Category: family
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Fancy Hat
With release day fast approaching, when I start to obsess over interview answers like a single sentence will directly impact sales, I should probably remember this wisdom from the sister: Me: I’m a bit crazy-eyed at the moment. Release day is soon The Sister: that should be yay-ful! yay books 😀 Me: NO ONE WILL…
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My Father
My father, the scientist: Dad: Your laundry comes home all smooshed and stuffed into bags, and goes out neatly folded. Dad: It’s so nice we can help decrease your entropy.
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Pernicious Childhood Influences
I’m well aware by this point (due to the invaluable efforts of my critique group and first readers) that I have a tendency to put my British phrasing in the mouths of my American characters without realizing it. I got roundly smacked for having Andrew say that “some breakfast wouldn’t go amiss”. My mother was…
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True Family
So, if I’d ever doubted it, I got a hilarious reminder this Thanksgiving of where I got my genetics from. So on a previous visit to my maternal grandparents’ house, I noticed a brick with an interesting maker’s mark. I asked my coworker to show me where to look it up, and discovered it was…
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Lighting
Me: Your bathroom lightbulbs are set to “undead” Dad: What? Me: They make you look all pale and slightly blue. Unless I’m actually slightly pale and blue. Dad: You kind of are. Me: What? No, it’s the fluorescent bulbs! They mess with skin tones! Dad: Those are some of the only incandescents we have left…
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Unhelpful appliances
My parents’ shower is extremely obliging, but rather clueless. I’m staying over at the parental house to attend a wedding this evening, and since it’s somewhat hot this afternoon, when getting ready I tried to introduce their shower to the concept of “cool”. It was a not very successful lesson. First I turned the knob…
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Steak and Ice Cream
Conversations with family: [Dad and I are discussing cooking shows while he gets himself ice cream] Me: I would lose so badly on those things. I couldn’t even cook a steak, because I don’t eat them. Dad: Well, you eat them in restaurants. But that doesn’t help you cook it at home, though. [He chips…
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Family Stories
Shopped for a new pillow today, which I always find vaguely embarrassing. Mattress stores, you’re expected to climb up and loll around, but when I’m being indecisive about pillows, I end up feeling rather silly standing in housewares fondling different firmnesses. I do feel like I’m asserting some fundamental right, though. (Life, liberty, and fluffy…
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Excavator
I have returned to civilization! I spent about half a week at my grandparents’, which I class as a writing retreat, because there’s absolutely nothing to do in their house, above and beyond the lack of internet. Grocery shopping every few days is a grand adventure. But it did mean I finished the discovery draft…
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Obey the box
We stop for gas at a station a block off the freeway, on a route we have traveled multiple times a year for the entirety of my childhood. As we pull out, Dad boots the GPS unit, otherwise known as the Magic Box That Tells Us Where to Go: Me: Are you turning on the…