Adventures in writing

Adventures in my household aren't terribly grand. This is partly because we're mostly homebodies, and partly because Kiah and I - the usual adventuring duo - are way too easily entertained. For instance, this weekend we planned an adventure like so:

Me: "I've got a gift card for Cafe Latte. Let's go eat gourmet sandwiches and write!"

Kiah: "But I don't know what to write about."

Me: "Well, then, we'll just pretend to be pretentious writers! I'll wear my beret. We can pull out our notebooks and talk about the great symbolism we've got going and how our ideas are going to change the world."

Kiah: "I'll wear my hipster hat and write fanfiction!"

Me: "I'll write about psychic powers and my drunk narrator!"

And a couple hours of bus detours later, we're sitting in an upscale cafe, wearing hats and scribbling in our notebooks, occasionally giggling because we wrote the word sex in public. Like I said, easily entertained. And not very good at being pretentious, either. But hey, I finished another scene I'd been stuck on, and I ate some damn good cake in the process.

In other writing news, I heard back from Clarion today. I'm on the waitlist. While I'm thrilled that the admission board liked my work, this wasn't a scenario I had considered - I planned for an acceptance/rejection situation, and now I'm not quite sure what to do with myself. Since I now won't know if I'm going to the workshop until as late as June, I guess I'll budget like I'm in, plan my writing projects like I'm not, and distract myself with spinning, woodburning, and SciFi Channel original movies.

But still, any email from the Clarion admissions board saying they were "impressed by your work" is a good email, even if it has a but in the middle of it.

Much as I love Jared Padalecki, I wouldn't knit him a sweater. Dude's like 6'4".

I find few traditions worth keeping. One of them is this: on Valentine's Day, roommate Kiah and I have a double date with the Winchester boys from Supernatural. She gets Dean (Jensen Ackles, of course - her longtime crush) and I get Sam (Jared Padalecki, who is in the "talking tree" height category but, y'know, somehow I don't care).

Last year, we stayed in and watched Supernatural. This year, we went out to see the Friday the 13th remake, starring Jared, then back home for a season three Supernatural marathon beginning where we left off last year. Friday the 13th wasn't nearly as gory as My Bloody Valentine 3D, but the deaths were quite creative and it actually managed to make me care about the characters, which was unexpected. It would probably make my DVD collection look more respectable, considering all the terrible movies on my shelf.

Because we started watching Supernatural at the episode "Mystery Spot," a Groundhog's Day send-off of Dean deaths, Kiah's date died like ten times. He also made obnoxious gargling noises and peed himself. My date, on the other hand, fought off Jason Voorhees. Who picked the right Winchester? I think the answer is clear.

During our Supernatural marathon, I finished my Snow White sweater. It's like wearing a pretty, pretty cloud. Easily my favorite sweater I've knit so far.

And speaking of sweaters, guess what finally showed up? THE SWEATER YARN I ORDERED IN NOVEMBER!

Dream in Color Classy in the "Nightwatch" colorway, six skeins including the one I already had. I've been waiting on this for months, plotting a complex cabled sweater based on a design from the novel I'm working on. More on that eventually. For now, look at the blue:


This stuff is so blue it practically glows in direct sunlight. I'm hoarding it dragon-style until I've got the sweater on the needles.

This weekend I also got my Clarion application finished. Fingers crossed. I have a lot of potential Big Things I'm crossing my fingers for lately, and I'm running out of fingers.

In completely unrelated news, the muppet-dog is looking especially muppety today.


We discovered that when you go "Mahna mahna" at him, he answers with a bark. I'm going to encourage this behavior.