This last week, I got caught. Trapped like a trap in a trap.
Those of you who have read this blog for some time will know that I attended a Catholic girls’ academy—a school I later turned into St. Teresa’s in the book Devilish. I have told severalstories about thisschool, but never named it. In fact, I thought I was being extremely, extremely clever and that no one would ever figure out where I went to school.
Again, if you have been reading this blog for a while . . . you’ll also know by now that I’m not clever. So I really should have been more prepared for the day in which I got note after note after note from current students at my former high school, correctly identifying it and asking me to come.
Now, if you’re me, and you have been talking your face off about your old school on your blog, and then you wrote a book in which you infest that school with demons . . . you might feel a certain sense of je ne sais panic when asked to return. I was pretty much convinced that I would walk in the front door, the student counsel president would hit me over the head with a shovel, and I would be thrown into an open pit specially dug in the basement. And then they would sic the hamsters on me.
But what ACTUALLY happened was that I had an amazing time, and a ton of people stayed for a voluntary after-school event with me, and then presented me with a HUGE PILE OF GIFTS. These included 13 little blue envelopes! In which messages and items relating to my books and my school had been placed! They got me Ginny’s credit card from 13 Little Blue Envelopes, Lola’s pink stud earrings and Scarlett’s Empire Suite key from Suite Scarlett, a stack of demerits (actually signed by the principal) for things like “parking principal's car on balcony,” “being tardy,” and “forgetting to be awesome.” I even got a puppy-sized elephant with an engraved collar named Queen Ranavalona!
I made a short video to commemorate this visit, in which you can see at least part of my high school uniform. You can also meet my lawyer, C. Catso Fangola.
I received a question in the comments that Justine Larbalestier told me I had to answer. “It’s time,” she said. “They need to know the truth.”
nicole said... I'm looking forward to reading sweet scarlett as soon as I get my hands on a copy. Maureen, how did you meet all of you author friends in New York? Isn't it kind of like being friends with your competition? (I would love a sleep mask!)
It’s extremely easy to meet other YA authors. Because once you become a YA author, you have to move into the YA author mansion. We all live there. I live there. Justine lives there. Scott Westerfeld, Libba Bray, Meg Cabot, Holly Black, John Green, Cassie Clare . . . everyone. We all live there. They make you. It’s kind of big, so you sometimes don’t see everyone. (I know Stephanie Meyer lives there, for instance, but I’ve never seen her room. I think it’s over in the Judy Blume wing.)
I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, “But Meg Cabot lives in Florida! And John Green in Indianapolis! And Stephanie Meyer in Arizona! And, and, and . . .”
Lies. We live in the mansion.
In the past, we have gone to some trouble to cover up the fact that we all live in the YA author mansion. We didn’t want people to go looking for it. Some people didn’t want to move to the mansion, but you aren’t given a choice. On the day your first book comes out, they come in a car under the cover of darkness. If you fight, they knock you out, and you wake up in the mansion with all of your things around you.
Now, to get to the point about being friends with your competition . . .
There is no competition in YA writing. It’s not that people will only read one book and not another. Reading breeds more reading. When you finish one good book, you IMMEDIATELY NEED ANOTHER . . . and so the circle of life continues!
I’ll tell you what the problem is. The problem is when some people leave their nasty dishes in the sink of the YA Author Mansion kitchen, or blast the High School Musical soundtrack at all hours, or keep throwing cricket balls against the wall, or put sheets over their heads and try to scare you by pretending to be ghosts . . . I’m not naming names, but I am getting a little sick of it. We are all trying to write, people.
This is part of the reason I’ve gone public. I have decided that it’s time we talked about the Mansion, and I will answer questions about it, rules be damned.
TODAY’S INFLUENCE: H. M. MURDOCK
I am still doing my series of influences, in tribute to the upcoming Olsen Twins book. Today’s influence is very, very special, indeed.
When I was a tiny mj, Murdock from the A-Team was my hero. Sure, The A-Team is PROBABLY the crappiest show ever made. SURE it was predictable and formulaic and violent and insane . . . but my devotion to it was total. Which just goes to show that when we are small, we are not always gifted with the best taste. But I will still WRESTLE ANYONE TO THE GROUND who has a bad word to say about my guys. (Except Frankie “Dishpan” Santana, who doesn’t count. Say what you like about him.)
Murdock, the team pilot and professional pretend-crazy person was my true love and inspiration, and I wanted to be like him. Murdock had STYLE. When I need things for my room in the YA Author Mansion, I use this technique I learned from him. If YOU need things, why not adapt this to your purposes?
