We walked the narrow path beneath the smoking skies

Posted on | 1 month, 1 week ago, in the early evening | 14 Comments

On Saturday, the husband and I swung by NorwesCon and hung out in the bar for the evening. It was great! I wore my new hat, kicked around with Kat, had a few drinks, and saw a lot of locals – including new Seattle local Shanna Germain. We also had a number of awesome out-of-towners join us, among them, Mary Robinette Kowal, Stina Leicht and Denny Upkins.

It was an excellent night, with excellent company.

________

Lately I haven’t done enough writing to warrant mentioning it, so I’ll skip the word metrics for now. In my defense, this whole “planning a big-ass move” thing can really eat up brain cells, I tell you what – even though we’re still over two weeks away from showtime.

I know this will all be worth it in the end, but I am not looking forward to carrying big heavy boxes. I am not looking forward to the drive.

And I am especially not looking forward to making the drive with one outraged, indignant animal on board.

Spain the Cat is terrible in a car. Every waking moment in transit, she acts like she’s being beaten with a sock full of pennies – when in fact she is riding in a spacious, sturdy, well-ventilated carrier* … snuggled on her favorite Comfy BlanketTM and surrounded by some of her most reassuring squishy toys.

Here. I give you a voice post from the road in 2006, at the start of my journey to Seattle. BEHOLD the HELLCAT. And yes, she did that the entire time she we were on the road. I kept thinking her voice would give out eventually, or she’d get tired and take a nap. Nope! It was all cat protest music, all the time, all the way to Washington.

For this trip, we’ve come to our senses – and we’re heading to the vet to nab some kitty knockout drops. NAY, ALL OF THE KITTY KNOCKOUT DROPS. I want this little monster to snooze halfway to the Mississippi River, and I’m sure my husband will be happiest that way too – after all, he’ll be stuck with her at least half of the trip.

I am only human, and I’ve already had to do this once, coming west. I cannot seriously be expected to have her riding shotgun all the way back east, too.

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And now for one of my peculiarly popular and utterly pointless television roundups. Ahem.

Still not interested in Once Upon A Time anymore, which frankly pains me. I wanted to care about it, but the characters just don’t make a damn bit of sense and now I’m bored. So I’m officially calling my interest in that one All the Way Dead.

But I’m back on the Grimm bandwagon, much to my own surprise. I skipped it for a few weeks, then caught a new episode and kind of liked what I saw. This having been said, if it were up to me, I’d kill off Nick and Juliette both, and make the show about Monroe and Rosalee running that fabulous little store together – solving mysteries and fighting crime among the supernatural population of the Pacific Northwest. I would watch the shit out of that.

In other news, the husband and I finally caught up on Justified and hot damn, I love that show. I avoided it for a long time, mostly because I didn’t really care to watch Hollywood make fun of Appalachia for an hour at a time … since that’s how I assumed it’d play out.

But no! It’s clever, funny, tense, and surprising. I love how it’s not actually the Raylan Show, and no one is more confused by that than Raylan. I love all the badass women. I love Limehouse. I love Boyd, and if you’d told me I’d come to love Boyd after I’d seen only the first couple of episodes, I would’ve laughed in your face.

And that’s mostly what I love: I love how this show has a knack for subverting my expectations. I am hopelessly charmed by it, because every time I say, “Man, I hope the writers know what they’re doing,” it turns out that they do. Which makes for a happy, happy Cherie.

Except that now we’re all caught up, and we have to wait for new episodes like ordinary mortals. Ah, well.


* Cat carriers usually are “rated” for cats up to ten or twelve pounds. Spain the Cat is, um, bigger than that; she’s a Maine Coon mix with what could best be described as a “sedentary” lifestyle. Her carrier is made to hold mid-sized dogs.

