I’M ALL ABOUT YOU, AS SOON AS I AM DONE TALKING

Do you ever feel kind of . . . unspooled? You know . . . slightly less than together because you are moving very quickly?

You may not know what I mean, because I’ve read your comments and e-mails, and you guys seem pretty together.

In fact, I think today I’m just going to pay tribute to YOU, the people who leave comments. The unsung heroes of the blogging world. Besides, I have to tell you which commenter is getting the Random Book!

I’ll do all of that just as soon as I finish rambling about myself. Because right now I feel like I’m about six places at once. I’m supposed to be leaving for the UK to go into seclusion in the London Office to finish Suite Scarlett, but I am far from being packed or prepared. There are a number of factors involved. I’ve been busy working, for a start—on Scarlett, and on some other secret things I can’t talk about just yet. My stuff is pretty much everywhere.

Also, I keep stepping on glass.

See, I had this really nice jug that my friend gave me when she moved. It was a special jug, a really fancy handmade one by some amazing artist. I’ve had this jug for two years, sitting on top of a cabinet in my bedroom. The other night, when I went blundering in around two in the morning to get something out of said cabinet, the jug decided it had had enough of its perch and life in general and it dove to the ground. It shattered into approximately eleventy billion pieces, which was nice both for my downstairs neighbors, and for me.

I have a white shag rug in my bedroom, and despite the hour of vacuuming . . . I can’t get all the glass out of it. I find glass. With my feet. I should just call them my “glassfinders” now.

So I keep stepping on glass (this should not be confused with Libba Bray's glass eye) . . . and I also keep forgetting to buy Band Aids when I’m out, so I keep having to wrap my feet in pieces of surgical gauze. I don’t know why I have surgical gauze. I just do.

Also, I skinned my knee. I can’t tell you how. It’s a secret.

Anyway, let’s look at YOUR COMMENTS.

I don’t know why I keep making up these contests where I have to choose things—because you guys always send and write good stuff, so I sit there for hours chewing on my mousepad, trying to pick a winner. Just look at all these good ones I had to choose from:

Totally off topic but, IKEA HOSTEL! 
The web adress says it all. WE NEVER HAVE TO LEAVE!

There is NOTHING off topic about IKEA! I love IKEA! That’s why I keep talking about it. The fact that there is an IKEA you can sleep over at is only going to fuel my desire to go on an IKEA world tour. Cranberry mouse! Round beds! IKEA bathrobes! The Holmenskollen ski jump? Why am I not there already?

jaimie said...
Next time you see Scott Westerfield(sp)try to make him wear a Yoda costume to the next events.

I saw Scott today and I passed this message along. I don’t know what will come of it, but my part is done. I should mention that we had lunch at GOOGLE! Home of The Internets! My friend Winchester Grey showed us around. They have everything at Google! They have all of these amazing restaurants for free, a game room with an air hockey table, massage chairs in the halls, and scooters you can use to scoot down the long hallways.

Remind me again why I’m not a computer engineer?

Oh right. Because I thought Linux was a Peanuts character. And I never did my math homework in high school. Never. Not once. (Except on the bus or in homeroom.) But! I did develop this great trick to hide this fact! Whenever sister would try to get volunteers to go to the board to show the work they had done the night before, I would immediately volunteer. Very, very assertively.

“But why?” you ask. “If you hadn’t done it?”

Because I would then turn and say, “Suzanne and I will do it, Sister.”

This was not how things were done. It was not a partner exercise. But for whatever reason, maybe boredom, she usually allow it. And I would drag my friend Suzanne up to the board. And she ALWAYS did her homework. The entire trick is to expose yourself! Volunteer first! Don’t try to hide it! Bring a friend who knows the answers!

Every once in a while this would backfire kind of spectacularly and she’d throw me a curve ball and make me go to the board and solve the problem on the fly while everyone else would just copy it out of their notebooks. But I like to think that this improved my ability to think quickly under pressure.

