So from the day I arrived in Europe, when people asked for my itinerary, it included Swindon. And from the day I arrived in Europe, "I'm going to Swindon for two weeks," was greeted with "why?"

At the end of my (glorious, exciting, restful) stay in Glasgow, Stuart drove me and Amal to the train station, where she walked me through the process of getting my ticket and locating my train. This is more complicated than you might think, especially when it's happening in a country where you don't actually happen to live, and which is hence perpetually confusing. My friend Hisham had assisted me with the booking process and told me how to find my seat (also more confusing than you might think), and in short order I was squared away on the train, where I hugged Amal goodbye several times before settling down to watch Leverage for most of the duration of the six-hour trip.

(Kate's old iPad basically saved my sanity on long stretches of this voyage, I swear.)

I was about two hours in when a hand tapped my shoulder and there was Hisham, who had hopped on to ride with me for a while (he works for the trains). He brought me Coke Zero and cookies, thus cementing his position as one of my favorite humans. He also brought me Pokemon, and we passed a pleasant hour or so trading electronic monsters and chatting about all manner of things. It was awesome, and I enjoyed it a lot. I like friends on trains. It makes the time go faster.

Alas, eventually he had to leave me, and I finished the rest of my journey in electronic silence, pulling into the stop at Bristol Parkway about five and a half hours after I left Glasgow. Talis was waiting for me there, wearing a splendid scarf printed with bees. After hugs and happy exclamations, she helped me transfer my suitcase to my second and final train, and we rode on to Swindon, where we caught a cab to my true destination: the village of Wroughton.

Wroughton is close enough to Swindon that it was easier to say I was going there, but in reality, it's a lovely little village where everything is within walking distance (except for the big new Waitrose), and where everyone knows Talis, who has been getting more and more active in local politics over the years. I was staying in her upstairs guest bedroom, on a narrow bed that looked like an ascetic's cot and felt like the clouds of heaven. Her husband, Simon, was in France when I arrived, meaning it was just me, Talis, and their lovely daughter, Pippa, who I hadn't spent any real time with since she was a toddler.

Even the highlights of my time in Wroughton seem so big and complex that they're hard to wrap my mind around. I went to country market. I performed with Talis at the Greener Gloucester Festival. I went to two folk clubs with Talis and her singing partner, Chantelle. I ate a lot of Victoria sponge, and drank a lot of rose lemonade. I made chicken stock and then chicken soup, which was delicious. I went to Cheddar, and saw cheese being born. I stroked the two resident black and white magpie boycats.

I chased and caught so many frogs and toads, and ate eggs I had pulled from under chickens, and harvested raspberries and blackberries from the vine into my mouth, and it was wonderful. It was restorative and peaceful and glorious and perfect, and I am so grateful. So, so grateful.

I love my friends. I love my life. And I loved the frogs.

I'm going back next year.

When last we left our intrepid heroine (me), I was on a plane to Scotland, to visit Amal and Stuart for a week. Basically exactly a week, which was simultaneously a long, long time to go stay with someone I had never stayed with before, and nowhere near long enough to stay with a dear friend in a city I had never visited.

My flight was smooth and uneventful, and landed in Glasgow a little early, which was good, since it had been marred by navigation issues which caused the cabin crew to say "all electronics must be off, yes, even your Pokemon machine, yes, even your iPod." It was a sad, sad situation for a Seanan. When I landed, it became even sadder, as my phone had run out of minutes while I was in Ireland, and I thus could not call Amal to let her know I was there. I mooched back and forth in the airport for a while, sadly, until she materialized, all smiles and hugs and help with my luggage, and got me out of there.

When we arrived at the apartment, everything smelled like home. There was a chicken roasting in the oven and a pot of stock simmering on the stove, and I promptly decided that this was the best of all possible worlds. I was set up in the guest room, added to the wireless, and introduced to the two fabulous resident magpie cats. Amal quickly discovered that she could thrust things at me, and that I would then read them. This became a popular party game over the next few days.

Oh, the places we went! Oh, the things that we did! We visited the two biggest cheese shops in Glasgow, and assembled two glorious cheeseboards, including Bonnet (goat), Isle of Mull Cheddar (yellow), VJ Cabrales (DEATH BLUE), Old Lochnagar (cheddar-ish), and Dunsyre Blue, all from I. J. Mellis, and Isle of Mull Cheddar (white), Killeen (goat-gouda), Basajo (white-wine blue with grapes!), and Coulommiers (Brie), all from George Mewes. There was not a bad bit of cheese in the bunch.

I must, however, take a moment to focus on the Cabrales. This cheese was given in response to my request for an aggressive blue. "Aggressive" does not begin to cover it. This cheese was the Ghost Rider of cheeses, judging your sins and refusing to forgive them. It was so strong it was physically painful to eat more than a sliver at a time. I am in love. I want twenty pounds of it.

Amal and I walked Glasgow, enjoyed cake at Once Upon A Tart, and bought heather gems. She saw me have my first Victoria tart and my first rose lemonade, both of which engendered bliss face. We watched Doctor Who and made plans for the future and chatted about anything and everything, and it was lovely. I cooked her and Stuart goat. I snuggled their cats.

On Friday, we drove two and a half hours to Amal and I could hike off into the fields of Carterha and touch Tam Lin's well. This will be a post all of its own, and soon.

On Saturday, we went to the Scottish Owl Centre, which was perfect and sublime and like nothing I had ever done before. I want to go back.

Sunday we shopped, rested, ate, and made our farewells, and Monday morning, I got on a train bound for Swindon. It was nowhere near long enough. It was the perfect length of time. Scotland was beautiful, and its people even more so.

I want to go back.

We here on the internet are a lot like intersecting flocks of crows: constantly chasing the shiny things, and then bringing them back to the nest to be pecked at, admired, and envied. These are some things I've been brought recently.

1. Singing mice. Yes! Mice can sing. I know this, and am delighted by it.

2. Mark Reads is doing Feed. Actually, Mark Reads is doing the whole series. I drew him a nun. We have a close friend in common, so I'm pretty well-informed.

3. Many people are making many types of horrifyingly flavored candy corn, including caramel, sour apple, and worse. None of these are The One True Corn. Only candy corn, flavored like candy corn, is The One True Corn. Chocolate candy corn is acceptable in Autumn Mix, and no other time.

4. Community is awesome and I should be watching it. Well, I listened, and I'm now most of the way through season two. Y'all were right. I salute you.

5. Amy Mebberson drew Disney Princesses as the various Doctors. I have dispatched people to try and get me a print at NYCC, since I'm not attending the convention this year.

6. The Bay features tongue-eating isopods eating an entire small community. I am so excited for this movie!

7. Steampunk Disney pins, coming this November.

8. That video of a bulldog puppy whining for five minutes. Adorable.

9. There is no new Glee until November. I hate the mid-season hiatus with a burning passion, but I did notice that it was happening.

10. The Monster High dance class dolls have been released. Yes! But they're not showing up in California yet. Boo.

And those are the things I know, because I have been told about them multiple times in the last week. I hope the world is as relevant to your interests as it is to mine!

10. If you read yesterday's post about ebook distribution around the world, you may want to go back and read it again; I made some pretty hefty edits after having a contract discussion with The Agent, and I think it's more accurate now.

9. While I will not say that Joss Whedon is my master now—I remain too critical for that, and still haven't forgiven him for several things—he has made my two favorite theatrical releases of this year, Cabin in the Woods and The Avengers.

8. Although if we don't get another female hero in the sequel, I am going to be one cranky kitty. I knew that would be an issue for me going in; I was not wrong.

7. We're down to three girls on this season of America's Next Top Model, and I don't hate any of them. What? How can this be? I think the world has been intrinsically damaged by the inanity of this season's "US v. UK" concept.

6. You know what's awesome? Disneyland, that's what's awesome. You know what's better? I'm going there in two weeks, with Vixy. Are we now planning to hit every Disney park in the world? Yes. Yes, we are. Next up, Disneyland Paris.

5. Eleven days to Blackout! Who's excited? I'm excited!

4. If you somehow get an early copy, please don't tell me. There's nothing I can do about it, and it'll just raise my blood pressure. But feel free to post a review. Reviews are awesome.

3. You know what makes everything better? Poison dart frickens make everything better. Look at their tiny technicolor deadliness!

2. Jean Grey is still dead.

1. I'm seeing The Devil's Carnival tonight! Yay!

Hope you're all having a great Friday, and are looking forward to an even greater weekend.