TODAY’S PRIZES AND SCARLETT UPDATE!
I’m getting ready for the Suite Scarlett release party, which will be this week. I was going to throw it at home, since we’re all there, but they do let us out from time to time to see non-YA-author types. We love it when they let us out. Anyway, I am most excited about that.
Today’s five sleep masks are going to:
Nicole Keziah Courtneylynne Katesutton90 Lizzy-wa
And today there are TWO WAYS TO WIN THINGS!
First, I will be giving away five sleep masks to random commenters! Second, I will be giving away A SIGNED SUITE SCARLETT! In the FORUM!
See, Scarlett’s Eleven made a forum for me a few weeks ago. In support of their efforts, I’ll be lurking on the forum all week. Join. Chat. Talk amongst yourselves. And at some point I will swoop in and grab someone and that person will get a book. You will feel like I did when I was taken to this mansion, except less like someone in the trunk of a car and more just like someone getting a signed book.
I have been looking through your comments today, and I have noticed something distressing. LOOK!
distraught beth said... *Sigh* Yet another loss. I like all the prizes and contest you have, MJ but it gets quite self-deprecating when you keep losing because you're just not quite clever and/or insane enough.
And this:
jk said... oh, see i thought that we were supposed ot be finding like the real meaning of it. but i guess this makes more sense cause i goes with teh book and everything. but ahh this is so sad I called him, i talked to teh guy with the tape dispencer, seriously. i google the post office i called it i talked ot the guy. he told me what it meant!
I was understandably dismayed. This had DECREASED YOUR CHEER! Drastic measures were needed! I dropped what I was doing and went right to cheer control and set everything on MAXIMUM CHEER. I made calls, I poked elves.
And I am pleased to tell you two things!
One, the Holiday Signing Workshop Elves, in response to the poking, produced one more box of Suite Scarlett cards. I will keep sending these until the supply dries up! There aren’t many, but there are some! And they can be yours! Act now! Supplies are limited!
Two . . . and then even better news . . .
I managed to obtain two more advance copies Suite Scarlett. This was a bit tricky, as they are rare creatures. The giveaway starts RIGHT NOW, because the time for giving is upon us! And this contest requires NO CLEVERNESS.
This is how you enter to win COPY NUMBER TWO of Suite Scarlett:
1. Leave a comment. That’s it. I don’t care what it is about! It can be about Cheer, or it can be about why you want to read Suite Scarlett, or it can be about how to get rid of J.K. Rowling. Whatever. No research, no cleverness, no wit required! It doesn’t matter where you live—I ship EVERYWHERE!
2. Okay, you do have to put a name on the comment somewhere, even in the comment itself. I can’t enter “anonymous” into the contest. But that’s not that hard.
3. If you want, send your friends or family along to comment, and if they win, take the book from them! Feel free to stack the odds in your favor!
4. If you want to leave a comment but aren’t interested in being entered to win the book, just say so!
I will pick the winner completely at random the day after Christmas, December 26th, around 3pm.
The next Scarlett could be yours!
Speaking of . . .
anonymous said... im sorry MJ, but i am unmistakably out of Christmas cheer. quesiton: i am having a brain fart and cant remember if you told us when Suite Scarlett is coming out. so, uh, when is it coming out in 2008? 2009 even?
The answer to the question is: MAY 2008. Just a little over four months from now. Basically, when the first little flowers pop their fool heads out of the ground, Scarlett will appear.
From the comments I’ve seen, many of you are suffering deficiencies of CHEER for many reasons. Again, I can’t just sit by and let this happen. So I thought that—since I am now ensconced in the Swiss Family Johnson treehouse, and the SFJT is pretty much the most Cheer-encrusted place I know—I would take you on a little photo tour. The Cheer will seep out of the computer and infect you!
It would be impossible for me to show you all of the holiday decorations around Chez Johnson, because there are simply too many. Quite literally, there is a decoration in every room. This is like one of those White House tours, where you only get to see a tiny, tiny portion of the full workings.
To begin, this is my lawyer, C. Catso Fangola, wearing his Santa hat. Even though he is a member of the Bar Association, C. Catso always takes time out for Cheer.
C. Catso, seen here right after having some delicious wet food.
I have talked little in the past about my mother’s extensive Dickens Village. In fact, I got at least one request for photos of the Village. Ask, and ye shall receive!
