I know, what am I saying? Isn't shopping always fun?
Ha.
On Thursday I took the day off work (the advantage of having a from-home job - how much do I love Samhain?) and went to a shopping mall in search of a white dress. It's for a group photo, not an event, and it has to be white. It also has to be below-the-knee and fairly streamlined, not all bow-y and frilly.
The new summer stock is appearing in the shops, so I thought of course there would be white dresses. I was hoping for something with nice flowing Grecian lines, a v-neck, maybe some understated gold trim.
Instead, I found long flowing dresses in every colour but white, and long flowing white dresses with black or coffee stripes (very beautiful, as it happens, and I quite wanted to buy them) and lots of white dresses that were so far above the knee your main colour would end up being not white but flesh. So I started looking for tops and skirts instead.
And found cream tops, and long grey skirts, and extremely short white skirts, and swimsuit-coverups that were extremely see-through which would lead to the problem of being not white, but flesh-coloured. And ooh, short grey shorts and opaque black tights and black calf-high boots and cute little black tops...huh, what was I looking for again?
I tore myself away from the cute short-and-tights outfits and went looking for white tunic-tops and white trousers instead.
And I found cream tops, and extremely expensive cream trousers, and white skinny jeans that looked hideous past belief when I tried them on, and white tops that were so see-through they didn't look white once they were on. And an on-sale wedding dress. Which, to be honest, I considered, just because it was the only long white dress there. But in the end I just couldn't, because it was a wedding dress.
My back was already sore when I started out, and after some time of traipsing from shop to shop (and back to shops I'd already been to in order to look at that damn wedding dress again) and taking my clothes off and trying on different white outfits (oh my goodness, how bad did those skinny jeans look?) I was starting to feel pretty miserable. Also, I have a big spot on my cheek, and all the changing messed my hair up, and staring at yourself under hideous fluorescent lights in horrid cramped changing rooms where no one could look elegant or otherwise desirable...well, it's not good for the self-image, I can tell you that.
I started traipsing at ten o'clock. I eventually went to the first shop I'd gone into, tried on and decided to buy a white tunic and white linen trousers, both of which cost a lot more than I really wanted to pay, at half past one. Yes.
Then I got a coffee, picked up a few more things I needed (cover cream, cleansing wipes, bag to put over my bloody head), went home, grabbed some lunch, picked up Gloworm, came home, made drinks for girls, and then, because I'd taken the day off work to do all this self-torture, and despite feeling like I'd done a full day's work already, I turned on the computer and started my real work.
At which point my throat started to get sore. And now, on Saturday, I've had to go back to bed because my throat is still sore, I have a stinky cold, and I ache all over so much that I want to cry.
This came from MG Braden, who got it from Jaci Burton, who got it from Angie James. Like a friendly kind of virus. Or something.
1. If you had to choose between being covered with ants from head to toe or being stuck in an elevator for three hours, which would you choose?
Elevator, elevator, elevator. For one simple reason: elevators don't have legs. Or - ugh - mouths.
2. What is your favourite restaurant and why?
There's a place in town called Cactus Jack's, that does Tex-Mex food. Margaritas, chimichangas, guacamole and salsa and sour cream and cheese, and Sparkler's favourite vanilla icecream. I've been there for a few fun special occasions (dinner out with the Model Auntie, dinner out with the family and Abstract's mother, a date with Abstract) and it always makes me happy.
3. What is your biggest guilty pleasure?
Drinking wine and eating unreasonable amounts of cheese and crackers and watching some silly film with Abstract. It's a guilty pleasure because I wake up in the morning and start counting how many calories I've consumed. That's not too sinful, really, is it? How dull am I?
4. If you had to listen to one song over and over again which would it be?
I Don't Feel Like Dancing by The Scissor Sisters.
5. You're strapped for cash, can't pay the bills and have only two options: Pose for Penthouse or run naked down your town's main street. Which do you choose?
No question: Penthouse. Two reasons: heated studio and - hello? - airbrushing. Also, I know Penthouse pay, but I'm thinking my town council wouldn't!