So we survived another iteration of the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show (always a risky proposition, what with all those snakes), and now it's time to get back to normal, everyday life. Naturally, for me, this means "now it's time to start packing for Michigan." Because nothing says "restful" like jetting straight off to another convention, right? Right?!

Ahem. A few snapshot statuses, for the interested and alert:

"Wicked Girls" shirts.
Yes! They have arrived! Well...mostly. It turns out the shirt shop was out of certain size/style combinations, so my order was short about fifty shirts, which will be coming along later. How are we finding out which size/style combinations are missing? By trying to pack orders and being unable to find the associated shirts. Naturally. So shipping is being a little bit odd at the moment, and I'm filling as many complete orders as I possibly can. Feel free to email the merchandise address (the Gmail.com account that contacted you for shipping and payment) if you have questions about your specific order, or need to update your address in any way.

Ashes of Honor progress.
I now have approximately 86,000 words written on Ashes of Honor, which means I'm on target to finish my first, deeply flawed draft of the book by the end of October. At which point, the flensing will begin. The flensing has already begun, on a localized level, but the deep flense requires a wider audience. I'm actually pretty happy with the shape of this book. I finally got to bring back a lot of the cast from A Local Habitation, some questions are getting answered, and Toby eats Pop-Tarts. Life is good.

Discount Armageddon approaches.
According to my planner countdown, Discount Armageddon will be released in one hundred and fifty-five days. But, you know. No pressure or anything. I am deeply excited and deeply terrified, and getting ready to rearrange things on my website to make the InCryptid section easier to find and navigate. This means the Field Guide will also be going totally live. You, too, can live in fear of the Apraxis Wasps.

Zombies.
Are love.

Albino banana slug.
ALBINO BANANA SLUG!!!!!! He's like vanilla soft serve with eyes, and I want to love him forever, even though this picture was taken a year ago and so he's probably been eaten by an owl by now. (I know slugs are hermaphrodites. I don't care. I want to name this particular slug "Geoff," and have grand adventures with him. He is my beloved squishy friend.)

HAIL FROGLORD!
This Questionable Content strip speaks to the depths of my soul.

And that's me. What's new with you?

Item the first: remember that I currently have a random-number giveaway for Deadline and some swag gathering entries. I'll be picking my three winners tomorrow. For details on how to enter and what you can potentially win, please see the post I've linked above. Go ahead. I can wait.

Item the second: this has literally been sitting in my link soup for a year, waiting for me to find something that makes it topical. As I have failed, I am now providing the link in isolation, because it amuses me. Moshez comments on zombies and weapons, and why my Horror Survival FAQ is sometimes sub-optimal. Join me in giggling.

Item the third: while I'm linking to random crap that makes me smile, here. Have the Animal Review review of the deep sea anglerfish. They give the anglerfish an overall F for being horrifying and upsetting and not really very friendly at all. Amusingly enough, these are all the reasons I give the anglerfish an overall A. For AWESOME.

Item the fourth: I can't remember if I ever actually linked to these, despite their being, you know, mad awesome, so here. Have a link to some absolutely gorgeous icons that were made using lyrics from my latest album, Wicked Girls. The icons, which are by snowishness, cannot help but make me happy, and so I am sharing them with you.

Item the fifth: Megan Lara's art is pure hammered awesome.

Item the sixth: I managed to find the Dead Tired Frankie Stein doll last night, which means a) I now have all the individual Dead Tired dolls except for Cleo De Nile, who I'm hoping to find this weekend, b) everyone at my local Toys R Us knows me on sight, and c) I am a total nerd. I am, thus far, a total nerd who has managed to resist the lure of the ball-jointed Soom doll, however, so I'm calling this a win for me, even as I call it a loss for my shelf space.

Item the seventh: I am so tired it physically hurts. I have to sleep tonight, or I'm just going to dissolve off my own bones like an overcooked chicken or one of those airline passengers in the first episode of Fringe. I didn't sleep at all on Tuesday night, and last night was our first really hot night of the summer, so the cats kept waking me up to freak out. Please play nicely today, as I may start to tremble and cry otherwise.

What's news with you?

Berkeley, California. July 4th, 2014.

The Berkeley Marina was packed with parents, children, college students on summer break, dog walkers, senior citizens, and members of every other social group in the Bay Area. A Great Dane ran by, towing his bikini-clad owner on a pair of roller skates. A group of teens walked in the opposite direction, wearing clothes so brightly-colored that they resembled a flock of exotic birds. They were chattering in the rapid-fire patois specific to their generation, that transitory form of language developed by every group of teens since language began. Stacy Mason paused in watching her husband chase her son around the dock to watch the group go past, their laughter bright as bells in the summer afternoon.

She'd been one of those girls, once, all sunshine and serenity, absolutely confident that the world would give her whatever she asked it for. Wouldn't they be surprised when they realized that sometimes, what you asked for wasn't really what you wanted?

"Where are you right now?" Michael stepped up behind her, slipping his arms around her waist and planting a kiss against the side of her neck. "It's a beautiful day here in sunny Berkeley, California, and the laser show will be starting soon. You might want to come back."

"Just watching the crowd." Stacy twisted around to face her husband, smiling brightly up at him. "Aren't you supposed to be watching something? Namely, our son?"

"I have been discarded in favor of a more desirable babysitter," said Michael gravely. His tone was solemn, but his eyes were amused.

"Oh? And who would that be?"

Behind her, Phillip shouted jubilantly, "Oggie!"

"Ahhhh. I see." Stacy turned to see Phillip chasing Maize in an unsteady circle while Marigold sat nearby, calmly watching the action. Mr. Connors was holding Marigold's leash; Maize's leash was being allowed to drag on the ground behind him while the Golden Retriever pursued his toddler target. "Hello, Mr. Connors! Where's Marla?"

"Hello, Stacy!" Mr. Connors turned to wave, one eye still on the fast-moving pair. "She went down the dock to get us some lemonades. Hope you don't mind my absconding with your boy."

"Not at all. It'll do both of us some good if our respective charges can run off a little of their excess energy." Stacy leaned up against Michael, watching as Maize and Phillip chased each other, one laughing, the other with tail wagging madly. "Maybe they can wear each other out."

Michael snorted. "That'll be the day. I think that boy is powered by plutonium."

"And whose fault would that be, hmm? I just had to go and marry a scientist. I could have held out for a rock star, but no, I wanted the glamor of being a professor's wife."

This time, Michael laughed out loud. "Believe me, I count my blessings every day when I remember that you could have held out for a rock star."

Stacy smiled at him warmly before looking around at the crowd, the sky, the water. Phillip was laughing, his sound blending with the cries of seagulls and the barking of over-excited dogs to form just one more part of the great noise that was the voice of humanity. She had never heard anything so beautiful in her life.

"I think we should all be counting our blessings every day," she said firmly. "Life doesn't get any better than this."

"Life can always get better." Michael kissed her one more time, his lips lingering light against her cheek. "Just you wait and see. This time next year, we won't be able to imagine looking back on this summer without thinking 'oh, you had no idea; just you wait and see.'"

"I hope you're right," said Stacy, and smiled.

***

The annual Fourth of July laser show at the Berkeley Marina was a huge success this year, drawing record crowds. Replacing the firework displays as of 2012, the laser show has become a showpiece of the year's calendar, and this year was no different. With designs programmed by the UC Berkeley Computer Science Department...

When will you Rise?

And now, ladies and gentlemen...Late Eclipses [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] is officially six days from release. That's less than a week! How am I supposed to get all my freaking out finished in less than a week? Since flailing around screaming that the sky is falling doesn't help with my countdown, here are six things you may not know about me.

6. I love snakes and spiders, have no fear of sharks, and tend to giggle hysterically when I'm on a plane and it hits a patch of turbulence that makes it feel like we're going to fall out of the sky. I am, however, morbidly terrified of pudding. This translates into a fear of any type of slug that isn't so ludicrously colored as to seem like a special effect.

5. I will not go into brackish water, because of the potential for leeches. Even if I am assured that there are no leeches in the entire country, I will not go into brackish water, because of the potential for leeches. Leeches are just not okay. Thank you, Stand By Me. In an attempt to conquer my fear, I kept a jar of leeches in my kitchen for a whole year. Those leeches were okay, because they were behind glass.

4. My collection of My Little Ponies is epic and vast, and contains almost all of the larger buildings from the original 1980s run of the toy line. Yes, including the Paradise Estate, which is roughly the size of a large card table. In that misty, far-off future where I actually have an office of my very own, it's going to wind up evenly divided between research material and plastic horses. Because that's just how I roll.

