So I’m waiting in line at the cafeteria during my lunch hour (well, more like lunch-10-minutes). There are several ‘bars’ of food choices set up – I was virtuous and went for turkey and steamed broccoli. The line was empty except for the man in front of me, and he was what I refer to as a close talker.
You know the type. If they come up to you to speak, they’re within two feet of your face. They brush up against you when on the walking path (even though there’s plenty of room otherwise). They lean in uncomfortably close, and they proceed to shout in your face. Or stare at your boobs (though guys might not have this problem). They’re in your face so much that you can feel their breath touching your face, or (in really bad situations), the spit from when they are talking.
I’ll be honest – close talkers baffle me. Perhaps because I am intensely conscious of other people’s space, or just intensely conscious of others, period. So I don’t understand the mentality. WHY would you invade someone’s space like that? I have to assume they don’t know better, because the thought of someone doing it on purpose is a little, well, creepy.
This particular guy was leaning over the buffet windows to talk to the employee there. “I want the turkey,” he told her, and leaned his arm OVER the buffet windows so he could point at it (because, you know, no one can point at something on the other side of glass. Sigh). The woman takes a step back (and so do I) and he continues to wave his hand on the other side of the glass, pointing out his vegetables. “I really like carrots,” he tells her, and he’s so close to the glass that I can see his breath fogging on it.
(Dude, that’s when you know you’re too close. Really.)
Anyway. He takes his lunch and disappears off into the cafeteria wilds, but I’m left wondering…how exactly does one become a close-talker? Is it in your genetics? Originally I thought he might be hard of hearing, but I’m half deaf (no lie) and while I talk loudly, I don’t close-talk. So that can’t be it every time. Are these people just born without a sense of space? Missing their conjoined twins? Or do they grow up in confined areas and thus don’t know how to use the full sidewalk?
(I momentarily have a vision of children being raised in rows of cages, much like puppy mills. Close-talker mills?)
At any rate, I just thought this was a bit of weirdness I could share. That, and I’m probably going to put a close-talker in my next book. Just because it’s uncomfortable for my heroine. 
Anyone have any bizarre quirks they’ve added to a book after seeing someone exhibit it in person?
Mirrored from Jill Myles Dot Com.
DUDE. I COULD HAVE BEEN THAT KID.
Anyhow. This probably also had a lot to do with friends that liked watching horror movies a little too much, and rounds of Bloody Mary and Ouija Boards. I was a total chicken. Still am. When I do business travel? I sleep with the lights on. Yeah. Don't tell my boss.
I've been pretty good about it in recent years. Even though my husband has a wild love for anything scary/gory, I usually steer clear of them. Most horror movies don't scare me anymore, but I do admit some leave me unsettled. And now that we have cable? I realize just how much creepy stuff is on TV. Yesterday we watched Cabin Fever, Dawn of the Dead, and nine million episodes of A Haunting, a cinematic documentary on some travel channel about 'real life hauntings'. After one particular episode that features a ranch style house (!!!), my husband yawns, looks at me and says "Time for bed!"
BED?
NOW?
Needless to say, I had difficulty going to sleep. After years and years of not being wigged out by TV, I was officially wigged out by TV. 31 years old, and I had to make sure the closet door was shut before I went to bed.
My husband, good man that he is, allowed me to hold his hand until I went to sleep.
Isn't this sad?
Furthermore, we are now recording the entire series of Ghost Hunters International, because I don't know when to stop. But dude. 14th century haunted British manor house? I am so there.
- Mood:
silly
I then had my usual dream that I have about oh, once a week. I dream that I'm laying in bed, and I'm waking up from sleep. It's so realistic that I don't realize that I'm not really awake. And I look up at the window and see a giant spider scuttle into the curtains right over our heads.
I then wake up, thrash like a wild woman, scream bloody murder, turn on all the lights and start ripping the blankets off the bed. My husband is used to this after 4 years of marriage, and does his best to calm me down.
Him: What's wrong? What's going on?