If you want to be part of the interview fun, follow the instructions below:
1. Post ‘interview me’ in the comments. I’ll take the first 5 people who post. I’ll choose questions just for you (no, they won’t be the same ones I was asked).
2. Be sure to include your email address so that I can send you the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the questions and your answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will get to ask them five questions.
ETA:AJ Donovan also got interviewed by MG. Pop over to her blog to see her questions and answers!
You take an online multi-choice test, choosing whether you agree or disagree with a whole bunch of questions, ranging from the obvious ("Private charity is better than state social security") to the obscure ("Abstract art isn't art at all"), and it tells you where you fall on the political compass. Not just right or left, but authoritarian/ libertarian. So you can find out that, economics-wise, you're further right than Hitler, at the same time as being more libertarian than Gandhi. Well, in theory you could. I'm not sure what questions would lead you there.
Where did I end up? Well, let's just say that unless Nelson Mandela stands for election in Britain next year, I'm not exactly going to get what I want. Yes, I'm in that square. Go and see where you belong!
While you're there you could sign the Gaza peace petition as well, if you like...
I'm going to be taking over our family TV at 5pm UK time today, and wishing I was in America. Partly because no matter how much we might like someone like Barack Obama as our head of state, we can't have one.
The iPod Touch does everything an iPhone does, except being a phone, a camera or a GPS. Which means, for a twelve-year-old who only has a phone because her school is a bus-ride away and who certainly isn't taking an i-anything to school, it's a world of joy in an itty-bitty package. It even has wi-fi capabilities (which I had no idea of) so it synchs effortlessly with our home network. I kind of want it just cos it's so cute, but I don't listen to music on mp3 players, I don't play computer games, and I would rather get internet on Erica the red laptop than a very cute, very clear, but very small screen. So once the first joy of ownership was over, would I use it enough to justify the price? Answer: almost certainly not.
While we were choosing Sparkler's iPod Touch (bought with money from The Model Auntie, who set up bank accounts for both girls as their Christmas presents) I explored the Macbook Air. Oh my goodness. It's no thicker or heavier than a folder. I love Erica the red laptop, but compared to this thing she's like carrying round a brick. Mind you, she was also a lot less than half the price, but seriously, if I had that type of money for gadgets...
In writing news, I'm finishing up novella-in-progress Heart of the Volcano (hm, there's something not quite right with that title, but I haven't had any better ideas yet) and I'm plotting Goal-Motivation-Conflicts for Cloak of Feathers. I stalled badly on that one, probably due to trying to write it too fast, and I'm needing to work out what's going on with it before I can continue. I know the theory of "you can edit rubbish; you can't edit a blank page" but actually if it's 20,000 words of misdirected rubbish you can't edit it, you can only slash and burn. So no, no "permission to write crap". If the foundations are wrong it's all wrong. So I'm busy fixing foundations before I write any more.
In contest-related news, all the suggestions I got for retitling The Path were good, but still not quite right. And I eventually came up with one completely unrelated to any of the suggestions, which means I can't give out the prize. I'm sorry, but I'll offer the same prize nearer the anthology release date. The title I finally settled on is Scented Danger. It's kind of a pun, depending on which way you read scented, which makes me geekily happy.
In permanently-stuck-in-copy-editing-mindset news, I am annoyed by people who use curve when they mean curb ("curve your excitement" what? what?) and who think that cutting a whole tense (past perfect, in this case) out of a manuscript will make it read better. Oh of course you can cut it out, just like you could cut out all compound sentences, and a good writer would - I expect - make it work. But really, why abandon a whole section of language which serves a useful purpose?
As a small and exclusive Howsons-only New Year's celebration (we've spent the holidays zooming from one part to another of the extended family), I'm serving smoked salmon for dinner, with - for the first time ever - homemade bagels.
The recipe is here. We watched the programme before Christmas and the bagels looked so a) delicious and b) easy that I will be seriously irritated if I do them wrong and we have to eat our smoked salmon with toast instead.
In other news, we had a very busy Christmas period, everyone had some wonderful presents, I worked (mostly successfully) around the edges, and we've just found out who the new Doctor Who is going to be.
