cars, 9-10 for others? Now everyone's coming out of their homes or standing at their front windows to find out why the hell there's an engine revving to the point of explosion -- I guarantee if you've borrowed your neighbor's car to do this, he/she will be watching. So, that SOUND and that FEELING? Shit's loud, hey? (Man, I sound Canadian now.)

That has been my brain for the last two weeks. Which is why I didn't do Friday Funnies last week. (I also didn't vacuum. Please don't invite yourself over for tea.) There was plenty of funny to be had on the Internet, although, in all honesty, I find myself clicking to my last entry with the newspaper-reading cat in the suit and the IKEA monkey (Darwin) in his wee lit'le coat ... oh man, I'm laughing again. ANYWAY, I do like to laugh, and I hope you do too, because there is just so much carnage and yuck going on that giggling is the only way I've managed to stay one step ahead of those guys with the straitjackets ...

On October 29, my split personality released a book (Must Love Otters) and it's going swimmingly with lots of darling reviews on Amazon and it's always interesting (terrifying) to see what folks have to say when you slice off a pound of your flesh and put it up for sale. I also spent the month of October holed up to finish yet another rewrite for the Neverending Book (Sleight, if you care) based on the comprehensive and always fantastic/painful edits from my brilliant editor (yes, I love you, editor mine, and I will be expecting my honorary MFA any day now from Dyer University). What that MEANS is, though, my brain -- it revved. There was one night here at the homestead that went like this:

Husband: How was your day?

Jenn: We should probably make some sauce to go along with ... I think I should kill off that one guy in Chapter Four but maybe ... Did I tell you I heard from one of the teachers today via ... The book order is late again ... Oh, we sold X books today but I'm trying not to ... One of the reviewers said she loved it and spit coffee out her ... I think I may have unwound a major plot knot in ... So I'm having a hard time finding the right socks for ... The cat was eating the headphone cords again but I ... Let me make the scrambled eggs for ...

Husband: [spatula in hand] I have no idea what you just said.

AND WHY IS THAT? Can't he hear the fourteen conversations going on in my head? Can't he hear the REVVING ENGINE?

Evidently not. So I was promptly sent to my room until I could formulate a single sentence from start to finish. I think I fell asleep and dreamed about newspaper-reading cats and IKEA monkeys.

Speaking of monkeys, I should really tell you about my adventures at Sephora. It went something like this: 

• Jenn walks into Sephora, armed with two-month-old gift card from daughter.
• Jenn puts on face that says, Don't sell me no nonsense, little missy, the face usually reserved for car salesmen.
• Jenn sees her face in REAL mirror.
• Jenn holds back tears secondary to discovering the wrinkles dressing the area around her eyes. WHERE DID THOSE COME FROM?
• Jenn allows car makeup salesgirl to talk her into All the Shiny Things.
• Jenn walks out with a nice makeup job but is already concocting stories to tell Husband about the missing funds.
• Jenn wakes up the next day with the same determination she saves for cooking after putting out yet another fire in the kitchen--I CAN DO THIS--only to try to put the makeup on and FAIL. AGAIN.
• Jenn throws temper tantrum and takes to Facebook to complain about how she is not a real girl. Friends try to make her feel better.
• Jenn is still wrinkled and wears stripes on her eyelids that do not look like the smoky-eye demo picture.
• Jenn retires to her room with cookies.

Now, a singing cat:

Nuit, singing to her babies.

We also had Halloween since our last visit. This was my soccer star's costume:

The Witch King of Angmar. Husband gets CRAZY with Halloween. Sweet, huh?

My favorite Funnies from the last few weeks:

This has been known to happen.

YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

OMG, THIS. Seriously. Someone posted a corn chowder the other day and I had to hide them from my feed so I wouldn't barf on my keyboard. Unless you are Gordon Ramsey or that Nigella Lawson (she's hot), NO FOOD PICTURES. PLEASE.

I would use it exclusively.

Story of my life. My checking account is proof enough.

This happens when Husband calls to ask how my attempts at dinner are going.

Calculate your cougar age: Divide your age in half and add 7. So, for me, if I were lusting after anyone 28 or younger, I am definitely in cougar territory. Then again, if I looked as good as THAT ^^^^^^^, I wouldn't bother with the math. I would just flash my boobies to EVERYONE. P.S. How rough was that tree bark under her ... never mind.

You feel smarter now, don't you ... you're welcome.

