So, I haven’t posted since BEA. That was, like, over a freaking month ago! My blisters are almost healed, that’s how long it’s been. And so many interesting things have happened. Except not really because whenever an author says “interesting things have happened,” everyone jumps to conclusions, and while I wish I had conclusions for you to jump to, alas, I do not.

But I did other interesting things, like back my car into my friend’s barbed wire fence at a 4th of July party. It was really dark out, and apparently the back window was fogged, but it was so dark out I couldn’t even tell. And I was really cold because I wore shorts because it was warm for, like, two hours before it got freezing, and somehow I got disoriented. I thought I was turning around in a normal, I-know-how-to-drive-sort-of-way, and then CRASH. Mostly nothing happened, though. Eustace has a few new battle scars, and I felt extremely stupid, but otherwise everything was okay. (Eustace is the name of my car, btw. Eustace, rhymes with useless. I had so many cars die one year–and I am not, like, rich and made of cars or anything, so it was kind of devastating–that when I got this one I decided to name him so he wouldn’t die, kind of like how people used to name babies so fairies wouldn’t steal them. So far he’s been the least useless car, and I had to learn to drive a stick to operate him, so I feel like I’ve earned his non-useless-ness.)

Oh, and I bought a box of powdered donuts that were HALF OFF, so they were only 79 cents. I thought they might be stale and dry or something, but in fact they are kind of wet and if anything are too moist. O__o (Still delicious, though.)

And I rewatched Watership Down for the first time in 14 years. (14 years! That was half my life ago that I last saw it!) I used to watch that movie over and over when I was really little, even though about half of the stuff in it is so scary that I’d have to close my eyes or leave the room. I thought as an adult I would laugh at how scary I thought it was, but you know what? It’s TERRIFYING. There are all sorts of violent parts, and it’s like the people who made the movie didn’t get how horrifyingly they were animating rabbit blood. And also some of the violence is taken out and represented by imagery instead, which really only makes it more terrifying than just showing it would have been.

I’m reading the screenplay to American Beauty so that I will FINALLY UNDERSTAND what happened in the end. I keep blinking during the important parts at the end or something and missing the entire point of the movie. I’ve thought it had several different endings now, and several different morals, and I’m not sure which one is right. Maybe after that I’ll read American Psycho so that I’ll finally understand what was going on there, too, because no one I ask has seen it and thus cannot explain to me what the hell was going on or what I was supposed to get from it.

I’ve been doing revisions on Shades of Rome. And thinking about going back to school. For anyone who doesn’t know, I graduated from college 3 years ago, after spending 7 years getting my degree. I feel like after 7 years, I should have 2 degrees or gotten a medal for procrastination or something. But, no. I got a generic piece of paper that said “Bachelor’s Degree” and didn’t even say my major on it, because it was self-designed. So anyway, I sort of swore off school and didn’t ever want to go back. And then every once in a while I decide I want to get a master’s in something and make wild claims about applying for grad school. And then I never do.

Well, I AM THINKING ABOUT IT AGAIN. I miss Latin, and now that I have a book published, I feel like the burning need to validate my life by proving I’m publishable doesn’t take up so much of my thoughts. It’s hard, though, having been in the “real world” or something like it for the past three years. I’ve learned a lot of lessons about reality and while I’ve always hated practical people who pet their business degrees and ask, “What are you going to *do* with that?” I find my thoughts are now clouded with that exact sentiment.

And you might think that’s nonsense because, duh, I’ve spent my whole life not listening to people who said the exact same thing about writing–“It’s just a hobby, though, you can’t *do* that for a living”–and then I sold a book and it was more than I’d ever made as a minimum wage slave who hated her life all the time. And you are probably right and I should let my successes validate the risks I’ve taken rather then let reality change me into someone “practical” who wears clean clothes every day and remembers to shower regularly and actually flosses. I’ll be honest and say I’m not sure I ever want a real job. I want to think I could get one someday, just to prove it to myself, but I’m not sure if I actually want one. But I’m also not sure that I want to always be a fulltime author, either. The times when I’m working like mad on a book and am able to stay up as late as I want/need to and not worry about waking up or doing anything else are GREAT. But the times in between, when I feel like I have nothing to do and no purpose in life… get a little boring. Not, like, worse than working retail or fast food boring, but still. The only thing in the world I hate more than being practical is being bored.

I’m sure there are even more interesting things I could tell you about–I left out all of June; what happened in June? I don’t even remember now–but I will stop there. And try to remember to post more.