I must tell you that the Dickens Christmas Village* is sadly incomplete. There was a furniture change in the room where it is normally set up, so its custom-made table can no longer be used. It is a third of its normal size. It used to be two streets deep with a cathedral and a lake. Most of the houses are packed away in the attic right now, crying quiet little ceramic house tears. If that doesn’t break your heart, then you are made of stone.
Here is an overall shot of the tiny Village:
The Village has two outposts (again, it used to have more). Here is the one that hangs on the wall in a wreath that my mother made for this very purpose. (My mother is really good at making wreaths, and we have a LOT of them. It was for this wreath that we pepper-sprayed ourselves in the infamous squirrel incident.)
The Little Village on the Wall.
The other really important things to note about this photo are the two framed pictures to the left and right of the wreath. Those are needlepoints my mother has made of some of her favorite Dickens Village houses. The small grey lump on the sofa is C. Casto, reading a legal brief as he reclines against a snowman pillow. And that throw on the sofa is an official Dickens Village throw listing the names of popular houses and the years that they were made.
These are what I call the Kreepy Karolers. I dislike the Kreepy Karolers, but my mother insists they bring Cheer. She also says they are highly collectible, which to my mind means that people will collect anything.
This is just one group of Kreepy Karolers. There are others.
Now, let’s move on to the tree, which is really sort of a Cheer antenna. I used my parents’ camera to take some of these next photos, and accidentally downloaded 848 pictures from their trip to Egypt. So since I have them, here is a photo of my mother on a camel. It's kind of like one of those live Nativity scenes!
Watch out. They spit.
In case you didn’t think I was telling the truth before . . . here are the boxes of tinsel my mother had ready and waiting on my arrival. There are TWELVE of them. That is for ONE TREE.
On the twelfth day of Christmas my mother gave to me, twelve boxes of tinsel, eleven Kreepy Karolers, ten Village houses, nine rabid squirrels . . .
Not enough Cheer yet? Let’s keep going! Let’s go to the front room. Here are some of our nutcrackers.
We have others . . . obviously. I mean, this is hardly enough.
I used to get so excited when the nutcrackers came out. I used to use them to make my own version of this board game called “I Vant to Bite Your Finger.” A more CHEERFUL version, where there was no board, and occasionally, I would bite you with a nutcracker. And by you, I mean me, because I am an only child, and these are the kinds of things only children do. We make friends with boxes and old bits of string, we make games with nutcrackers, and we like it!
Speaking of being an only child . . . look! Christmas stockings! Can you guess which one is mine? Can you?
If you look VERY CAREFULLY you may be able to figure out which one belongs to me!
But Cheer is not limited to the inside of the house. Oh no! Nor is it even limited to OUR house!
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this or not, but our next door neighbor—who has lived next to us as long as there has been a me—paved over a lot of his yard about ten years ago and installed 150 cement angels and a ten foot high cross. He constantly rearranges these things. It looks like he has taken down the ten foot high cross (which he used to shine a blue spotlight on—it would cast a huge, cross-shaped shadow that stretched all the way out to the creek that runs behind our houses). There is a smaller one now.
Here is a little peek at what we can see from the window:
There used to be an angel that hung from a bungee cord out of a tree. That was my favorite. But the tree has been taken down to make way for more angels. If it had been there, I could have sung:
Angels we have heard on high Bungee jumping out of trees And the cross lights up the sky I am al-ler-gic to bees
Fa la la la la la La la la la la La la la la
STRICTLY FOR THE NERDFIGHTERS:
If you have come here via Brotherhood2.0 and are waiting for today’s scavenger hunt clue . . . here it is! I have just returned from hiding it. American History Nerdfighters . . . this one is for you.
After I hid the clue, I turned and took this picture—if you can get to where I was standing, you will get today’s clue!
* This Village plays a huge role in my story in “Let in Snow,” the three-story collection I am writing with John Green and Lauren Myracle. If you read it, feel free to come back and look at these pictures to get a visual!
What a week, my friends. I am sorry it took me so long to update. I have had not one, but TWO book deadlines, and my father had an operation. So I was trying to finish both Scarlett and Let It Snow while bouncing around between New York and Philadelphia. When it gets like this, I go into Cheese mode.
My father must be feeling better, because I was on the phone with him last night, and he was giving me tips on how to throw lit matches at people. (A hobby of his youth. Obviously, I have never tried this, but the skill may come in handy when the shuffling undead show up at the door.)