Next week, we will have lots to giggle about because I am trading a photography session for an elliptical. I shoot the photos; I get a new elliptical. Which means I have to exercise. For real. If you don't hear from me for a while, I may have pulled all the muscles. Send help.

Have a great weekend. Shout out to all the veterans who have fought for freedom and righteousness, including this hunk of love, my oldest boy. Love you, brat.

Now call your mother. She worries.

Xs and Os ...

Random: Without Method or Conscious Decision. I Give You ... Wednesday

Ready for random?

Good. Let's get to it.

It comes around to my attention that I am due for a blog post. Thank you, gods of guilt, for reminding me that I am witless of word, the dawdler of diatribe, the procrastinator of peroration. Honestly, though ... what is there to say.

I get up.

I get the kids up.

Chocolate Cheerios in my bowl. I eat them, before the kitten does.

Sometimes I shower. Pull on the jeans that don't grab at my girl parts.

And then I don my devil horns and begin anew with bathing other people's manuscripts in red ink.

In the kitten's defense, this DOES look like cat food.

SO. MUCH. EXCITEMENT.

Although the sun has graced us these few odd days with its presence, which MEANS ... I walked. As in ... WAIT FOR IT ... EXERCISE. (I finished the latest draft of my book three weeks ago; as a treat, I bought myself new walking shoes. Reeboks. Pink and gray ones. Because my ass is too big, and  my DNA structure has mutated to where I am now part hippo, part sloth. No bueno.) I take my body OUT of doors, to a track, wherein I proceed to sweat alongside a wordsmithy friend while we discuss the Very Important Aspects of Life, including whether Britney Spears should be pitied because she is bipolar and her skanky family just wants her money, and whether Reese Witherspoon will recover from her recent disorderly conduct arrest by going on Saturday Night Live, where she will make fun of herself (UPDATE: she canceled appearances on Fallon and GMA post-arrest -- me thinks SNL might be a little much), or whether Justin Timberlake really is that charismatic in person (my friend votes no, but that boy can do some comedy -- I do love the influence of Andy Samberg on little JT), or if it really is helpful for one's circulation to flagellate the body post-workout like all the old Asian men at the track do (seriously, they walk, and then they go into the stands and beat the hell out of themselves. My friend, married to a Canadian-Chinese man who's actually Italian, says that it is supposed to open chakras or whatever the Chinese equivalent is. I'm NOT being racist -- I'm just not Chinese, and I don't know the right word. Oh, WAIT! The word is meridian! Right? I remember! Okay, so, someone look into this and get back to me).

What else do we talk about? Omigod, not being able to sleep, why people overuse the word "gaze" in their writing, how you should NEVER overuse the word "gaze" in your writing, how _______________ the government is being this week, whether we should move to Nova Scotia because we could buy a 3000-sq. ft. house with a real yard for the cost of a bachelor condo in Vancouver. I mean, what do YOU talk about when you're exercising?

We talk about our kids. Now's the part where I tell you something clever and witty about them. As my kids are a bit older, I don't have any unfortunate barfing baby or saggy diaper stories; my blouse hasn't lately become soaked in the middle of the deli lineup from exuberant lactation when someone else's baby started crying; I didn't get into a brawl over the last parking spot at Gymboree**. There are plenty of blogs that cover this stage of life. I'm done with it. THANK PICKLES. We've moved on, to the part where my 11-year-old has decided on a career as a comedian, which means he took a "personal day" Monday to study a comedy-writing book and then walked around the house all day practicing his "material" on us while we tried to work. *pats top of blond child's head* "Funny joke, Bren. Keep working on it." YES, we let him listen to Patton Oswalt because Patton is The Master. STOP JUDGING ME. (You, in the corner ... YOU ... your kid has the sense of humor of a pond stone, so ssshhhhh and go back to coloring in the lines.) But our lad recently made the select-A soccer team again, third year running, so he's allowed to be awesome and work on his comedy. If only until we stop laughing.

And the Comedy Kid? He hates bees and balloons. And we saw both in the same place, celebrating the grand opening of a new local drugstore. THIS IS FOR YOU, BRENNAN:

Bee + balloon = Brennan bad dream.

((** I did, however, have a near smackdown with a stupid woman in a BMW SUV a few years ago. She was honking at me to go, but there were children in front of me, so go I could not or else -- vehicular homicide. I got out of my car and gave her WHAT FOR. In front of pretty much the entire high school crowd. They were laughing. So much for being badass.))

