Questions and thoughts

1. It's very odd to have today be just another day. Yes, this is our third 4th in the UK but for some reason this year it feels like a big deal. I think this is partly due to mentioning to Princess the other day that the 4th was coming up and having her not know what that meant. So she got a crash course in it, and now when you ask what today is, she says, "It's America's birthday!" Also, her teacher wished me a happy Independence Day when I dropped her off, which was really nice, and the hubs's colleagues decorated his desk with flags and a copy of the Constitution, which was seriously awesome. He told them he'd be celebrating the day by stealing all the tea from the breakroom and dumping it in the lake outside.

2. I got toothpaste in my eye this morning while brushing my teeth. At least I think I did. Something got in my eye, and it hurt like fuck, seriously. Imagine me, bent over the sink with my eyes squeezed shut and tears pouring out of the right one, my mouth full of toothpaste, trying to hurry and finish brushing with my right hand while using my left to try and pluck at my eyelid to free whatever it was in my eye. Not fun. Probably pretty funny, I imagine I looked like some sort of rabid eye-plucking Quasimodo, but not fun. How the hell does toothpaste get in someone's eye? How did I manage that?

3. Stopped at the used book stall in the town this morning. It's there a couple of days a week, and I've been desperate for something new to read so I had a little browse. I wanted something fairly mindless, really, something I could just breeze through and not have to concentrate on. But of course things catch your (toothpaste-free) eye. I bought Carson McCullers's The Member of the Wedding, The Golden Bough (win! I lost my old copy), and Single White Female (the novel they based the movie on.) The guy running the stall looked at me like I was insane. I smiled and told him I have eclectic tastes.

4. Oh! Monday's post will be mildly NSFW, just to warn in advance. I actually considered posting it today as people aren't at work, but since most of you seem to read from work I decided against it. It's not really pornographic or anything, but be warned. I think it's a really fun post though, so don't forget to come check it out.

Okay, questions!

Robyn asked, "Have any of your kids' friends' mothers, the PTA, etc. ever found out you wrote HAWT and looked down on you for it? Or called your mothering skills into question because of it?"

Well. Yes, a few people know. No, I haven't had any problems. I'm very careful who I tell, though. While I don't honestly believe I'd have any problems with it, I think it's best to keep it under my hat for the most part. And if someone did find out and have a problem with it...well, it's not like I read my books out loud to my children or encourage them to act them out.


Charles (whom I suspect is taking the piss) asked "If your books were animals, what kind of animals would they be?"

Panthers! RAWR! At least I hope they'd be something in the big cat family. Nobody wants to write books that are, you know, mice or opossums or something.


From Bernard comes "would you like to time travel into your sixteen year old body with all the knowledge you have now?"

Heck yeah. I'd love to. I'd drop out of high school and get an AA degree, I think, so I could get a better job to support myself while writing at night and on weekends. And there are a lot of people I'd like to say things to, both good and bad. That would be nice.


V95, another Man Making Fun (lol) came up with this one: "What is the meaning of life?"

I have no idea, seriously. I don't think there is a meaning of life, and that's all there is. It means whatever you want it to mean.


Writtenwyrdd suggested "Do you actually believe in the things you write about?"

Yes, absolutely. Even if I didn't I would as I write them, but I do.


And Samantha and V95 both gave me that perennial 70s Barbara Walters favorite, "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?"

I really have no idea. Pine, maybe? Weeping willow? I'd like to say something like a big maple or oak but I don't think I'm really that sort of girl. But who knows? I think questions like this presume a high degree of self-knowledge and self-esteem, and while I have the first I think the two are mutually exclusive.

So that was fun! Have a great 4th and a great weekend, and we're going to talk about oral sexual acts on Monday (no, seriously.)