3. I grew up really, really, really poor, and I read really, really, really fast. These things combined mean that I grew up a dedicated re-reader, and will read books that I enjoy five, ten, or even twenty times. My count on The Stand is somewhere in the mid-fifties. The weirdest thing about my current bounty of available reading material is the lack of re-reading. I haven't read any of my favorites in over a year, and it's making me twitchy.

2. I have these long, elaborate, lucid dreams that seem entirely real when they're going on, even down to my needing to eat and use the bathroom in my sleep. They always end when someone tells me that I'm dreaming, and while they tend to be very realistic and grounded, they also tend to involve elements of "in a perfect world," like, you know, being published. Part of me spends every day afraid someone's going to tell me I'm dreaming.

1. My childhood idols were Vincent Price, Marilyn Munster, and Doctor Who. Considering that, and considering the way my life has turned out, I don't think I'm doing so bad. And I think they'd be proud of me.

It's time for another ARC giveaway, this one requiring slightly more effort than the usual "random draw." I've noticed that there's always a spike in book orders right after I post pictures of one or more of my cats being adorable with a book (expect pictures of Thomas with An Artificial Night in the near future). So we're doing pet photography again! The rules:

1. Take a copy of my book.
2. Take a pet (your own, or someone else's, although you should ask before borrowing the neighbor's cat).
3. Take a picture.
4. Post the picture.

Entries will be taken until the morning of Monday the 24th, at which point I will use the random number generator to choose from amongst the eligible submissions. I reserve the right to award a second prize if there's a picture that just slays me, like if someone gives a copy of Feed to a tiger or gives a copy of Rosemary and Rue to a dolphin. Be creative, have fun, and show me your pets!

(Yes, small children in cat costumes count as pets for purposes of this contest, but they have to be yours.)

It's the holiday season, and nice things are vital to our continued equilibrium. Equilibrium is nice! And so I present you with some nice things, to maintain this blessed state.

First of all, The Toby Wallpapers and Icons page has been updated over on my website. You can now download some basic wallpapers and icons for Late Eclipses, as well as wallpapers and icons for Nebelbann (the German edition of A Local Habitation). Plus there's a fantastic new wallpaper/icon set for An Artificial Night, showing dear Katie, all toned in beautiful blues and whites.

Second of all, the cover for Late Eclipses has been nominated as one of the Beautiful Book Covers of 2011. While I'd love it if you'd go and vote for me, this counts as a nice thing because some of these covers are truly gorgeous, and I hadn't seen the majority of them before. I'm really excited about the books coming out in 2011! It's going to be a banner year for reading.

Third of all, because I am me and I truly do regard this as "a nice thing," here is a list of really cute animals that will seriously fuck you up if given the opportunity to do so. Hooray! Some of these animals are really cute. And all of them are really included to make you wish that you'd never been born. I tend to regard this as awesome.

Happy Wednesday!

As I've discussed before on this blog, I have OCD, which manifests itself most specifically in pattern-formation and obsessive tracking. Oddly, you can use my tracking as a bellwether for my overall mental health: If I'm tracking, I'm good, and if I'm not, I'm probably getting pretty alarmingly de-stable, and should be encouraged to start counting crows and writing down my results as quickly as humanly possible. (I saw six crows yesterday, indicating gold, in case you wondered.) I am at peace with my diagnosis, and have learned to live with my idiosyncrasies just as much as "normal" people live with theirs.

Of course, part of managing my flavor of OCD involves keeping my tracking detailed, dependable, and most of all, consistent. Which is why I depend on Franklin-Covey's planner refills to keep me from snapping and killing everyone in an unformatted rage. Only there's one small problem:

Since they unexpectedly redesigned the "Blooms" planner pages in 2005, I've insisted on going to the Franklin-Covey store in person, to be sure that what I'm getting is something I can actually use. And both California stores have been closed in the last year, resulting in great dismay and sorrow on my part.

Enter salvation, in the form of Washington, and Ryan. Because there is still one store—one beautiful, wonderful store—in Redmond. It opens at ten on Saturday mornings. Which is why, at nine-fifteen, Ryan picked me up and drove me to that glorious wonderland I often refer to as "the OCD porn store."

On the way, we saw a bald eagle. Just sitting there. Being the stone-dumb symbol of our country. DUDE WHAT THE FUCK. I mean, seriously.

Finding the store was easy, and we were the first ones there, probably because we were actually there before they opened. The manager on duty was a friendly, well-groomed blonde woman, originally from California, who said we were lucky to have come when we did, as the store will probably be closing in January. My heart broke a little. While I can understand that high-end planner products are probably more economically sold online, I always spend more in the physical stores, because I can put my hands on things, and really understand why I might need them.

Case in point: a deeply discounted orange leather purse. I opened it. I peered inside. I commented on all the pockets.

"I can put my planner in here," I said.
"Yes," said Ryan.
"I can put my Netbook in here," I said.
"Yes," said Ryan.
"I can put Alice in here," I said.
"Maybe," said Ryan.
"What's an Alice?" asked the manager.
"My cat," I said.

Ryan produced his iPhone, and produced a picture, which we showed to the manager.

"Holy crap," said the manager.

I bought the purse.

It was a glorious morning, filled with victory (and later, with pancakes). We even saw the eagle again, flying over the water, looking for breakfast. I mourn for the loss of the OCD porn store, where I never feel odd at all, just really, really efficient. And Alice does, in fact, fit inside my purse.

My last full day in Australia dawned bright and clear, and best of all, WorldCon-free*, which meant Jeanne and I could get in some high-quality TOURISM before I had to go to the airport and catch my flight back to the United States. FOR GREAT JUSTICE. Our plans for the day involved hitting the Melbourne Zoo (renowned among zoos for being TOTALLY BITCHIN'), and then driving a gazillion miles** to Phillip Island to witness the Penguin Parade.

We got up stupid-early in the morning to meet Mal and his very sweet friend whose name I have since forgotten, because I Am Crap With Names. They had rented a car for the day, because they are wonderful, thoughtful people. And it was off for the zoo! Well. Off for breakfast. But after that, the zoo! Hooray the zoo!

Sadly for us, several school groups had also decided that this was a yay the zoo kind of day, and the place was swarming with children. I do not question the right of children to go to the zoo, nor, in fact, the need for children to go to the zoo. But when it's one adult to thirty small boys, I start to feel a little bit like a cat surrounded by Aeslin mice, and that isn't a fun sensation. We chose the path that seemed least likely to intersect with the school groups, and started wandering.

The Melbourne Zoo is just as awesome as its press implied it would be. Within the first twenty minutes, we'd seen snow leopards, cougars, bears, and tigers, and I had decided that this was the zoo where the fourth InCryptid book would be set. SURPRISE. We went on to see an enclosure containing only male lions, who were, um, rather dedicated to finding some females; a large pack of African wild dogs; some cool birds; giraffes; a bunch of wild turkeys; and the biggest damn tortoises I have ever seen in my life. Seriously, people could live in those shells. If they weren't, y'know, already occupied.

And then, wonder of wonders, miracle and miracles...the Reptile House. Which was full of glories untold and miracles unnumbered, including several species of snake that I had never actually seen before. Because I love my snake-fearing friends, I will not go into explicit detail, save to say that I had a powerful bonding experience with a taipan, and small boys who taunt rattlesnakes should be put out of the Reptile House at once.

We wandered the zoo a bit more, with a stop for lunch before we entered the Australian wildlife exhibit. Kangaroos roamed free, wombats burbled, and Jeanne and I finally got to see an echidna. Yay! We stopped the admire the echidna. At great length. A zookeeper noticed us clustered there, and came over to announce that she'd be doing a koala show in five minutes at the (connected) koala enclosure. We allowed as how this was very nice for her, and kept watching the echidna, I don't know, echid. Whatever you call what an echidna does. Ten minutes later, the zookeeper came back and asked, if she told us all about the echidna, would we come and see the koala show. Would we ever!

I got to touch an echidna. My life is now complete.

The koala show turned out to be pretty cool, too, and their young female koala—named "Alice," nicknamed "Devil Spawn," which proves that there's an Alice everywhere—was spritely and fun to watch, unlike her wild cousins. Totally worth the stop.

We also saw: manta rays with awesome leopard spots on, platypuses swimming (and being way smaller*** than I expected them to be), elephants taken VERY SERIOUSLY, lemurs, orangutans, fish, seahorses, and penguins. And then it was time to leave the zoo, so that we could spend hours upon hours in the car, driving to Philip Island. Mal's friend left us then, as he did not want to spend hours upon hours in the car. Mal's friend is a smart guy.

