Catch Up

The past couple of weeks have been very busy ones, and I've been ignoring many professional (and some personal) obligations. My fantasy for the day is that I'm going to catch up on these things, and I figured I'd start here with bringing you up to date on a variety of stuff.

The look of the blog: I love the way the blog looks now (which doesn't mean it won't get changed at some point), but I don't like how the links look, which is kind of invisible. So just now I went over to the let's change stuff place to see if I could make the links a different and more noticeable color. Only they've changed the entire let's change stuff place! And it now scares me (which isn't hard). So you'll just have to find those links on your own.

Fourth book yes or no: I've had comments left here and a goodly number of emails asking if there's going to be a follow-up to This World We Live In. The answer, at least for now, is not that I know of. My publisher has expressed no interest whatsoever; it has never come up. Granted I had to bludgeon them into The Dead And The Gone and This World We Live In, so it could just be they're waiting to be bludgeoned. If that's the case, they'll have to wait a while longer, since I have no idea what a fourth book would be like. I do have fun coming up with unusable fourth books (just as I had fun coming up with unusable third books), but the operative word there is unusable. So no fourth book unless something totally changes everything.

Blood Wounds: I haven't heard back from my editor since her initial read of the manuscript. At some point, she'll make her rewriting suggestions, and I'll return to it. In the meantime, I've given up waiting to hear as an excuse, and scheduled my annual mammogram (I told the woman making the appointment to squeeze me in, which I think is one of the great mammogram jokes, but she didn't seem to get it).

Facebook And Twitter: My friends this weekend told me I should do both. I investigated Twitter yesterday to see what it would entail (almost nothing, I grant you). Then last night, I had the pleasure to talking to a number of young people who either will be participating in the Mid-Hudson Library System's Battle Of The Books this summer or who happened to be visiting family in the area, and I asked them if they used Twitter or Facebook. The vast majority of them did neither. I take this as a sign that I shouldn't. Yay for not having to work!

New Gigantic TV Set: I have mixed feelings about my gigantic new TV set. On the one hand (and I think this is a multihand issue), it looks great in the living room. I love the new entertainment center, and the room isn't overwhelmed. So that concern has evaporated. And on the second positive hand, the hi def stuff is so gorgeous, it's unbelievable. I love watching Yankee games on it, and I'm going to go berserk with joy during Wimbledon. But the non hi def stuff looks crappy, and that includes a lot of my DVDs of older movies and TV shows. I went back to Best Buy to return something and asked a salesperson about that, and was told basically there's nothing I can do about it. Hi def TVs only look good in hi def. Also my cable box went out on Sunday, which I find a tad worrisome, since it's a special super duper hi def cable box and I don't want it to be temperamental.

My Mother And My Cat: Both are in excellent health. My mother is actually being a little more social. Marci, Carol and I had lunch with her last week, and my mother has returned to having lunch with her friends at her assisted living place on Sundays. Scooter and I have settled into a Purr On The Neck routine, which consists of his playing Purr On The Neck anytime between 5 and 6 AM. The game lasts for about 10 excruciating minutes, and then he and I both fall back asleep. Some days, like today, he plays again about an hour later, and we fall back asleep yet again. Some days, he skips the second game and lets me sleep until as late as 7:30, at which point he switches from Purr On The Neck to Bite The Hand That Should Be Feeding Me. He's not much of a lapcat, he's at the age where sitting on the newspaper when I'm trying to read it is his idea of a great joke, and on occasion, he finds attacking my foot to be positively irresistible. And yet I love him. I love my mother too, but that's easier, since she almost never sits on my newspaper or attacks my foot.

Books I've Read and Movies I've Seen: Nothing, nothing. Although I did buy a book on Saturday (Lonelyhearts- The Screwball World Of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney by Marion Meade) and I reserved a novel from the library (I'd tell you what and who, but I've already forgotten). When my friends were up this weekend, we didn't go to the movies, which we almost always do. We did, however, watch Category 6 on whatever it is they call the Sci Fi Channel these days. Sunday night, because I didn't have cable, I watched my DVD of Category 7, which was even better.

Adam Lambert Concerts: I've been to one and a quarter, and loved them both. I have another one to go to at the end of the month, and on Friday, I'll try to get presale tickets for a newly scheduled concert in Albany. That one is end of August, so it'll be fun to go after a couple of months of not having seen him. In July, I'll being going to Bethel Woods to see the New York Philharmonic, Celtic Woman, Boston Pops and the Moody Blues (that's four separate concerts, in case you were concerned). So it's going to be a very musical summer.

Well, I think that brings you up to date. Which means I should start attacking that pile of emails. Or I could go to the supermarket. Hark! I hear the siren call of the mangoes. "Buy me. Buy me. Buy me right now."

The emails will just have to wait!

ETA (the mangoes are waiting a few minutes also): I did read a book recently. Innocent by Scott Turow. And the book I reserved from the library is The Dead Lie Down by Sophie Hannah. You know, I actually enjoy reading books. I should definitely do it more often.