Bio and other fun

Isn't that cute? It's a little icon thingie I made on one of those website where you can do that sort of thing. They didn't have any hair options that are really like mine, but this is okay.

I have a new bio, which I sent to my Del Rey edtor last week. It is:

Stacia Kane has been a phone psychic, a customer service representative, a bartender, and a movie theatre usher. Writing is more fun than all of them combined.
She currently lives with her husband and their two little girls. She wears a lot of black, still makes great cocktails, likes to play music loud in the car, and thinks Die Hard is one of the greatest movies ever made. She believes in dragons and the divine right of kings, and is a fervent Ricardian.
Visit her online at www.Staciakane.com.

My editor really liked it, so hopefully that's a good sign that it doesn't make me sound like a loon. I do hate writing bios; I try to write serious ones and end up sounding like a pretentious git, so I try to funny it up and sound like some sort of escapee from Arkham ("Stacia Kane spends her nights in a bunny suit, stealing candy from children and plotting the destruction of do-gooders," that sort of thing).

The bio also apparently started a debate in the DR offices about Richard III, which is awesome. (One political point I will make at every turn is the innocence of Richard III. "Because truth should be more powerful than lies...and truth is important.")

Anyway. What else. Oh, I just got to explain to my almost-four-year-old what a panty liner is, that was fun (sorry, is that TMI?)

We bought Halloween costumes this weekend. Hubs tried to drum up some interest in doing some sort of Halloween activity at his work, but that did not go over well. Apparently Halloween is "not Christian" and is therefore inappropriate. Yes, really.

The checkout girl at Woolworths mentioned this to us as well, that it's hard to get anyone interested in Halloween for that reason (it's seen as "un-Christian" and therefore wrong to celebrate. Yes, really), and she found it confusing because she thought America was a fairly religious country, but we seem to love Halloween, how does that work? So hubs and I basically explained to her that while you do occasionally hear of some religious group or lone pastor who thinks Halloween is evil, most Americans simply see Halloween as an amusing and light-hearted holiday that hurts no one, and the schools and a lot of churches and workplaces enter into the fun of it, and only sourpusses and the supremely unimaginative do things like hold candlelight vigils to pray for the souls of those poor unfortunates who are led by Satan into committing the great sin of dressing up like Superman or Princess Leia and asking strangers to put mini Snickers bars into their pillowcases or plastic pumpkin carriers or whatever they're using (when I was a kid we used pillowcases, as they are much bigger. In trick-or-treating, as with so many things, size matters.)

In this pro-Halloween, anti-stupidity stance I have no worries about offending potential readers; frankly, if you think Halloween is evil, you're probably not really the target audience for my books about sexy demons and drug-addicted atheistic witches anyway, right?

Objecting to the celebration of Halloween for religious reasons makes about as much sense as objecting to evergreen trees with lights on them for religious reasons; we're talking about trappings, not beliefs. Halloween costumes are fun; trick-or-treating is fun. Trees with lights in them are pretty. Get over it. (Yes, for some of us Oct. 31st is a holiday with deeper meaning, but that doesn't mean that's all the holiday means or should mean to anyone, and it certainly doesn't mean no one should be allowed to have any fun that night.)

Anyway. I'd intended to do this "as me anything" meme thing, but maybe I'll save that until Thursday, as my little Halloween story developed a life of its own here. So on Thursday I will invite you to ask me anything, no matter how scandalous or shocking. Be prepared. Heh heh.