Night at the Museum DVD, check. Emma Darcy’s The Billionaire’s Scandalous Marriage, check. Donuts, check. Pizza, check.

Attach Miss Lonely Hearts to email. Click Send. Wave goodbye to The Book That Nearly Broke My Brain.

And if I ever say, “Wouldn’t it be fun to write one of those Wodehousian comedy caper everybody plotting against everybody else kind of books?” again, I hope somebody clubs me over the head repeatedly until the idea goes away. It would be less painful.

Rain stopped last night. Huzzah! So of course we had to hit the trails this morning, after everybody was clean, fed, dressed, and we parents had enough caffeine. Two days of being cooped up inside while it poured outside had us all cranky and bursting to get out. Had a nice 2 plus mile trek, the husband and toddler photographed some wildflowers, and then we got kids down for naps and I went back to Miss Lonely Hearts.

It’s been more work than any other book I’ve ever done, by a long long long shot, but I’m happy with it now. I can honestly say it’s a better book than Love and Rockets, and that won a nice award, so I’ll feel good about letting this one loose on the world.

My final editing pass has gone well, still working at the last two chapters, and then it’s off to the Evil Editor. I can see her weeping over the adverbs now. (I uprooted many, but they grow like weeds.)

It’s raining. It’s been raining for so many hours straight (we’re talking days) that I’m starting to feel like that character in the Ray Bradbury story on Venus where it rains all the time, trying to tell the other kids what it was like on Earth when she saw the sun.

I actually like rain, but not continuously. I like a little variety with my weather.

Anyway, aside from being fed up with rain, I have high hopes that I can present Evil Angie with a novel to edit when she returns from RT. Because she’ll probably be missing her red pen and feeling anxious to get back to work. Heh. I’m bumping along in the ending, which I’ve been doing for about as long as it’s been raining (forever, approximately), and things are going nicely. So, I’ll get back to it, pausing occasionally to scowl out my window at the rain.

1. I can’t seem to stick to the topic.

2. I forget it’s Thursday and post something else.

3. I have triskaidekaphobia.

4. OK, actually a list of 13 just seems really long. How will I come up with enough things to fill the list?

5. I’m already out of ideas.

6. I need a donut. We don’t have any donuts. I need to go shopping.

7. See, I’m off topic already. I suck at Thursday 13.

8. 8? 8? I forget what 8 was for (start singing Violent Femmes)

9. Wonder if I will still remember punk music song lyrics when I’m 90 and can’t remember what day it is.

10. Oh, yeah, I already can’t remember what day it is. See reason #2.

11. What was the topic?

12. I really need a donut.

13. Hey. Donuts come in baker’s dozens. 13 can be good…

I love it! He’s perfect, and the title font is nice and spooky. A little less than a month to release!

The whale-watch hike was fun, and the husband and toddler took many pictures, but not of whales. The pod was at first beach while we were at second, and when we drove down, they’d moved on. But it was nice to hike the trail, and I’m once again impressed with the toddler’s ability with a camera.

After which, we had a discussion about the origins of the discovery that Diet Coke and Mentos will explode.

Me: Who came up with this? Somebody just decided to drop a Mentos into a Diet Coke one day?

Husband: Somebody had a Mentos in their mouth and then took a swig of Diet Coke.

Me: Why would anybody be eating a Mentos and drinking Diet Coke at the same time? Who would do that?

Husband *stares*: You’re not a guy. Trust me, that’s how it happened. And it was a guy.

Me: What?

Husband: Women think of Mentos as breath mints. Men just eat them. While drinking Diet Coke.

He’s probably right. You don’t see any women participating in the exploding Diet Coke and Mentos videos, do you?

Today is International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day. Here’s my contribution. You can find links to more stories by participating authors here.

Asylum by Charlene Teglia

SF short story, 1,098 words

Author’s note: I’d been reading about crazy mathematicians (and there are a lot of them), and thought: what if? What if there was a special asylum full of mathematicians? What if they weren’t actually crazy? And this futuristic little story is the result. Hope you enjoy it.

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