Mortaine’s Blog

Hi. I’m the lady coughing her lungs out. I’ve progressed to the “my chest and ribs hurt” phase of the coughing disease from hell.

Yesterday evening I did a talk at the San Luis Obispo STC meeting, about videoblogging. It was interesting. It took me 3 hours to get there, and my GPS initially told me it would take 5 (yikes!) Fortunately, the GPS was inaccurate at such distances, and I made it with plenty of time to spare.

I coughed quite a bit during the meeting, which was unfortunate, but unavoidable. I had planned to stay overnight at a nearby hotel on the chapter’s dime, and then take my time driving home today. Unfortunately, when I left the meeting at about 9:15, I checked my phone and found a text message from John: “Your wallet is on the couch!” Yikes! And I had less than a gallon of gas in the car. Uh oh.

Fortunately, I’d sold one copy of my book for $25 cash, so I used that to buy gas ($24.45), and drove home at the speed limit, hoping I didn’t get stopped and asked for my license.

I saw a coyote about thirty minutes outside of SLO, but otherwise it was me, the open road, the night, and all the big rigs. I smelled pumpkin patches and asparagus fields, which I hadn’t noticed on my way down. Also a few sewer treatment plants, which I also hadn’t scented during the day. It was overcast, so when I came near a city, the lights shone up and reflected off the night sky, making even the little towns seem larger.

I passed a lot of trucks. I didn’t see any cops until Salinas, and then they were the only cars I saw, so I held off from getting the cough syrup out of my bag and downing a dose in the car. I nearly hit a dog– I think he was pit bull mix– in Castroville, but fortunately I slowed in time. The dog didn’t bother speeding up, just trotted across the road, unconcerned.

I made it home safe and sound and was in bed by 12:30 this morning.

Happy Halloween, everyone.

This is an archive of my shorter book reviews and notes, which historically have been posted over at the 50 Book Challenge on LiveJournal, but which I’m starting to move over here. I’m posting them with altered date-stamps, but they might show up in my LiveJournal cross-post anyway. Bear with me, please.

Note: Many of these books also have full reviews available in the book review podcast (RSS).
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Sold all but 1 of the fish at fish club (thereby glutting the market– ha!)

Resisted buying any more bettas.

Did not resist buying: a bag of gold Endlers livebearers, a bag of 4 apple snails, and a bag of 3 platties.

Erm. Yeah, I suck at the whole “getting rid of” thing. Oh, well.

PS: Also: suck at getting rid of my cold.

I just bagged up 15 female bettas to take to my fish club meeting today. Sure, it’s 5 hours of driving for 2 hours of fun and socializing, and I’ll probably end up hacking up both lungs on the way, but hey! It’s fish club! Plus, I need to get rid of a bunch of fish.

After these girls are gone, I “only” have 13 of the original spawn left. Yeah, it was a good-sized spawn, even with daddy eating the offspring.

John has been reading some “full time RVer” websites and discovered that nearly all the RVers who went back to living in a house did so because their wives wanted to. This is just proof that, if not for women, men would still be living in trees.

I picked up the mail yesterday on my way out to my speaking gig. Inside, there was the usual assortment of junk mail, a new book for me, and a self-addressed stamped envelope.

Sigh. So, I opened it, and read it while driving (bad form, I know). And I really couldn’t believe what I was reading… something about how, if I can lengthen it just a bit to fit their guidelines, they would be happy to accept it.

*boggle*

So, it’s not a sale yet, because I do have to rewrite it. But, um. It’s my first fiction pre-sale?

*boggle*