It seems in my absence, Justine Larbalestier was advertising the fact that it is ASK MJ month—and questioning my truthfulness! She says I make things up! I don’t want to have to fight Justine (largely because, like Meg Cabot, she can take me). About the questions, though, I have an announcement.
Because I have gotten a little behind in the last two weeks, and because you have written in with such top-notch questions (really, I don’t deserve you), I have decided to extend ASK MJ month for THE REST OF THE YEAR! One caveat . . . after Thanksgiving, I shift into HolidayCheermode and will pay special attention to Cheer-related questions. I did this last year, so I know that some of you are bursting with things you need to know about Cheer.
So, expect that I will be moving over to that mode in a few weeks. That is also when I will open the MJ Holiday Signing Workshop, which this year will feature cards from the Hopewell Hotel, the home of Suite Scarlett!
Okay. Enough of that. I have news to tell you. So, the other night, my phone started to ring and ring and ring and ring. It was Oscar, desperately trying to reach me.
“You will never guess who just showed up,” he said, when I finally answered.
“If it’s J.K. Rowling,” I replied, “toss a snack out, and when she runs for it, slam it and bolt the door.”
“It’s not J.K. Rowling,” he said, “although I did catch her out in the garden the other day, letting the air out of my neighbor’s bicycle tires.”
(Except he is British, so I guess he said tyres. Why do they persist with their strange spelling habits? They are a lovable but insane people.)
“Then who is it?” I asked.
“Free Monkey’s cousins.”
Well . . . by Ana Matronic’s sainted brassiere, you could have knocked me down. I had no idea Free Monkey had cousins! He never mentioned it.
For those of you who are wondering (quite reasonably, in my opinion) where Free Monkey has been . . . he’s still in the UK office. As I mentioned before, he got lost in transit twice during his tour, so I told him to stay put until I got there in a few weeks. He’s been drinking tea, watching Doctor Who and self-improvement shows, and working on his memoirs. And I guess he must have called his cousins or something, because two of them showed up, little bags in hand.
They are smaller than he is—they are the WEE FREE MONKEYS.
Oscar quickly took this picture of them. Either he was so excited that his hand started to shake, or he took it with his phone . . . in either case, it’s a little out of focus. But here they all are. Obviously, when I get over to England at the end of the week, I will tell you all about the new members of the family.
Free Monkey and his cousins, the WEE FREE MONKEYS, relaxing in the UK office.
I have dozens of questions piled up, all awaiting answers. I can only answer a few at a time, but now I have all year to keep taking them in and plugging away. In this last batch, I discovered that some of you are in trouble. That is UNACCEPTABLE! Let’s get to work! HELP IS ON THE WAY
hannah said... Hey Maureen. I have a question for you, and while I wish it could be a silly happy one, I'm all out of silly at the moment. So my question is this. I just found out my parents are getting divorced. I'm...upset, to put it lightly. Unfortunately I've been sick for the past...well, since I was five really, but REALLY sick for the past three years, and when you're sick your "friends" tend to show their true colors. So basically I have none. Right now I just need to STOP THINKING. I went to the bookstore today and got a new book, but I already finished it. I need distraction! Here are the rules: I can't leave the house because A) I'm too weak from my cardiac condition and B) I have a head cold, because why do things halfway, right? So any suggestions? Books, movies, people to tazer....? Thanks Maureen, and tell Free Monkey hello. Yours, Helpless Hannah
Hannah, this is a tough one. I told Free Monkey (and, I suppose, the Wee Free Monkeys) of your plight. He said there are no easy answers to any of this . . . but there are options and good points!
The truth is, sometimes life hands you absolute garbage. It does so unapologetically. It shows up with a bunch of TOTAL CRAP and just gives it to you, all smiles and city manners, and says, “Enjoy!” The good news is . . . many of the absolute coolest people throughout history are people who had a lot of overcome, people who got special delivery after special delivery of crap. These people get really, really good at dealing with crap and turning it into good things.
Here’s a story I like, that may feel kind of relevant. I may have mentioned this before, but I love the band Belle and Sebastian. Their lead singer/founder is a guy named Stuart Murdoch. He suffered from a disease called chronic fatigue syndrome, and wasn’t able to do anything for SEVEN YEARS. He was alone for a long time, because he couldn’t even get up, couldn’t really socialize or work or go to school. So while he was stuck in bed, he dreamt up some songs—and now, he is AN INTERNATIONAL ROCK STAR.
There are tons of stories like that.