I kept myself amused during the drive by counting Australian magpies, as they were everywhere. One's for sorrow, two's for joy—does anybody know what seventy-eight is for? Because there were a lot of magpies. It was like being escorted across Australia by Vixy in spirit guide form. Hi, Vixy!

We reached Philip Island fifteen minutes before the Penguin Parade began. Now, this is not a tightly scheduled thing; the term "penguin parade" actually refers to the completely natural life cycle of the Fairy Penguin. They go out to sea in the morning, and return on the evening tide, whereupon they parade up the beach to get back to their nests. Humans sell tickets to watch this happen. The penguins don't get it. But hey, if we want to freeze our asses off sitting on the bleachers and watching them walk, more power to us.

It was like something out of The Last Unicorn. Waves would roll in, and leave behind little foot-high penguins when they rolled out again. Then the little penguins marched up the beach, making fantastically loud noises. It was magical. It was bizarre. It was freezing. We ran for the hot cocoa stand when it was over, and that stuff did NOT last long.

Signs in the parking lot requested that we check under our car for penguins. That's Australia, all over. Hello, welcome, please do not flatten a penguin when you leave.

I am so glad I got to go.

(*I loved WorldCon, and had a fantastic time, once I started actually sleeping again. But it was awfully nice to be done with all my "official" duties that didn't involve enjoying the native wildlife and putting horrific things in my mouth.)

(**As a native Californian, I tend to view most places as being somewhat small and quaint. Yes, I realize this is insane, and potentially insulting, but I can't help it. My state is gargantuan, and it's messed up all my ideas about scale. Well, Australia is a continental FUCK YOU to this tendency, being as it is, I don't know, A CONTINENT, and is thus FUCKING ENORMOUS. Australia could eat California as a nice snack with some tea and scones and maybe a side order of Greenland. Australia is AWESOME.)

(***Sorry, Perry the Platypus.)

For our second full day in Australia, Jeanne and I had signed up for a Walkabout Tour, along with David Levine and Kate Yule (two of the many, many people I met at World Fantasy in 2009). The tour was run by Echidna Walkabout, and started obscenely early in the morning, with a friendly woman named Janine coming to pick us up from the hotel. Janine wore the media-standard Australian leather bush hat. Hers was the only one I saw on an actual head during our trip.

"Are you Seanan?" she asked, after Jeanne and I got into her van. I affirmed that I was. "I thought you'd be a bloke!"

"I get that a lot," I said.

We drove around Melbourne picking up the rest of our party (hi, Kate and David!), including a bunch of cheery, chattery ladies from Tennessee, and then we were off for the You Yangs, where we would see, presumably, wild koalas doing wild koala things. On the way, we were treated to an enormous cornucopia of Australian birds, including my new personal favorite, the Australian magpie. This is a magpie that is not fucking around. It doesn't just have patches of white, oh, no, it is a white-out FACTORY, and it is COMING FOR YOUR EYES. (Also of note, the magpie lark, which is a third the size, very similar in coloring, sings duets, and will peck the holy crap out of you if you get too close.)

After we'd been driving for a while, Janine pulled into a field so we could look at HOLY CRAP PARROTS. Just THERE. Being WILD PARROTS. Dude, what the FUCK, Australia? There were also a few magpies around, so I wandered off to take pictures of them. "Seanan ignores the ostensibly interesting wildlife to photograph magpies" was a big theme of the day.

Once everyone had finished flipping out over the parrots, we got back in the van and finished driving to the You Yangs. On the way in, one of the chattery ladies spotted a swamp wallaby. The van was stopped. I spotted a second swamp wallaby. Janine was delighted. The ladies were delighted. Everyone was delighted! I found a guide to the native spiders of the area. Everyone was less delighted, probably because of my well-voiced desire to become the Spider Queen and lead my arachnid minions to victory.

We were met in the eucalyptus grove by Mary, the koala guide, who had been koala scouting to make sure we'd actually see some. Since koalas don't move much, she wasn't that concerned that the koalas would have gone anywhere, and we went hiking off into the brush. Koalas are boring. They sit, very high, and do nothing. It's like staring at shelf fungus that will pee on you if you get too close. I quickly lost interest in koalas, and started picking things up off the forest floor. "Things" included feathers (two of which went in Janine's hat), eggshells, interesting rocks, and pieces of bone. I am a dangerous individual when bored.

We drove on to an inordinately large rock called, reasonably enough, Big Rock. We climbed Big Rock. This was fun for me. Not so much, maybe, for the Tennessee ladies. Sorry, Tennessee ladies. Janine fed us all gum, like, from a gum tree. Janine is the devil.

Next up: lunch, served in a lovely little picnic hut in Serendip Sanctuary. It included sandwiches, fruit, biscuits (tim tams!), and outback tea, made with fresh gum leaves. I did not drink the tea. Everyone else drank the tea. Everyone else is CLEARLY INSANE, and I say this as the woman who went to AUSTRALIA to look for SPIDERS.

Now fortified, we went to finish the tour, and look at kangaroos. It turns out kangaroos don't much like being looked at. You have to sneak up on them (totally easy when you're a large group of people, most of whom don't spend much time outdoors), stay quiet, and look at them through binoculars. And then, when they inevitably notice you, you get to watch them boing boing boing away. Super-fun. The kangaroos were boring. The many varieties of giant flesh-ripping ant were not. Neither were the echidna scrapes, the big orange bugs, the entire denuded emu skeleton, or—best thing ever—the dead kangaroo. Oh, the dead kangaroo. Its flesh had been picked away by meat ants, and I was able to truly study its structure. Plus, there was a spider inside its skull. Thank you, Australia. I love you, too.

(Upon discovering the dead kangaroo, I hankered down to study it and take pictures. Our guide gamely tried to make this educational, and not get upset about the fact that the crazy Californian was way more interested in the dead kangaroo than in the live ones. Thank you, Janine. You were awesomely tolerant.)

With rain imminent and everyone exhausted, we made one last stop, at a billabong completely filled with birds. Black swans! So cool! Then it was back to Melbourne proper, passing kangaroos, swamp wallabys, and dozens of magpies on the way. Janine asked us about pie (apparently, cherry pie is viewed as a cruel joke in Australia, where cherries cost eighteen dollars a kilo during the off-season). We answered as best we could, until at last, we were back at our hotel, and could collapse for a little while before heading back to the alley for dinner.

I had lamb. Holy crap, lamb in Australia is like a religious experience. Welcome to the First Church of Mary's Little Lamb, please pass the sweet potato mash.

It was a very good day. Even without spiders.

When last I left this incredibly delayed trip report, Jeanne and I had managed (finally) to touch down in Melbourne, following an unplanned jaunt to Sydney (during which we were not permitted to leave the plane). After fleeing the airport, we caught a bus to a bus terminal, where we caught another bus to our initial destination, the Hotel Promenade. We were going to be staying there for the first few days, before transferring to the WorldCon hotel block to join our fannish compatriots.

Since neither of us really wanted to be jet lag's bitch for the duration of our vacation, we basically went to the hotel, dropped everything off, and left, heading out into the wonderful world of Australia. Goal: stay awake until a reasonable bedtime. Jeanne, being foolish, allowed me to pick our activity...and that, o best beloveds, is how we wound up spending the better part of an hour walking pointedly toward the distant glories of Victoria Market. Jeanne has gone walking with me before, and understands that a) I think of anything under five miles as "a little ways," and b) I will always know how to get back to where I started. So she felt just fine following me around Melbourne, which is probably for the best.

Wonderful discovery the first: 7-11 has come to Australia. And while a chain store may not be your idea of a wonderful discovery, I consider anything that gives me cold fizzy caffeine to be an absolute miracle. There is no Diet Dr Pepper in Australia, but Coke Zero is an acceptable substitute. Luckily for everyone's survival.

Wonderful discovery the second: on the way to Victoria Market, we found a little alley that contained a) an Indian place that fed me delicious goat curry, and b) a chocolate place that made insanely decadent and delicious drinking chocolate. These calories would see us through the rest of our journey.

On! To Victoria Market! Where we looked at things ranging from the standard "rook a tourist, win a prize" assortments known to markets the world over all the way to Australian opals and wonderful handmade children's toys. I bought a mobile with pirates on it for Brooke's upcoming spawn. Jeanne bought some opals. Both of us agreed that the local seagulls were awesome, and that it was time to walk back to the hotel.

