Still No Bouchercon Post!

As mentioned earlier, we have a new dog. The previous dog was something of a trial, even before her multiple (and hellishly expensive) illnesses, but she was beloved. Even though my childhood was most peripatetic, we always had dogs. My father even gave me a dog (an act that served to mitigate a host of his sins over the years), but Winnie was and will be, I know, the dog that I will remember best. I wonder if it has less to do with the animal and more to do with the period of your life with that animal. Winnie grew up with my kids, and when I think of her I think of my daughter at eight, an impossibly articulate and sweet child, and my son at four, an impossibly impish and sweet child.

Bear's putting up a good fight though. He's much easier to train, he's smarter, he's more destructive in some ways--incalculable hours and money spent in the garden + 1 puppy = major fail--but he's not Winnie. He tries, but, no it's not the same. But it's good enough.

One aspect of owning a new pup is that "I've been in a crate all night I want out factor." It's a little like baking again, being up way before the sun, but we've compromised at 6:30 am and he's pretty good about that. Those mommy genes, oh how I hate thee. He starts banging at the metal gate to his crate and I can't help but get up. My husband never hears him. I'm not complaining (too much).

This morning I'm up at 6:30 per the usual. The house is quiet except for the snores of my son. The first real rain is soaking the garden. I stare sadly at the flower beds that have been Bearorized and that I haven't had time to clean up. I see myself out there later today trying to create order out of the mud. The bonus of losing that maple last year is now evident, as the ash is beginning to shed its leaves. The maple was a goddamn leaf producing machine that entailed devoting hours and hours to raking, yet I still mourn that tree. What a beautiful tree.

The dining room is cluttered with material from Bouchercon so in addition to the garden I need to recycle what's not important and file what is. I bought four books by an author that had been recommended to me and now I discover I don't like her style. I'm not happy.

I've finished the last of the edits on new book. Although ridiculously pleased with it, I know that marketing it will be a total bitch and that I might end up putting it up on my blog just for the hell of it. I'm stymied what to do next. Young adult are the only thing selling these days, and I have an idea for that... Bouchercon usually hypes me up, but this con was so depressing in so many ways that I'm left a little battered and wondering about my future as an author.

Oh, the rain has stopped. Bear has dragged in a bunch of pine cones. And a gigantic root that used to have flowers attached to it. Sigh.

The sad case of the slacker blogger

Yeah, it's been a while. I've been distracted. The dog lovingly referred to as the disease magnet contracted a massive eye infection that has resulted in meds that are reaching the stratosphere in terms of dollars. It was like having a newborn, I kid you not. For three weeks solid I was setting my alarm clock every night to med her up every three hours. The good news is that she won't lose her eye. The bad news is that she's blind in one eye. And oi, the diabetes factor and the not-healing factor that goes along with it, and, cripes, I hate diabetes. It's too involved to go into here, but there really is a post lurking in me about dogs, unqualified love, and how much is too much to spend? We reached that point thousands of dollars ago, but... Ugh.

Then one of the parental units had a major illness. He's okay, but it dregged up a lot of stuff about my relationship with my "real" father and my relationship with my stepfather and how I mourned my real father for the father I wish he'd been, and I will mourn my stepfather because he was actually a father to me. You know, came to graduations, etc. That sort of thing. Anyway, he's doing well, back walking his two miles a day, mentally as sharp as a tack, so I don't have to face that just yet. But suckage on a massive scale for a few days.

Then I'm having my post-book existentialist crisis about writing. Won't go into the boring details, but I've just upped my hours at work to help pay for college-age kidlet and I have about twenty books I want to write and no time. And the book business is a BUSINESS (as this blog will attest) and where do I go from here? I don't know. Still mulling this one over.

I am disappointed with Obama and the current stance on the DOJ memos. At least they released them, although they have made it clear that they have no intention of prosecuting those who violated our Constitution. Don't get me started on the wire-tapping. I have become a Glenn Greenwald fanatic over on salon.com. You should too.

I am boycotting amazon.com. Yes, another long post that won't see the light of day, but this has not seen much print (although online it seems to be a huge story, largely in part thanks to Twitter), but essentially amazon.com has been, for a GOOD LONG WHILE, disabling the search capability, deranking, and refusing to publish sales stats for books that deal with GLT issues. FYI, they deranked "Brokeback Mountain" by Annie Proulx! They are claiming it is a recent phenonmena and are blaming it on some poor French programmer (which in doubt, blame the French!) mucking around with the code of their filtering script, but based on the number of blogs I have read on this subject, they've been quietly doing this for yonks. I've been visiting the amazon site for a few days and an apology has yet to appear. I order a ton off of amazon (yes, while supporting the indies as well), but a letter from me will be forthcoming. I was sad to see that this didn't make headlines in the S. F. Chronicle. I disagree with the concept of filtering ANYWAY and this sneaky behind the scenes attempt to control what I buy and what I don't buy is unacceptable. What, your five-year old is going to bring up salacious titles? SO? Another instance of an organization pandering to the right wingnuts, as opposed to putting the responsibility of where all this belongs. With the parents! I'm sure that Borders will appreciate my business. amazon continues to deny that this was nothing more than a glitch, and evidence keeps mounting that, no, it isn't.

And as I'm light on my own book news, I'm going to start posting my book recs here. I don't read as much as I used to, but I can usually tear through a book in a couple of days. Book rec one to follow!