But, I’m guessing you are thinking, “Yes, MJ, that is all well and good that you are suggesting that I, too, will become an International Rock Star when I’m 90, but what about now? What about some practical solutions?”
I hear you.
The really, really, really good news is that you have something that is relatively new in the world . . . namely, the power of the internets. Do not dismiss the power of the internets! For all the crap that is also on the internets, there is also quality. There is also a world full of friends to be made—an actual world full. This means, for example, that you could start a blog about how to deal with CRAP! Or you could make a friend in another country and start to try to learn a foreign language. You could be QUEEN of something wonderful. This is the power I would tap into.
And Free Monkey says that he is totally your friend. Once you’ve made friends with Free Monkey, you are golden.
anonymous said... Where is my Ipod? I lost it on Friday.
Here. Simply substitute the word “iPod” for “Indian drum.” Have you looked above you to see if there is a guy in pajamas leaning out of a window? I always do this, and it is very effective.
GET TO KNOW ME
shausto-la said... umm.. mj? whats your blood type? just curious.
Shausto-la, I would be lying if I said that this question didn’t make me a tiny, tiny bit nervous. (Or, since you are clearly from the tribe of Westerfeld, I would say that it is nervous-making.) I don’t want to start making assumptions about people who may be of the pointy-toothed, invisible-in-mirrors persuasion, but . . .
However! My blood type is no secret. It is O, negative. You have to say it really sad like that. We Oh Nos (as we call ourselves) are universal donors, which means that in a pinch, anyone can have our blood.
You shouldn’t take that as any kind of invitation, though.
beckalicious said... what are you going to be for halloween!?!
I think I will be doing that classic, “Writer on a deadline, stuffing candy in her face in front of the computer.” Which means that I may end up hanging out of a window by my fingertips. Which may also mean that I have the iPod asked about above.
lacey said... If you were (hypothetically speaking) a lion tamer, do you think you would be successful at said profession? And would you work in a circus? If so, please specify which circus.
A fine, fine question. For a start, I would not work at a circus, only because many of them have patchy records in their treatment of animals. And if Sigfried and Roy have taught us nothing at all (and they may not have), it’s that our friends the Big Cats don’t necessarily like being in shows. In a hypothetical sense, though, I can tell you I would be totally excellent at this job. I have a natural affinity with cats, which is why I have one as a lawyer. Granted, C. Catso Fangola is a small Siamese who spends much of his time on his back in his favorite chair, but this is because he is in a thinking profession, and that is how he concentrates.
I promise more posting, now that some of the pressure is off. (It’s not quite off yet, but it is getting there.) Keep them coming! The ASK MJ office is OPEN. And naturally, this week, I am looking forward to some very werewolves questions.
First, there are some new elements of the site I want to point out. For those of you writing book reports, now there’s an expanded bio, updated Girl At Sea information, and . . . drumroll . . . a PODCAST! The first one is just me, talking about the creation of 13 Little Blue Envelopes. It is chock full of book reporty goodness.
These podcasts will be a regular feature! In the future, I’ll be brining you interviews with more authors! Live reports on my pursuit of a Vespa! An exciting feature called "Ask An Agent" with Daphne Unfeasible! (If you have any questions for "Ask An Agent" you should send them in.) Just look up at the top of this page for the podcasts tab, or down along the side for the little iPod graphic. And don’t forget to sign up for my secret newsletter, so that I can assault you using every single program on your computer.
The reason for my brief absence from this blog is that I went home to see the Family Johnson. One of the major reasons for my visit was that my family cat, Gunny, had been ill.
I have an attachment to my cat that is almost unnatural. In fact, I have taken him on as my lawyer. When anyone gives me any trouble when I am at home, like waking me up at six in the morning to ask me what I want for dinner, I pick him up and tell them to address their concerns to him. On these occasions, his name is C. Casto Fangola.
"I refer you to C. Catso," I say, "of Fangola, Fangola, and Fangola. He’ll sue you if you continue to harass me in this fashion."
He purrs and narrows his eyes in a very persuasive fashion, and the matter is always dropped.
C. Casto, who is normally a frisky and chatty boy, got very sick about two weeks ago. In fact, things looked bad. Very bad indeed. But luckily, what appeared to be kidney failure turned out to be a cherry pit lodged in his belly. Where he got the cherry pit and why he decided to eat it is anyone’s guess, but mine is not to question the inner workings of such a fine legal mind.