On leaving, we found a pet store with a large reptile selection, and Jeanne tolerantly allowed me to go in and coo at all the adorable snakes and lizards. Because that's just how we roll.

Walking back down Elizabeth St. allowed us to stop at multiple shops that had interested us on the way to the Market, including Minotaur, a science fiction specialty shop that felt sort of like the Australian answer to Forbidden Planet. They didn't have any Toby books, but they did have several copies of Feed, which I gleefully signed. Yay for signings! They seemed rather stunned to have a genuine American author in the store scribbling on things, but didn't ask for ID, which is good, as I don't have any ID for Mira.

We returned to the hotel, ate in the restaurant (decent, not great, but definitely filling), and went to bed early, only to awaken equally early. Like, "before six o'clock." Oops. We got up, found breakfast, and started our day of killer attack tourism. Destination one: the Melbourne Aquarium.

Now, I could say lots of things about the natural beauty of Australia's natural wildlife, or the cheekiness of eels, or the fact that holy crap, manta rays can apparently be as big as minivans. I could mention the giant lionfish, and go on at great length about the penguins. But I won't. Why? Because HOLY CRAP BEST OCTOPUS EVER. Seriously, their Giant Pacific Octopus renewed my faith in the universe. Poor Jeanne had to keep coming back and hauling me away from the tank, and my octopus communion. He was a rockin' and a rollin', and I wanted nothing more than to stay with him all day.

Alas, it was not to be. Farewell, sweet octopus. We lunched on pumpkin and potato pizza (not kidding), and went in search of the local Lush, since Jeanne needed conditioner. I know, I know, tourism, we're doin' it wrong. Still, when we found the store, we discovered that Australia got exclusive shower gel, and I claimed a bottle of Black Pearl in the name of AWESOME. Between that and the octopus, I was a happy, happy girl. Jeanne also got a local phone, since she's smart that way.

We returned to the hotel to drop off our things before we went looking for dinner, which was really the capper on our awesome day, because we discovered—quite by accident—An Alley of Wonders. Lots of little restaurants, all of them competing for the right to feed us dinner. We settled on a place that gave us free sodas and served me kangaroo steak, since I had to eat it at least once. It tasted sort of like a cross between goat and rabbit.

Australia: awesome so far.

Lilly is, without a doubt, the lovingest, clingiest, lickingest cat I have ever known. She wants to be where I am, all the time. If I'm in the bathroom, she's in the bathroom. If I'm in the bedroom, she's in the bedroom. The only exception comes when we're watching television: she's learned to recognize the volume changes from pausing a video or the live show going to commercial, and will remain patiently on the couch, waiting for me to come back. Did I mention that she's also one of the smartest cats I've ever known in my life? Because seriously, sometimes it's a little bit unnerving.

This morning, Lilly pulled her usual trick of putting her front paws on my thigh and looking at me beseechingly until I pushed back from the desk, then jumping into my lap, where she sat sphynx-style, leaned against me, and buried her head in the crook of my arm. It's amazing how good I've become at typing while she does that. Entire chapters have been written around the purring water hazard that is my Siamese.

Lilly can recognize the opening themes to The West Wing, Haven, Fringe, and Doctor Who; any of these songs will bring her running, as she knows they're a guarantee that I'm about to sit still for an hour. She hasn't learned to read yet, so she doesn't bring me those specific DVDs when she's trying to encourage me to spend some time on the couch, but she brings me other DVDs (and a much wider assortment now that she has Alice to help her get things down). Again, disturbingly smart cat.

Lilly is sweet, friendly, and relatively calm most of the time, which means she doesn't get as much "air time" as Alice, who is much pushier (and puffier). But Lilly is one of the best cats I've ever known. And yes, she's named after Lilly Kane.

I just felt the need to share that.

1. admnaismith to the white courtesy phone, admnaismith to the white courtesy phone; you have won an ARC of An Artificial Night. Please email me with your contact information, using the contact form on my website, before Sunday, or a new winner has been selected. Also, I totally need you to come make me a drink, because damn.

2. Evolution is awesome, and more bizarre than you can possibly imagine. The best thing about real life is the way that it doesn't even need to pretend to make sense. Also, it allows for factual statements like "those little hornless males have giant testicles" and "they change their color pattern and rearrange their tentacles in a more typical female arrangement." How can you not love this world?

3. Actually, you know what's better than evolution? Drunken paleontologists being allowed to name the dinosaurs that they have discovered. Yes. Thanks to the glorious power of beer, the chasmosaurine ceratopsid family has a new member: the Mojoceratops. How can you not love this dinosaur?! It has a heart-shaped frill, people. A heart-shaped frill. This is like, Barbie's Dream Dino. Great Pumpkin, thank you for the drunken paleontologists and their glories. Thank you.

4. Remember that I'll be at Borderlands Books in San Francisco, California this Saturday, appearing with the lovely jennifer_brozek as part of the second stop on the Murder and Mayhem Tour. Also, we'll have delicious cupcakes from Cups and Cakes Bakery, because we all know that's really why you attend my book events with such alacrity. Be there if you can!

5. We're less than a week out from the San Diego International Comic Convention, which, this year, I will be attending with Amy McFiddler and the fantastic Tara in tow. So, y'know, that should be a good time, apart from all the flailing and hysteria. I'll be posting my panel schedule early next week, and if you're going to be at the convention, you should totally let me know. I'd love to see you.

6. X-Men: Second Coming is over. Several characters are dead. I'm sad about some of them, not so much about others (and barely remembered a few). I really want them to get Elixir on the business of growing back the various severed limbs, as, well, this is all a bit grim for an X-book. But hey, Jean Grey is still dead, Emma Frost is still pretty, and we still have three Stepford Cuckoos wandering around. So it's hard not to be happy.

7. Other things that make me happy: Warehouse 13, Eureka, Unnatural History, Leverage, and So You Think You Can Dance. Why yes, I am a media whore. Why do you ask?

8. Zombies are love.

9. In addition to the San Diego International Comic Convention being in less than a week, I'm about two weeks out from SpoCon, where a) I'm the Music Guest of Honor, and b) Tanya Huff is the Writer Guest of Honor. DAW GIRLS IN THE HOUSE! We shall wear our Urban Fantasy Mafia colors with pride, yo.

10. The turtle can't help you, but Alice will be happy to shed on you. Just ask her.

What's news with you?

One of my favorite things about Brooke is the way she gets excited about a lot of the same horrible things that I get excited about. I love all my friends, but very few of them respond to "Hey! I found a horrific multi-segmented exoskeletal thing under this rock!" with "Oooh, neat, let me see!" the way that Brooke will. Brooke is awesome.

Since the book release party was Saturday, and Brooke was going to be staying with me all day Sunday, we started talking about California Things We Could Do. Somehow, this led to my announcing that we have foot-long electric yellow slugs available for viewing in Muir Woods. INSTANT RELEVANCE TO BROOKE'S INTERESTS. And this is how my long-suffering mother found herself roped into spending Mother's Day driving out to Muir Woods so that we could go hunting for monopods in the damp redwood forests of Northern California.

Once again, the apple really didn't fall all that far from the tree.

Muir Woods is about a ninety minute drive from my house, and we used the excursion as an opportunity to educate my mother about Canadian music, blasting Moxy Fruvous and Great Big Sea (she was tolerant). She did ask me at one point whether I'd called the park to be sure they were open. I confirmed that I had. Then...

"Well, did you ask if the banana slugs were out?"
"It's not like the park rangers were going to go and check."

There is no banana slug time clock.

Muir Woods was surprisingly crowded when we arrived; apparently, I wasn't the only person who thought celebrating Mother's Day with giant yellow slugs was a good idea. Brooke and I were ready to be thrilled by nature; I started with being thrilled by the chipmunk in the parking lot. SO CUTE. After that, we were thrilled by a Banana Slug Crossing sign, a First Amendment Zone, and the bathroom. Did I mention that we're excitable?

It was misting lightly as we entered Muir Woods: perfect weather for casual hiking and banana slug-hunting. We had barely been inside for five minutes when the first banana slug sighting occurred, with a three-inch yellow guy* waving his eyestalks saucily at us from the clover next to the walkway. Brooke took his picture. Two minutes later, banana slug sighting number two occurred. So here we are, wandering through this cathedral of redwoods, the tallest trees in the world standing sentinel all around us...looking at the ground. I love my friends.

We did stop to gape at redwoods, and Brooke took many, many pictures. Eventually, we turned onto a side trail, where we proceeded to hit the banana slug jackpot, finding a four-inch Pacific banana slug and two seven-inch California banana slugs in quick succession. Yay!