Me: There's a spider! It just climbed into the curtains!
Him: There's no spider. You were dreaming.
Me: YES THERE IS. I SAW IT.
Him: No you didn't.
Me: I did! I swear I did.
Him: How big was it?
Me: As big as my fist.
Him: Yeah. Go back to sleep.
Me: But the spider...
Him: There is no fist-sized spider on the wall. Trust me.
Me: No?
Him: No. Go back to sleep.
Me: ...I think I just pulled a muscle in my leg jumping out of bed.
Him: Sleep. Now.
After a few minutes of this, I calm down enough to realize it's a dream, lay back down and immediately go back to sleep as if nothing is wrong.
Half the time I don't even remember these dreams. It's bizarre, because I regularly dream about spiders (sometimes scorpions) dropping down from the ceiling and landing on my face as I lay in bed, sleeping. I think the scientific term is 'night terrors' and apparently they run in the family. I know that's true because my mom and sister have them as well.
It probably has something to do with dreaming itself. I dream very vividly (and very bizarre stuff) and a lot of the time I remember my dreams, and if I don't like the way they're heading, I either change my dream or wake myself up to start over. So I think this has something to do with the night terrors.
Luckily my husband is an understanding sort. He's always able to calm me down when I wake up, rabidly babbling about spiders landing on my face and such. Apparently I carry on entire conversations in my sleep as well, and tend to stretch my arms in the air as I sleep (reaching for the ceiling).
I suppose it could be worse. I could be a boring sleeper, right?
- Mood:
amused
All right, so the gym was surprisingly fun. Working out + friends > Working out at home on treadmill.
I'm not sure about this middle of the day thing. I'm done, I'm showered and purty now, but I am hot as all get out, my hair now looks like ass (boo hair) and now I want a nap. heh.
I would also like to point out that in the gym? 90% of the people there were cute and toned and perfect. Myself and my two companions (new to the gym thing) seemed to have provided all the flab. Alas.
This is either a bad thing (You do not belong! Go away!) or a good thing (Someday, my ass shall be as toned as hers).
Check back in a month and see if I'm sticking with this. ;)
As I drove home from work yesterday, I was vaguely unhappy with work. I have a lot of projects on my plate, and I sighed and thought of my writing. If only I could stay home and write all day, I’d be happy.
Then, I laughed at myself. Because a year ago, if someone would have told me that I’d be a salaried employee (meaning I can leave when I want, and work from home occasionally if I want) with a fat, juicy job at a terrific company, and that I’d have no clients (!!!) and I’d spend all day preparing presentations, I would have kissed your feet and begged you to give me a chance at this job.
And now that I have it, I daydream of the day when I won’t have it. Silly.
So why is it that we’re never quite happy with what we’ve got?
I think it’s a matter of contentment. I’ve never been quite content with what I’ve got. I’m competitive – if someone else gets something, well, I want it too. If someone else gets a book contract, I want one. If someone else hits the bestseller list, I want to do the same. I want as pretty a cover as that author. As nice a car as that girl. Her website. His backlist. Etc etc.
This is generally a good thing. The whole ‘never satisfied’ thing drives me to work harder. I’ll write a little bit more this night to try and get ‘ahead’. I’ll plug out a few more ideas. I’ll promote a little harder (haha, just kidding…). I’ll throw out a few more queries, or rework my synopsis four more times.
I firmly believe that people that are ‘driven’ are some of the most successful ones. But driven people are also usually never satisfied.
My husband has told me before that I am generally the happiest, most laid-back person he knows. I am, usually. Stuff doesn’t bother me…except when it comes to writing. My writer friends think I am an obsessive nutjob. And I am, when it comes to the writing career.
It’s all perspective. My mind is permanently set in the “Look how far you have to go” mode, rather than “Look at how far you’ve come.”
So I’m going to try and appreciate a bit more. Cause darn it, I appreciate my dayjob that lets me leave at 4:30 if I feel like it (and has no clients! Whee!). And I appreciate how far I’ve come in my writing career so far.