I was rambling again, wasn’t I?

Anyway, about Google . . . the creepy part is that they have all these long memos on debugging and testing code in the stalls of the women’s room. They make you work hard there to get all the free food and the scooters. They even make you work while you pee.

Here is a picture of Free Monkey in the lobby.



GOOGLE THIS MONKEY

tobias said...
a quick note: giving something away at random to whoever leaves the best comment is contradictory.
If you would give it away at random it wouldn't matter how good the comment is.

Tobias, I know that English isn’t even your first language. You are Dutch. So it is a little extra embarrassing that you should point this out. Please do not mention this to FREE MONKEY when he comes to visit you in The Netherlands on part two of the FREE MONKEY WORLD TOUR.

agustina said...
Hello, or hola as we say in my country. First Maureen i gotta tell you I love your blog, it´s just hilarious, and I love you, you´re the projection of who I wanna be in a couple of years,you´re fabulous. Why should I get the free signed copy? Because in my country I can´t get a copy of your book, and buying it over the internet would really set me back, since 1 american dollar is like 4 pesos argentinos...

Hola, Agustina! I am very excited to have a reader in Argentina! I just want to say this . . . when you become me, WATCH OUT FOR THE GLASS.

Perhaps Free Monkey can come and visit you at some point? He has many places to go in the next few weeks, but he has never been to South America before.

So who won?

In the end, I had to pick Jessica, who had this to say:

jessica said...
Should it be long and thoughtful? Short and random? 

To be quite frank, I have no idea, therefore, I will explain my love for Girl at Sea.

1. Aidan. I totally fell in love with him, despite the fact that he was sarcastic and mean. What does that say about my choice in men? That just horrible, isn't it?

2. Jellyfish. I've had a fear of the neasty little things since I was jet-skiing in Galveston, TX and I touched one. Not stung, just touched. And I cried. A lot.

1. It is okay to love Aidan. He has many positive qualities too, you know.

2. OH MY GOD YOU GOT STUNG BY A JELLYFISH! YOU POOR THING! THEY WANT TO KILL US ALL! YOU MUST HAVE A BOOK!!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!



Danger!

Jessica, e-mail me your address and a book is on its way!

Now I have to get back to the packing so I can get to the London Office and finish this book. Oscar has told me that the slug problem is just about solved . . . which is not as solved as I would like it to be.

But I also have my friends The Cat From Next Door and Screaming Old Lady to see . . . and who knows? Maybe another visit from J. K. Rowling? Although I kind of hope not. Frankly, she freaked me out a little.

LIBBA BRAY HAS A GLASS EYE

It’s been a rough few weeks here in YA land. It seems like everyone has been on crazy deadlines, or getting sick, or otherwise falling to pieces. I think I should bring you all up to speed.

The other day, I had lunch with Justine Larbalestier and Libba Bray. Libba has been working 25 hours a day on the final book in the A Great and Rebel Terrible Angel trilogy and was looking a little green around the gills. The final days of revision are trying at best. Libba is one of those people who gives off an air of total composure—but it did seem like, with only a slight provocation, she might have flipped the table over and challenge the first comer to a knife fight. Or something like that.

We were talking about the fact that our compatriot, J. Green, was in the hospital with a horribly infected eye. (He’s out now.)

I was saying that I felt bad, because J. Green had been complaining about that eye for a while, and I kept saying, “Blah, blah, blah. Your eye is fine, Green.” Of course, it wasn’t.

And then Libba hit me with a surprise.

“I have a glass eye,” she said.

I was impressed, and I said so. I envy anyone who has a removable body part.

“You know what I was going to do?” she asked. “I was going to go to the hospital to see him, and I was going to say, ‘Hey! Bet you can’t do this!’ And I was going to smack the back of my head and . . .”

She mimicked popping out her eye into her palm and shoving it in Justine’s face.