Now, there's an old tradition that, if you disturb a banana slug while in the woods, you have to kiss it before you put it back. I was watching the Pacific banana slug industriously ooze around on my coat sleeve when a family with three little boys walked up, irresistibly drawn to my slimy friend. Not wanting to be responsible for the squishing of every slug in Muir Woods, I told them about kissing slugs, and that I'd have to kiss the slug before I put it back.

They looked at me expectantly.

I kissed the slug. (I admit this only because Brooke was carrying a camera, and hence has proof.) The eldest of the boys also kissed the slug. His mother made sure to get it on camera, and will thus be able to horrify his prom date in a decade or so. That's me, making the future harder since 1978.

We stopped at the park gift shop when we finished slug hunting, and Brooke acquired a glow-in-the-dark Slug Patrol T-shirt, which she chortled over with great glee. Then it was off to the car, and onto what Brooke termed "the roadkill buffet." A deer came bounding in front of our car, causing Mom to shout and point it out to Brooke (because they don't have deer in Canada, apparently). She was so busy shouting and pointing out the deer that she totally missed the fawn that was following its mother across the road. I screamed. Brooke screamed. Mom hit the brakes, missing Bambi by inches. I swear, if she had hit that damn deer, we'd still be up in Muir Woods. Mourning.

We started moving again after the fawn cleared the road. A wild turkey came strutting across the roadway, unconcerned by the large motor vehicle hurtling toward it. Mom stopped for the turkey.

"You have turkeys here, just wandering around," said Brooke, nonplussed. "That's a thing."

Also featured on the roadkill buffet: joggers! Suicidal joggers! Some people really don't want to live to breed. We managed to not kill any of them, and went rolling merrily back toward home, Mom and I bellowing along to the radio, Brooke slowly passing out in the backseat.

Happy Mother's Day!

(*Technically, banana slugs are hermaphroditic. Really, I don't think they care.)

Sunday afternoon, Alice* decided that I was stressing out too much about making my word count for the weekend, and brought me a present to take my mind off my troubles. More specifically, she brought me a live alligator lizard approximately eight inches in length, which is super-villain territory if you happy to be, I don't know, my toes.

I like lizards. The sight of lizards isn't one of those things that makes me scream and scramble onto my chair. I was also barefoot when the lizard arrived, barefoot when the lizard was helpfully released under my desk, and barefoot when the lizard decided to take its reptilian fury out on the nearest available target, IE, my toes. That made me scream and scramble onto my chair, at least until I could get some damn shoes on.

I glared at the lizard. The lizard glared at me. Alice looked pleased with herself, as I was clearly now distracted from my horrible horrible work. Attempts to get Alice to retrieve the lizard caused her to begin grooming herself. Attempts to retrieve the lizard myself caused the lizard to begin attempting to eat my thumbs. I like my thumbs. I decided the lizard could stay.

At several points during the evening, the lizard attempted to make a break for the door. Every time, Alice calmly picked it up and deposited it back under the desk. I put Lilly under the desk, thinking that perhaps my second cat would be more sensible. The lizard hissed at the cat. The cat ran away. Great Pumpkin preserve me from the bravery of the Siamese.

When I got up yesterday morning, the lizard was still there. When I got home from work yesterday afternoon, the lizard was still there. Around six o'clock last night, Alice walked under the desk, picked up the lizard, and walked away.

I did not pursue.

As I did not find lizard bits strewn around the house this morning, I think Alice put the lizard back where she found it, perhaps congratulating it for a job well done in the "distracting the human" category. That, or the lizard got away, and is even now lurking under a piece of furniture somewhere in my house, waiting for me to take off my shoes.

Visitors, beware, and guard your toes. There very well might be an alligator in my house.

(*Alice Price-Healy Little Liddel Abernathy McGuire, my blue classic tabby and white Maine Coon. Yes, I call her by her full name, normally when she pulls stunts like the one described above.)

I get off work at four in the afternoon; my flight last night didn't leave the airport until nine. This left me with a five-hour gap and, since there was nothing I was really dying to go to the movies for, I decided to just head for the airport, get through security, and settle on the concourse to get some serious writing done. (I would have stopped at Borderlands to get the new issue of Locus, but their shipment hadn't arrived yet when I had to leave the office. That's what Monday is for.) I was flying Virgin America, and since BART runs literally into the SFO International Departures Terminal, getting there was a piece of cake. I like cake!

After dropping off my luggage and confirming that my flight hadn't been canceled or anything stupid like that, I started for security. Airport security encounter one: a security guard was walking by with a kind of dog I'd never seen before hauling him along as it happily sniffed its way through the airport. I stopped.

"Oh, wow! Is that the contraband dog?"
"Yes, she is."
"What kind of dog is she?"
"She's a Dutch Shepherd."
"Oh, wow. Can she check my things for contraband?"

The security guard looked surprised, but allowed as how the dog could check my things for contraband if I really wanted her to. She did so, with much tail wagging and adoration. So here's a big thanks to Susie the contraband dog, who made my travel experience safer.

From there, I went to the actual security line, where my large laptop was pulled out for an explosives swab. Cool by me. The woman doing it swabbed down the outside, and then asked if she could open it and swab inside. (Like I was going to say no? To the TSA?) I said sure, but warned her that she would encounter a lot of cat hair. She opened the laptop.

"That is a lot of cat hair."
"I have a Siamese and a Maine Coon."
"Really? I have a brown mackerel tabby!"
"Mine's a blue classic tabby and white!"

...so if you got stuck in an inexplicable delay at the SFO International Terminal security checkpoint last night, sorry about that. I was talking Maine Coons with the TSA lady.

And after all that? My flight landed forty-one minutes early. Yes, early. The pilot actually apologized for the fact that we had reached Seattle almost an hour ahead of schedule, and I got to call Vixy to tell her that I was already there. This wasn't easy, since I think she thought I was calling about a delay, not to say "come get me."

Best travel experience ever.

Once again, my big list o' holidays* says that today is a holiday that is very important to me, and makes a big impact on my life. Maybe not as big an impact as Virus Appreciation Day (October 3rd), which I celebrate every year by not unleashing the pandemic, or Cuckoo Warning Day (June 21st), which is best celebrated by evolving parasitic wasps into telepathic humanoids, but still, it's important to me.

Today is Australia Day.

So today we celebrate the existence of Australia, the continent which proves that evolution did a lot of drugs when it was young. Today we celebrate the fact that Australia is full of things that want to make us all die, the fact that Australia is frequently on fire, and the fact that Australia essentially hates humanity. Specific things to celebrate about Australia include venomous snakes, spiders the size of dinner plates, marsupials, really interesting money, the koala (which will totally rip your face off if you poke it), and the cone snail, which is the size of a man's thumb and can kill you extremely dead. This is why you do not fuck around with the native wildlife of Australia.

Tonight I will celebrate by going to Kate's house to eat tasty Indian food and tell her things she never wanted to know about the many ways in which Australia can render you extremely deceased. There will be expository hand-gestures, and possibly even diagrams. Kate puts up with a lot from me, really. And later this year, I'll belatedly celebrate Australia Day by actually going to Melbourne, Australia, for the glory of WorldCon.

Thank you for existing, Australia! Today is your day. Your venomous, deadly, kicking-your-ass, being eaten by koalas day.

Hooray Australia!

(*I have a list containing a holiday for every single day of the year. Some days have more than one holiday listed. The world needs more excuses for a party.)

"You talk about your cats a lot."
"You talk about your kids a lot."
"It's not the same thing."
"My Maine Coon flushed a seven inch long alligator lizard down the front hall toilet."
"..."
"It's exactly the same thing."

As most people know, I live with cats. One Siamese and one Maine Coon, to be precise. They are blazingly intelligent, easily bored, and utterly spoiled in the way that only blazingly intelligent cats with indulgent owners can ever get (since dumb cats never realize how much they can actually get away with). This means that my life is never boring, although I do occasionally have to tell people I can't go out, the cats are requiring me to stay in. This is not an ironic statement. The cats are fully capable of hiding my keys, my glasses, and—on one impressive occasion—the contents of my underwear drawer. Contrary to popular belief, I am not going to walk to Safeway without a bra, socks, or panties. Just no. Also, the cats like to unplug my alarm clock when they feel that I've been out of the house too much. They dislike the alarm, they like me sleeping in, problem solved!

Smart cats are their own problem. Smart cats with extremely clever paws are occasionally a circle of hell.