Maybe I should tape my first query letter to my monitor (and the subsequent form rejection it received) to remind me. Look at how far you’ve come, moron!
Quick Metrics for Heat:
Word Count: 23k out of an estimated 85k (woot!)
Mean Things: Return of the big bad. Some blood and violence.
Nice Things: A naked man to the rescue.
Things I need to fix, stat: I just wrote a scene where someone is rescued from certain death, and then instead of the big dramatic emotional response, the characters have a nice, polite conversation. Whoops.
Things to think up for the next writing session: I need some hunky, masculine names, stat!
Currently Reading: Nalini Singh’s MINE TO POSSESS. Yum yum.
- Mood: silly
True story - I was at the grocery store tonight. I grocery shop with a mission - I have my list, and I zoom through the store as fast as I can. I hate shopping. It's a personal challenge of mine to see if I can buy a week's worth of groceries in under 30 minutes (and all of it not be frozen pizzas, of course).
So I race into the toilet paper aisle and stop.
There's a woman in front of me - short, squat, in dirty clothes, and she appears to be fiddling with her rather large breasts - at least, this is how it looked from the back. This perturbed me. Okay, no big deal. I grab the pack of toilet paper I always buy and zoom around her.
"You shoulda been here last week," she says to me, forcing me to turn around and acknowledge her presence.
I turn. Yep, she's not wearing a bra. And she cannot get away with it. I put on my polite face, because I'm only a bitch on the inside. "What happened last week?"
"A sale! With coupons!" she says, and then proceeds to regale me with stories of how she bought seven or eight twelve-packs of toilet paper and now had enough to last her for at least a year.
I am smiling and nodding and steering my cart further down the aisle, closer to the paper towels (the only other pit stop in this aisle, and then sweet freedom).
She looks at my toilet paper choice, and then back at the display. "Have you ever tried the Cottonelle Aloe? Is it...you know..." and she waved her hands a little.
That made me speechless. What am I supposed to tell her? "Yes, the aloe is super soft on my butt-cheeks! Go for it!" But I remained polite and told her I'd never tried the aloe. And tried to get away again.
I grabbed my paper towel of choice - Viva something or other. She steers her cart up behind me and cackles. "We use the same kind of paper towels too! I love that kind!"
I am still being polite, so I smile. "Me too."
"They're such tough towels, you can keep using them over and over again."
I falter. "What?" I am picturing all the horrendous ways to RE-USE a disposable paper good. None of this is a pleasant mental image.
"You know. Like if you wash your hands or wipe something down. You just leave it out to dry and then you can reuse it again shortly."
Riiiight. I grabbed a box of kleenex nearby (desperation shopping) and gave her another polite smile and babbled something inane.
She looked at my Kleenex choice. "That's not the one I use." She almost sounded sad. "I use Puffs."
"Sorry," I said, seeing my chance to escape and racing with my cart down the aisle. "I'm a Kleenex girl!"
#
Obviously I have to work on my glower. I must look too approachable in the paper-goods aisle.
- Mood:
odd
I can't go into specific details because everything in my world seems to be Top Seekrit lately, but things are going well.
Yesterday was just about the breaking point. I knew it was going to be a bad day when a bird ran into my car antenna and clipped itself on the way to work. I checked my review mirror and saw the poor thing fluttering in the road, and I braked to go and get it (like I knew what I was going to do with a wounded bird, but I couldn't leave it there). The car right behind me? Ran right over it. I felt AWFUL all day. I'd never run over something in my car before, and while this didn't totally qualify, it still made me guilty as hell. I caused that poor bird's demise.
That afternoon, I had a lovely client (who was not mine) call in and verbally threaten me. That was fun.
Later that day? I ran over a snake on the way home. Two animals in the same day. That has to be some sort of karma record.
I got home to find our block had been evacuated because of a gas leak. I wasn't able to get back to my house until 8:30 that night, at which point I proceeded to toss the groceries I had bought shortly after work.