“If you did that,” I said solemnly, “I would give you ONE MILLION DOLLARS.”



Libba was going to pay John a visit.

“You know,” Justine said. “When I first met Libba, I knew she was missing something, but I couldn’t remember what. I thought it was hearing in one of her ears. So I kept screaming at her.”

“I thought she was insane,” Libba said, nodding.

John is recovering, and by recovering, I mean that he is at home playing with his Wii. At least, that is what I assume he is doing. You don’t need two good eyes to play Wii, you only need the will. And he has the will.

Meanwhile, Scott Westerfeld (who sits next to me as I type this), has something like fifteen minutes to finish EXTRAS, the next book in the Uglies/Prettie/Specials series. He keeps staring off into space, as if he sees a hoverboard floating somewhere in the middle distance.

It is best not to provoke Scott, but it still seems like a good moment to interview him. Let’s do that now. This as in-process as you can possibly get.

ME: How’s that revising going?

SCOTT: What revision?

ME: The one you are doing right now, as we sit here.

SCOTT: (twitching a little) I’m not revising, I’m first drafting.

SCOTT starts typing again. I watch.

ME: Are there hoverboards in Extras?

SCOTT: There are hoverboards and there’s a whole new species of hover equipment.

ME: Are you having fun right now?

SCOTT: I’m having less fun that usual.

ME: Is this a bad time to be asking you questions?

SCOTT: (gritting teeth) No. It’s the perfect time.

ME: Oh, good!

I watch Scott’s fingers closely as he types. He looks at me.

ME: What are you typing right now?

SCOTT: (reading) “Flakes were falling from the sky, like a light snow.”

ME: That’s an official sneak preview of Extras?

SCOTT nods and scoots his computer over a little.

ME: Did you know that Libba Bray has a glass eye?

SCOTT: Yes.

ME: If you could have any body part made of glass, what would you get?

SCOTT: A tooth.

ME: I would get a foot.

There you go. That’s an mj exclusive.

I’m glad to see that some of you have been writing in with questions for me and for “Ask An Agent” with Daphne. I have to keep Daphne’s brain on track, because she is getting married and is using her considerable organizational skills making notebooks of dresses, cakes, and flowers, instead of figuring out how to get me a stun gun.

Did I not tell you this?

Yes, Daphne Unfeasible just got engaged. I knew it was coming. Her beau, Rexroth Implausible, told me—and I had to be quiet about it. Which I was. Quiet as the grave. It helped that this was when I had the flu and was asleep for about two days.

Rexroth and I get along very well. Like the other day, when Daphne was showing me their wedding registry, talking me through the coordinated china patterns and throw pillows or whatever.

“Know what you need?” I said. “A trampoline.”

Daphne paid no attention to this, but Rexroth perked up at once. I could tell from the look in his eye that he wanted to know more.

“boingboingboingboingboingboing,” I explained.

He nodded, and I could see that he knew exactly where I was coming from.

“boingboingboingboing,” he replied.

Daphne turned and narrowed her eyes.

“boingboingboing,” we both said.

And you know what? There’s a trampoline on the registry now. See, it’s good to have me around.



Let me help you with your registry. Get better stuff.


So, please keep sending me the requests and questions. I have examined them all. In fact, I pose a task for YOU.

THE UK CHALLENGE:

I will be leaving for the London office over the weekend. (Hopefully not in a snowstorm this time.) I am now accepting UK CHALLENGES. What should I do in the UK? I need to make up for the fact that I was flat on my back the last time I was there, and you guys seem to be full of good ideas. I have all of London at my disposal. And for a few days, I’ll even have Daphne! (Her participation in any hijinx cannot be guaranteed, unless I kidnap her, which I am not above doing.)

UK readers—I look forward to your weighing in!

I will examine all of the suggestions, both those in the comments and on e-mail, on Sunday night—and I will complete one of them.

Let’s see what you got.

(This will scare Daphne all week.)