Category: misc

Get down, get undressed, get pretty

Posted on | 1 month, 1 week ago, in the late afternoon | 4 Comments

First up: Many thanks to those of you who passed around the link to yesterday’s GET IT OUT OF MY STORAGE AREA book sale – and many thanks also to those of you who bought books, of course! I got rid of pretty much everything I meant to sell – by which I mean, I unloaded three full boxes of miscellaneous books upon you fine people. And those are three boxes I do not have to carry to Tennessee. So when I say “thanks,” I really mean it.

Also, I think I probably raised enough money to pay for our hotel stays on the cross-country drive. So there’s some gravy, yeah.

So I’m calling that sale a success, and calling it finished. Please no more requests for books. There are no more books for sale at this time. My apologies if you missed it.

Everyone who completed the paypal instructions: Your books are either in the mail, or going into the mail tomorrow. Those of you dibbed books but did not pay (only a couple of people – no big deal), your books are going back into my personal stash. Sorry.

Anyway!

Next in the queue: Here’s recent progress on my comic/sci-fi young adult project where a girl becomes a ninja and fights aliens with much ass-kicking and many LOLs but not a whole lot of kissing (or any kissing, to be frank) plus BONUS Bruce Lee’s ghost, a vintage Thunderbird, zenlightenment on the fly, and fat stacks of Cool Ranch Doritos.


    Project: Ninja Planet
    Deadline: Sooner or Later
    New words written: 2260 (nothing to write home about.)
    Present total word count: 32,182 words



    Things accomplished in fiction: Formulated A Plan. Picked nose in front of a poorly hidden camera to entertain self while men in an unmarked van went, “Ew.”

    Things accomplished in real life: Went to post office three times because hot damn, that was a lot of books to mail; did laundry; cleaned house a bit; dealt with plumber (rather briefly); spent my lunch hour with my (out-of-town) friend’s cat; went to Walgreens; cleaned out storage area downstairs; got inbox down to zero, though now it’s not zero anymore, so oh well.

Category: misc

Cherie’s Load-Lightening Fund

Posted on | 1 month, 1 week ago, around lunchtime | No Comments

Due to the strong response to yesterday’s “HAY GUYS WANT SOME BOOKS?”, I took the opportunity to sift through my author copies while doing laundry – deciding what to keep, and what to offer up to the internet.* This undertaking was a bit of a revelation; I found books I didn’t know I had, and didn’t find books I was 100% confident I possessed. But such is the way of things.

I don’t intend to unload every single tome, mind you. I’m holding back a number of books for myself – but some of this overflow really has to go.

In the future, when I have a whole attic in which to spread out, I’m sure I’ll be a little more sticky-fingered. But not right now. Not when the prospect of carrying boxes and boxes of books out of the basement and then moving them 2500 miles only to lug them up a flight of stairs into an attic … just sounds too damn daunting.

So here’s how this will work:


  • I will list the books for sale, and how much each copy will cost. If you want one/some, send an email to cherie.priest@gmail.com telling me which title(s) and how many.

  • This is strictly first-come, first-served – so don’t send me money or anything until I can check the stash and make sure I’ve got what you’ve asked for.

  • If the book(s) is(are) available, I’ll tell you how much you owe … at which point you paypal me that amount. (To that same email address.) Yes, paypal. I’m sorry, but that’s all I’m taking right now.

  • When you pay via paypal, make a note to tell me how you’d like the book signed. If you don’t tell me anything specific, I’ll just sign it and ship it.

  • I will pay shipping/handling, which means these books be coming at you via media rate. If you want books, you buy them at your own risk – trusting both me and the Post Office to do our respective jobs. And I can only vouch for myself.

Got it?
Okay.

Here’s what’s on deck:
(US editions unless otherwise stated)

[Edited to add: Sorry - the sale is over! All sold out!]

No, I do not have any stray copies of my steampunk books available at this time. My apologies.

Anyway, I will try to update this post as copies sell out – but I have some errands to run today, so it might not be completely current at any given moment. (That’s why you email first, in accordance with the directions.)


* We have storage cubbies in the basement/laundry area. That’s where I keep my book overflow.

Category: misc
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