Yesterday morning, I was in such a hurry to get out of the house that I forgot to check the level of food in the cat bowls. Now, my girls each have their own bowl, although they're fed side-by-side, to prevent Lilly eating Alice's food to show dominance. (They still occasionally trade food, but it's just that: a trade. It's like watching kids swap pudding cups.) Alice gets Royal Canin Maine Coon blend; Lilly gets Royal Canin Picky Bitch, which is technically named something like "sensitive feline," but let's get real. When you have to feed this stuff to your cat, your cat is picky. Very, very picky. Royal Canin makes Siamese blend, but Lilly doesn't like it. When given Royal Canin Siamese, Lilly eats all of Alice's food, and since Alice prefers Royal Canin Maine Coon, Alice proceeds to harass me until I feed her the right stuff...which Lilly then proceeds to eat. So it's Maine Coon and Picky Bitch blends for my girls.

Anyway, upon arriving home yesterday evening, I was met at the door by two very angry cats who wanted to lecture me on my failure to feed them. They told me I was a bad pet owner. They told me I had Done Them Wrong. They kept telling me as I filled their dishes...and they then did not eat, as they were too busy telling me what a horrible person I was. Seriously. Alice even took some kibble from the dish and dropped it on my foot to illustrate the point that I Had Failed Them, and I Needed To Apologize. I apologized. I stroked them. I made soothing noises. I brushed Alice. I let Lilly have my purse (which she promptly began to chew on). I hung my head in shame. Satisfied, they finally ate.

I woke up this morning with kibble on my pillow. I am not yet forgiven.

"Alice, why don't you let me use the remote?"
"Mrrrrrrr."

Last night, while watching Bones, I got a lapful of Lilly. This is normal. Lilly proceeded to flop onto her back, stretch out, and cross her ankles, looking like a coney prepped for roasting. Also normal. Alice, meanwhile, hopped up onto the empty couch cushion, sat on her rump with her tail sticking out to one side, and started grooming. Still normal. Then she leaned over, took the remote off the couch, and cuddled it like a teddy bear. And refused to give it back to me. No matter how nicely I asked her.

Tragically, this is still normal. The only way to get the remote back was to give her the DVD remote instead...and that's why the DVD tray was sliding in and out and in and out for the next twenty minutes, as the cat happily played with the "eject" button.

There is a reason I talk about my cats as much as I do. Because if I didn't, none of you would have any warning on the day when they finally decided to conquer your puny planet.

Run while you can.

I called jimhines the other night to talk about some writing stuff and reviewing stuff and other such fun things we have in common. As is pretty normal when a parent is on the phone, his kids found multiple reasons to interject themselves on his side. As is pretty normal around my house, my cats found multiple reasons to interject themselves on my side—more, in fact, than his kids did. They came up to "tell" me things, either in a Siamese bray or in that odd Maine Coon half-trill half-gasp. They brought me toys and demanded I throw them or wave them in the air for cats to bat at. They were, in short, damn nuisances, and they're lucky they didn't get drop-kicked across the house. (To be very clear: I would never do that. Not unless one of them had contracted a zombie virus and was going for the other, and even then, zombie cats is probably the fastest way to take me out during the inevitable zombie apocalypse.)

I apologized, because that is what you do, and the conversation continued. A bit later Jim said, quite reasonably, "I've noticed you take your cats very seriously."

You know what? I do. My cats are cossetted and cared for, cuddled and cursed at, spoiled and sheltered, and I'm proud of that fact. Lilly and Alice are some of the sweetest, friendliest, most social cats you could ever hope to meet. When you come to my house, the cats are there, ready to greet you, ask you about yourself, and demand as much attention as they feel they can get away with. They're the WalMart greeters of the cat world. Anyone who thinks cats don't care about their people only needs to spend a little time with my cats to learn that this doesn't have to be true, and part of why they are the way they are is how seriously I take them. They are some of the most important people in my life, and it's not their fault that they don't have thumbs or speak English.

I periodically get flack over the fact that my cats are pedigreed, rather than being shelter rescues. I've actually learned to recognize that particular lecture as it gets started, since it always seems to begin with one of three or four mostly-harmless statements. My answer stays the same from lecture to lecture: I donate to the SPCA, I do shelter outreach and volunteer work when I can, and I give to private no-kill shelters. I do my part. But I lost a lot of cats when I was a kid to health conditions that are genetic, are passed through family lines, and can be anticipated if you know the cat's family history. In short, I get pedigreed cats so I can meet their grandparents and ask their breeders about the possible health problems within the line. I take my cats too seriously to deal with losing them more than once a decade. Lilly is six. With her health, and her breed profile, she'll probably be around for another ten to fifteen years. Still not enough time, but at least it's long enough that I'll probably be over Nyssa when she goes.

Mostly.

(Not everyone has had my bad luck with cats. I also grew up way below the poverty line, which made veterinary care difficult as hell to afford. That doesn't change the degree of comfort I take from saying "This is Alice, and this big puffy guy here? That's her great-grandfather, who is fat and healthy and happy and beautiful and could probably bench-press Godzilla if he had to.")

My cats are intelligent and friendly; well-behaved because it never really occurs to them that they shouldn't be; stand-offish on occasion, but far more inclined to be right up in your business, checking out whatever it is you think you're doing. Alice will follow you around the house, tail down and eyes wild, watching you for signs of mischief. Lilly will stay between you and me whenever possible, waiting for you to do something she doesn't approve. In short, my cats are individuals, and I take them as seriously as they take me.

Winnowing down the number of amazing entries we got on the second ALH ARC giveaway was borderline impossible. So I selected my five favorites, solicited favorites from a few friends who didn't have entries, and let the random number generator fill out the rest. Please vote for your favorite picture or pictures; winners will be announced on Monday, December 7th.

Since we got such an amazing range and variety of entries, I'm going to expand the number prizes to four. First place gets first pick, second place gets second pick, and so on. The prizes are:

* An ARC of A Local Habitation.
* A copy of Rosemary and Rue (which I am happy to sign to someone else, if the winner wants it to be a gift).
* Two signed cover flats of A Local Habitation.

And now...the voting!

Brooke, being Brooke, and hence attracted to anything that involves "science" and "spiders," provided me with a link to a full-sized piece of fabric made from spider silk. Because this was awesome, I promptly shared it with my friend Rae. The following conversation occurred:

raelee: That is a lot of spiders. But very purty silk.
seanan_mcguire: I will put them all in the bed of the next human who vexes me.
raelee: *eyes you* Duly noted.
seanan_mcguire: You rarely vex.
raelee: Still, sharing my bed with a million spiders, while extremely kinky, is not high on the list of activities I'd like to participate in before my death... especially since it has a high probability of leading to said death. Therefore, I'll take the proper precautions so as not to vex.
seanan_mcguire: It'd be like, LEGS LEGS LEGS LEGS LEGS LEGS LEGS *enrobe* *devour* LEGS.
raelee: Yeahhhh, I just freaked out reading that.
seanan_mcguire: ...oooops. Sorry.
raelee: s'ok, everyone needs to have a mini seizure at their desk occasionally.

There are days when I truly feel that being my friend ought to come with a hazard advisory of some sort. Or maybe just a little label that flashes after pictures of horrible things, like botflies and flesh-eating bacteria. "WARNING: Seanan is going to think this is cool, and probably want to discuss it with you. Please begin self-sedation now."

I was invented to make sure you stay fully alert and aware of your surroundings. Lest the million spiders in your bed catch you by surprise.

1. BART is not on strike. I would say "yay, the unions reached a settlement," but since I left Lilly alone with my Internet-equipped computer just before the strike was called off, I'm going to opt for "yay, my Siamese is not fire-bombing the California coastline to protest Mommy not coming home for a week." Don't mess with the Siamese. You will regret it.

2. Fourteen days. Just saying.

3. My new Netbook is a joy and a wonder, except when it's royally fucking stuff up. Most recently, it has elected to royally fuck up the .ms of Red Hood's Revenge that I was giving a quick polish for Jim. I'm attempting file recovery now, and if that doesn't work, I'll just go through the .ms a second time. Thankfully, it was relatively clean.

4. Also thankfully, my Netbook did not elect to royally fuck up the latest draft of The Brightest Fell (Toby Daye, book five). This is A Very Good Thing. I would be substantially less sanguine about that particular rewrite. There might be screaming, and possibly the eating of human flesh. Mmmm, human flesh.

5. The incredibly awesome stick insect that has been sticking to Kate and GP's front door frame for the last few weeks was gone this morning when I went out to meet the bus. I wish him all good things in his future endeavors, and hope that he is not inside the house, preparing to crawl into someone's ear.