Some days it just does not pay to get out of bed. Luckily, today was much better than yesterday.
And I promise I will stop being so mysterious soon.
(In other news, no writing. Video gaming, yes. Writing, no. I think I'm going to have to fiddle with character concepts a bit longer, and then try spewing some stuff on the page this weekend)
- Mood:
happy
"This is a recording from the city of XXXX. We are warning you that there is a severe weather watch going on. Please tune in to radio XXXX."
I looked outside - the sky was overcast like it had been all day, but not a drop of rain. It wasn't even that muggy. I nearly dismissed it, but decided to check on TV and see what they were saying anyhow (just call me Miss Paranoia).
It's a good thing I checked. As soon as I flipped on the TV, the stations were filled with weathermen going on and on about the 'Super-Cell' Thunderstorm overhead, and the map was filled with little yellow circles. Anyone that's lived in Tornado Alley before knows that 'Yellow Circles' = Tornadoes = Really Really Bad. The map showing the thunderstorm covered the entire Metroplex in green (which means storms) and proceeded to turn yellow and red over certain bad areas. The part over my city? Purple. Purple = bad mojo.
Cuuuute.
So I went to get the husband. "Babe? I think we should get the mattress out of the spare room." (For those of you not familiar with tornado drills, you grab a mattress and head to the bath-tub to cover up. If not a bath-tub, the most 'secure' place in your house. No windows, no outside walls. The mattress is to protect you from flying debris.)
He gave me this odd look. "Why?"
"Because there's a really damn big storm on the TV and it's right overhead and OMGIDONTWANTTODIE."
I heard a knock on the roof, like a kid had thrown his baseball and smacked our house. Then another. Then dozens. Then more than dozens. We'd hit the 'Crazy-Ass Ginormous Hail' part of a Tornadic thunderstorm.
Cue the panicked scramble.
For the next 5 minutes, we dressed, put on shoes, grabbed important documents, and yelled at each other as we tried to get everything 'necessary' into our designated 'tornado-safe' area. I had my memory stick, my cellphone and my checkbook. My husband had his computer and his Ipod. (We are such nerds). The mattress was tossed over, and we huddled next to it, listening to the news blaring in the next room. In the distance, we heard the sound of the tornado sirens.
Nothing happened. The city right next to us had a few areas decimated and lots of semi-trucks flipped over end on end, but we were unscathed, other than the cute golf-ball sized hail in the front lawn.
Kinda makes you appreciate life when stuff like that happens and you luck out, unscathed.
It totally ruined my writing mojo though.
- Location:Tornado Alley, baybee!
- Mood:
okay
Surprising. My brain is somehow stuck on the weekend. Maybe because I spent all weekend not writing (gasp!) but working on my bathroom. My husband discovered while recaulking a few loose tiles that there was a TWO INCH gap behind the tile and that it had eaten away the sheetrock behind. It was gross. I did not take a before picture, though. Darn. Anyhow, my tiles are now up on the wall (thank you Mom!) and I'm pooped. No pictures because I can't seem to find the little cord that plugs my camera into the computer.
Oh well. You'll just have to wait a few more days, Jen. Sorry!
Didn't work on my book. Felt like a bad person. But instead of my brain refilling with all kinds of ways to fix my story, my traitorous noggin has been obsessed with starting a new novel. One that requires research, but will be gloriously fun if it ever makes it onto paper. I've been playing with the idea for over a week now, and every day reveals a little more character motivation and plot.
Of course, I've got to finish my UN edits first. They're going a bit better than I thought (now that I'm into the meat of them). It's not like I'm changing the entire beginning. I'm keeping a lot of the dialogue and scene bits, but I'm...framing them differently, for lack of a better term. It's like a scrapbook. It's the same pictures, but I'm rearranging them in between the covers and putting all kinds of new, snazzy decorations around the outside to draw the eye. Yeah. Something like that.
However, it's not going to write itself while I sit here and blog, is it?
- Mood:
tired
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