A week of dull adventures

Wow, so much has been happening! First, I have finally begun tackling my revisions. Bit of advice for anyone out there in the same boat: do not read a novel by an author you admire before you attempt revising your own work. Because by comparison, your own work will now look like the kind of rash you might get on both of your legs after a month in the Amazon Basin. If you still have any legs left after falling off the sightseeing boat into piranha- and flesh-eating virus-infested waters.

Actually, no, I take that back. I'm trying to be POSITIVE. So maybe if I read Haven Kimmel before I pull up in front of the computer, it will INSPIRE me rather than give me hives on my brain. Special hives that suck the will to create from my frontal lobe.

Imagine, if you will, a decent segue here. Okay. That should suffice, no?

The other day I was driving to our local nursery yet again because unbeknownst to me, I had planted in my shade garden a horrifically poisonous, dripping-with-fungal-diseases plant that could not only wipe out the rest of my garden but also, um, ME, if I ate so much as a single leaf in my salad. This happy little plant is called monkshood, and some Canadian actor DIED last year after mistaking it for parsley in his dinner. How embarrassing, right? Anyway, I needed to get some replacement plants. While waiting for traffic at a red light I heard a lilting, jubilant song coming from ... well, I didn't have a clue as to its origination. It seemed to be coming from all around me.

And immediately I wanted to break something in close proximity to my fists because I knew, I just KNEW it was the ice cream truck, trundling somewhere behind me, taunting me. I've written of the ice cream truck before, and let me tell you. It is slowly destroying my will to live. If they don't change the song and/or route soon, there may be another police standoff in my neighborhood. Bomb pop, anyone?

As I drove on, the song followed me. Good Christ on a Flaming Scooter, the ice cream truck was everywhere I went!!! I looked in my rearview mirror. No ice cream truck. I began to worry I was losing my mind. Perhaps the ice cream song had actually embedded itself into my brain and I'd never get it out. No horror could be greater. If ever there was an excuse for stabbing forks in one's ears in order to self-inflict some immediate brain damage, this was it.

The happy jingle eventually drifted off and I arrived at the nursery, parked my car, and ... there it was again! Coming from ... my purse.

Remember how I told you I just got a new cell phone? Well, that buoyant tune was nothing more than the sound of ... my "unknown call" ring tone. It was a wrong number.

I wish blogger had sound effects, because that would have been a great spot for a vaudevillian / Benny Hill / Laugh-In punchline tune. BA-DA-BAH-buh-duh-buh! "And that ain't AAAAAALLLLL!"

Last week I also saw the Gufs in concert. Nothing exciting or funny happened there, except for my best friend and I acting like twelve year-olds when faced with the actual opportunity to chat with the cute bassist. "I'll buy a CD if you talk to him." "No, YOU talk to him! It's your idea!" "No, I'm only going up there if YOU talk to him. You're the outgoing one!"

We totally chickened out and scrammed.

This Saturday I'll be speaking to the Oshkosh Writers' Group at the Oshkosh Public Library at 11, if you're in town. And then next Tuesday I leave for the Riding with Larry Resnick road trip. For a whole, blessed week. See, the idea is to follow the path my characters do on THEIR road trip out west. I'll post another update before I leave. I may get to meet this lovely and talented writer during one of our stops. Which would be a very cool thing indeed.