(I think many cats have fruit fixations. Trevor and Grace Dangerous, my London actor friends, have a little cat named Macbeth Dangerous. Macbeth has a little cat flap, and he uses that to get into all kinds of adventures, including flirtations with his girlfriend, Ching-Ching Boo Face. Macbeth used to bring home grape stems a lot, and no one knew where they came from. He was very proud of them, as if he was saying, "Where I go at night, there are grapes. What do you have?")
Anyway, a visit to my hometown always brings back memories. Though I am from the Philadelphia area and went to school in the city, my actual town is outside of the city limits (quite close to where The Key to the Golden Firebird is set). When I was in high school, the place made me crazy. There was absolutely nothing to do and nowhere to go. When I lived there, the average age of the inhabitants was something like 75. It was like living in one of those towns mentioned in the Old Testament, where the description runs something like:
And Shawshank begat Rehobeth, who was 612 when he first learnth to ride a bicycle. Rehobeth begat Squamous, who lived to 819. He begat Shellack, who lived to a number too high for us to count. Suffice it to say that he was old.
My next door neighbor was always over 90, as far as I can remember. She was older than the big tree in her yard. They built a large retirement community across the creek from us (we lived on a creek—and still do), which I considered to be completely redundant.
I made my feelings known by generally moping around and complaining about the place.
"I just saw a documentary on mummies,” I would say to my parents. “They said it was about Ancient Egypt, but I think they filmed it here. I recognized half our neighbors in it."
I tended to make my dissatisfaction known.
Things have changed in my town. I noticed this when I got out of the car in front of our house, and looked over at the new inhabitant of my neighbor’s house—the one who was as old as her tree. It was a young guy with arms full of very fancy tattoos. He was getting something out of his own car, which looks like it is from the 70s, funky and low-slung, with flame painted along the side.
"Oh," my mom said, taking one of her countless plaid bags out of the back seat. "That’s Sage. Hi Sage!"
Sage waved back happily.
"Sage is a tattoo and piercing artist,” my mom went on, as we went inside. “I think he holds some kind of world’s record for the amount of weight suspended from his nipple rings. Anyway, do you want to go to the Olive Garden tonight?"
I had stopped moving and stood stock-still in the middle of the kitchen. My mother was talking about dangling weight from nipple piercings like she was telling me about the things she normally tells me about, like illness I might catch or some new ironing board cover she’d just seen on QVC.
I realize you probably don’t know my mother, so I should explain that she is NOT the kind of person who is really into things like hanging weights off of nipple piercings. My mom is very proud of the fact that she has never smoked a cigarette or had more than a half a drink at any one sitting, went to bed at ten o’clock at night in nursing school, and wouldn’t let me keep the knee-length denim skirt someone gave me in high school because she thought it made me "look like a streetwalker." She is also the kind of person who says "streetwalker." The last time I did a signing in my hometown, she reached down over the signing table, yanked up the front of my dress, and whispered loudly, "Maureen! I can see your bra!" (Becoming a published author changes absolutely nothing in your life, in terms of your parents. Just so you know.)
"He and his wife are lovely," my mom went on. "They run the tattoo and piercing parlor on Route 1. Sage is also a blacksmith. You should have seen it on Halloween. He made a talking robot out of car parts!"
I was woozy. I had to sit down.
"Here," she said. "Actually, he made this for me for taking in his mail. This looks more like your style than mine."
She handed me a very cool, industrial statue of C. Casto, made of screws, bolts, and heavy wires.
"It holds letters!" she said. "Look!"
She put a piece of mail on the statue, which displayed it perfectly.
"I can’t believe this," I said. "It’s not fair. Why couldn’t we live next to an awesome metalwork artist who ran a tattoo studio and made talking statues of car parts when I lived here?"
There were no robots in town when I lived there.
My mother went into one of her usual "yes-I-know-we-abused-you-weren’t-we-awful-it’s-amazing-you-survied" speeches, which I haughtily ignored as I placed my lawyer on my lap.
"Tread carefully," I said. "My attorney is present, and you know how cranky he gets before he has his dinnertime wet food. He is liable to hit you with some kind of subpoena."
My mother cannily cracked open some Fancy Feast, and I was temporarily left without representation.
"You win this round," I said. "But I will get you on the appeal."
So, I’m a bit bitter. But the letter holder is nice.
In any case, this is going to be a major week! There is much work to be done on the new book. And to make up for a few days of silence, I am going to try to post here like crazy. Please let me know if you have any important questions you need answered. I am in the mood to enlighten.
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