Speaking of comedy, Pretty Princess just finished her first year of college, so I've been Queen Nag: "Don't you have to work today? You know, you're not going to sit on your ass for the next four months, in jammies until 2 p.m. GO DO SOME WORK AND MAKE SOMETHING OF YOURSELF." Subtext: "Or else you will end up like your mother, fresh out of therapy, totally out of clean underwear, and still in her jammies at 2 p.m." Nah, she's all right. She didn't flunk out this first year (at least I don't think she did), her entertainment blog is almost a year old and still going strong (TrulyLuminary for you newbs), and she's been chosen for leadership training at her job. If you're ever in the area and you want to stuff a bear and buy it a matching tutu, Yaunna is the elf in the denim shirt. No, really. She's an elf. She's 19 and 4'8". ELF. And sometimes, she's an angry elf. For real. Like when she reads this blog post and realizes I'm totally making fun of her. IN THE NAME OF COMEDY.

The Angry Elf (Miles Davis, aka Peter Dinklage), before he became the Master of Coin, Tyrion Lannister.

My oldest boy is a year out from his tour in Afghanistan and finally out of the U.S. Army, now in college. I. So. Proud. Except he drinks too much (crappy) beer and worries too much about women. SON, STOP. Listen to all of us old people. There's plenty of time for carnal knowledge AFTER you have a decent-paying job, after your brain grows in, which should be at around, ohhhh, say, 28, 29? If you're lonely, get a magazine. Look, but no touch. What have I been telling you all these years? "Girls are evil." Trust Mommy. Mommy's a girl. She knows these things.

Aaaaaaand the baby ... what can be said? He started gymnastics. His hair is curlier than a freshly permed circus clown. He is too skinny but won't eat and yet still has the energy of a nuclear reactor. Poor lad is getting braces next month. He's recently learned both pages of the Legend of Zelda theme song in piano class. And he's smarter than I am.

So, for all of you wondering what writers talk about when they are not writing, YOU HAVE BEEN EDUCATED. Stunning, I know. But I received an email recently where the gal asked if I would be answering the email, or if my assistant would be. I might have choked a little on my coffee. Assistant? If you mean an overcaffeinated four-month-old kitten named Nuit, then YES, my assistant will likely answer you back. But if she's busy chasing her tail or attacking her crabby 11-year-old Maine Coon brother or the morbidly obese beagle, chances are I will be answering your email.

My assistant, beating down an unruly roll of paper towels. THANK YOU, NUIT.

SPEAKING OF: I heard from a college kid named DANIELLE the other day who was interested in Sleight's sequel because she and a few other folks are reading the original (read: self-published 2011 version) book for their college class. How ADORABLES is that?!?!? Danielle, you made my day, pretty girl. Thanks for emailing. And like I told you via email, Sleight will be all shiny and pretty. Eventually. One day. I promise. And YES, there will be a second book. Only it will be an answer to this latest version of the story, which I finished three weeks ago. Did I mention that I finished this draft three weeks ago? Just wanna make sure you heard me. (THREE WEEKS.) And no, I haven't looked at it since.

WHAT I AM READING (and have now decided that Libba Bray is a goddess):

BOOKS BOUGHT THESE LAST FEW WEEKS, for myself and the kids:

And Kendi & I are reading this one right now:

Gaiman's name starts with a G, just like GENIUS.

Any Game of Thrones fans here? DID YOU WATCH THIS WEEK'S EPISODE? Holy Mother of Dragons! God, I am so in love with Khaleesi. #girlcrush

And THIS is the best SomeEcard I've seen in MONTHS:

No, seriously. SO happy.

And what Jenn post would be finished without a dedication to The Man of My Fanciful NSFW Dreams, Mr. MarkStrong, WHO, BTW, has a new series coming out on AMC this summer (after Breaking Bad) called Low Winter Sun. And because I really have nothing better to do (cough cough), Yaunna showed me the magic of Tumblr, how, if you put your search terms into the magic magnifying glass box, you can find All the Pictures of MarkStrong. I might need an intervention. But not yet. Give me a few more minutes. (P.S. When you guys read the newest version of Sleight, this obsession will become crystal clear.)

Thank you, House Elf, for making this pretty banner for Mommy. Ssshhh, don't tell Daddy.

Be safety, and have a grand week. Or month. Please do comment and let me know what you're reading. I AM SO LONELY HERE ALL BY MYSELF WITH ONLY PICTURES OF CHEERIOS AND MARK STRONG.

Xs and Os ...

P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SHAKESPEARE! He turned 449 yesterday. I ate ice cream. Don't worry -- I ate enough for you too.