6. I have decided that I don't like second books in trilogies that don't admit to being trilogies when I pick them up. There will be more on this later.

7. I want a nap.

How's by you?

Lilly caught her first mouse tonight. (This despite being almost four years old. My home-grown mighty huntress really isn't very good at her job.) I went into my room during a commercial break and found her half-under the dresser, chittering gleefully and shifting my portfolio all over the place. I got down on the floor to peer, and hey-presto, field mouse!

The poor thing was terrified, and quite tidily penned in by the collusion of 'closet door' and 'inexplicable old window screen' that lean up against the corner of my dresser. Lilly had herself a field day smacking at it and chittering before I was able to scoop it into a plastic container and dispatch my roommate to put it outdoors.

(I didn't spare the mouse because I have a soft heart. I understand that the whole 'circle of life' gig very much applies to mice stupid enough to enter cat-infested households. That said, Lilly is an indoor-only cat, and I'd really like to restrict her consumption of California's native wildlife to, I don't know, bugs and arachnids. Things that don't have warm blood and are thus less likely to give her interesting diseases. I know, I know, I'm a lousy excuse for a cat owner. I like my cats alive.)

Because Lilly is one of the most good-natured cats I've ever met, she's already completely over the fact that I took her mouse away, and is now devoting the bulk of her attention to loafing atop my open suitcase and giving me suspicious looks. Methinks the young miss has managed to figure out that I've packed a bit more heavily than is entirely essential for an overnight stay at Kate's.

Ah, cats. They remind us of the important things in life. And, when they're cats like Lilly, they remind me why I don't have children.

Mantis: still in my bathroom. He has relocated his tiny insectivore self to the roll of paper towels, where he has a higher vantage from which to snatch unsuspecting flies out of the air and devour their tiny brainless bodies. He's very yellow, and too small for my camera (which is actually Rey's camera, and not terribly high-tech) to be very happy about trying to focus on him. Which is a pity, 'cause he's pretty.

The mantis will probably be going to live in Kate and GP's garden tonight, where, as Kate puts it, 'he will grow fat and strong in the Bird of Paradise.' As they currently have no mantids, and I have an entire home-grown colony, this is probably fair, but I'm still going to miss him.

Lycanthropy: still finished. I was a little worried when I woke up this morning that I'd discover my belief that the book was done to be some sort of perverse, wicked hallucination, brought about by inhaling too many Sharpie fumes, but no, the book is really done. This draft of the book, anyway. Now I get to start doing the heavy lifting of revision and correction...but since you can't revise or correct until a book is finished, I'm really not finding myself all that concerned.

Although...



...just sayin'.

Lilly would like my attention now, and as I do not believe in thwarting Siamese when avoidable, I'll be back later.

About once a year, my front bathroom becomes FILLED WITH FLIES, due to a crack in the foundation of the house causing them to decide that my place is the perfect spot for the fly equivalent of summer vacation. It's flies gone wild in there, and that makes it insanely irritating to try to do anything other than run in, swat at bugs, and run out. There's a can of Raid Fly-Killer on the windowsill for just such occasions.

Right now, there's also an enterprising three-inch-long praying mantis. Which has decided, for reasons known only to itself, that the perfect place from which to snatch flies out of the air, is...

...the can of Raid Fly-Killer.

Yes, there is a predatory insect currently cleaning my bathroom, while sitting atop a cannister of toxic bug-killing chemicals. Sometimes, I really think that life is just a little bit too surreal to have ever been invented. It just had to happen on its own. (Pictures of my friendly insectivore house guest will be coming later.)

So last night, I attended a Kelley Armstrong/Melissa Marr signing at Borderlands Books here in San Francisco. And I'll talk more about that later, I'm sure. But for right now, I have something far more enthralling to talk about (at least, it's more enthralling when I'm not entirely awake):

Evil-looking naked alien suede kitty!

Yes! The store has a resident Sphinx. No, I have no idea why the store has a resident Sphinx, but let's be serious here: I really don't care. They have a NAKED ALIEN SUEDE KITTY. That is, really, justification enough. Her name is 'Ripley,' after the character in Alien ('cause she looks like one) as much as the television show ('cause nobody believes what they're seeing). And she's awesome. She came out and graced the signing with her glorious presence, at which point, the famous people really lost the bulk of my attention, as there was a NAKED ALIEN SUEDE KITTY in my lap. My needs in life are simple but well-defined. They include cuddling with anything that looks like it would like to nest inside my ribcage.

Now, the store is aware that NAKED ALIEN SUEDE KITTY pretty much = awesome, and so they have come up with what may well be the Best Marketing Scheme ever: they've made attractive postcards with Ripley on them. You can buy them. For a dollar. Yes: you can pay a dollar for a picture of their cat. Being me -- have you met me? -- I, of course, bought one. Now I have NAKED ALIEN SUEDE KITTY to look at any time I want to. I'm going to add her to my corkboard. I'm just thinking, why should NAKED ALIEN SUEDE KITTY get all the action? I have a hyper-intelligent tail-free Siamese cat and friends with cameras.

Lilly Kane: camwhore.

Just sayin'.

I tend to develop a somewhat...familial...attachment to the stores that I frequent on a regular basis, to the point that they monitor the status of my projects, warn me when things that may upset me have happened (my comic store guys are hysterical on days when certain X-titles come in), and generally know exactly what they're dealing with when I walk in the door. We argue, gossip, chat, and generally just have a good time together. It's pretty awesome, and I appreciate it.

My normal comic store, Flying Colors, is very much a family establishment, and the owner, Joe Fields, doesn't order anything of an 'adult' nature. This is a good thing, as there are a lot of unsupervised kids browsing at just about any given time. This is a bad thing, because when they advertised the new Hack/Slash special issue -- a crossover with the Suicide Girls -- it got listed as 'adult,' and was consequentially not ordered. (Believe me, I made sad noises when I got to the store on Wednesday and discovered this dismaying fact. I sort of figured that the existence of the title 'Hack/Slash' would make it an automatic order. Sad cat...is trekking to her alternative comic book store in Berkeley.)

Luckily for me, I have a backup comic store: Comic Relief, which has the added bonus of being located right next to the Other Change of Hobbit. I stopped in yesterday, and was gratified to find that yes, they had the issue in question, even as I confused the heck out of the on-duty staff, who see me about once every three months (when Flying Colors either sells out of something or, as in the case of my Hack/Slash-with-boobies issue, fails to order it). If they didn't know me from local comic conventions and geek meets and forums, they'd probably think I bought six comic books a year. Tops.

With the latest installment of the adventures of Cassie Hack (more on this later) firmly in my possession, I went next door to let Will know that I'd been assigned a cover artist. He and I (and some random store patrons, that being the way at the Other Change of Hobbit) had a fairly vigorous discussion of cover design about a month ago, which covered everything from 'marketing,' 'eye-catching design,' and 'current trends' to 'yeah, but that looks stupid' and 'I just can't understand why all these ass-kicking heroines have nothing better to do with their time than go around crouching on rooftops while wearing uncomfortable-looking latex catsuits.' (My ass-kicking heroines -- I'm currently working with three -- wear, respectively, jeans and T-shirts, track gear, and whatever she can manage to grab before the goddamn flying monkeys break her bedroom window again. Note the lack of inexplicable latex catsuits.) Anyway, as a consequence of this conversation, I wanted to tell him who the Toby cover artist was going to be.

Pathetically, as soon as I finished waving my hands and going 'we got a cover artist and he's awesome!', I forgot a) his name, b) Jim Butcher's name, and c) the name of the series Butcher writes and McGrath draws the covers for (IE, the Dresden Files). We eventually managed to fix this, and then there was much joyful dancing in the Other Change of Hobbit.

I was sitting down to spend some quality time with the two loaner kitties that the shop cat-sits for during the week -- Clearsword and Patch, a Siamese and his Oriental shorthair brother -- when Patch went Very Still And Quiet. I turned around to find myself looking at...

...a dog. A truly awesome dog, of a breed that I had never seen before. She was short-haired to the point of seeming to be made of suede, except for the ridge down the middle of her back, dark blue in color (which, for non-pet-people, means she was a very pretty sort of gunmetal gray), and had a long, intelligent face that made her look a lot like artistic representations of Anubis. I promptly threw myself upon the altar of dog-worship, and grilled her owner about her origins. Turns out she's a Thai ridgeback. So. Cool.

Yesterday, I got a new comic book, a happy dino dance party, and a new dog breed.

How was your Thursday?