Mickey Mantle Was A Natural Righty With A Plunger

While it's true I'm spending every waking (and a few sleeping) hours obsessing over The Shade Of The Moon, other aspects of my life do slip in when I'm not looking.

For starters, Scooter is now eating the new shower curtain. This is my 3rd or 4th since he entered my life. He nibbles more towards the faucet side, but will chomp on the opposite end as well. I'm positive this is why my bathtub drain is so slow moving.

I had been particularly pleased with the current shower curtain. First off, it was so toxic I kept it opened on the patio for more than a week before its heinous new shower curtain smell wore off enough to hang it up. I was cautiously optimistic the scent would be bad enough to keep Scooter from devouring it. Well, that didn't work.

The other reason I was so happy is it's a shower curtain with a map of the world, and since the world has changed a great deal since my last map of the world shower curtain, I figured I'd finally learn where all those new countries I keep hearing about are actually located. I like educational shower curtains (although I saw one during sleepover weekend that was rules of grammar and I draw the line).

Alas, Scooter is now digesting his way from south of Tonga to the very border of New Zealand. Should this turn into a Twilight Zone episode, my apologies to everyone in Tonga and New Zealand. I really thought the toxins would keep you safe.

On a more (or less) literary note, I finally provoked my agent into letting me know what she thought of The Offering. No fool she, she had two other people in the office read it. They all basically said the same thing, some variant of Oh My Goodness! This, alas, is not the same as Oh You're Good! although I did try to convince myself they were practically identical in spirit.

They all suggested (and quite rightly) that my poor martyr of a heroine needs to suffer a tad less and that the romance needs to be stronger. They might have suggested other things I've forgotten about (like Put Down That Keyboard And Get An Honest Job), but I'm not going to think about it until after The Shade Of The Moon has made its merry way through the publishing process.

Oh, speaking of The Shade Of The Moon and my obsessing thereof, yesterday morning I came up with a whole new scene that I love (I love it so much I may even write part of it this afternoon, although I really should be assembling my new vacuum cleaner, since I plan on cleaning the apartment tomorrow morning). The great thing about this scene is it simplifies the motivation for something truly significant in the book. Before I thought of the new scene, this is how things went: A does something to B and because of C's response, A does something to D. That's a little clunky, so now it's B does something that provokes A to doing something to B and because of B's response, A does something to D. In other words, I leave C out of it, or I will when I get around to writing all that, which will be sometime in July.

Meantime, I'm back to being concerned about my lefthanded/righthandedness. I guess it was going to the Yankee game with Todd Strasser got me thinking about it again. I can never figure out if I'm a natural lefty or righty. This time I took a flat piece of plastic (the bag my new cable box came in), and grabbed the plunger that I always keep right by the bathtub because of Scooter's shower curtain issue, and set myself up. After multiple swings, I confirmed that at least with a plastic bag as home plate and a bathroom plunger as a bat, it's more natural for me to swing lefthanded than righthanded, although it's definitely more natural for me to throw a ball (not that I have one) or hold a pen (which I definitely do) righthanded. And no, I have no idea how that piece of personal insight will in any way improve the quality of my life.

Finally, on a more personal note, my brother found the most wonderful blog entry that mentions our father, and on Father's Day no less. It's about books that influence people's lives. I'm really thrilled my brother found it; it gives enormous pleasure to him, my mother, and me.

Alas, the only thing that gives Scooter pleasure these days is the chomping down of New Zealand!