Nom de Plume

Actually, chez Mai Tai, waiting for Seena for lunch. Picked up the U-Haul this morning and he’s helping me load up. Free wireless is a wonderful, wonderful thing.
Have had a wonderful weekend, great dinner on Sat., a performance Dana choreographed last night. Oh, he’s here. Later.

My mother, a retired diplomat, has been putting together tours to Romania and India–places in which she has lived and traveled extensively. As she develops her Tours for the Curious, she’s seeking intrepid souls who are willing to act as guinea pigs in exchange for very good rates.

Romanian tours tend to be horsey tours that include galloping across the Romanian countryside, visiting local artisans in places that are off the beaten track, and, last but not least, sampling the local moonshine. For more details, please visit her (rather incomplete due to my lack of time) web site.

She also has a trip to India planned for January 2005 that will focus on Rajasthan, and, again, is looking for people who are interested in gallivanting through this colorful desert state. I’m not sure if horses are involved in this one.

In any case, I promised her I’d let everyone I know who might be interested know.

For more details, please contact her directly.

Steve finished stripping the dining room floor while I was at Z.o.o.T.o.o.n.s. listening to Aimee Mann with Elizabeth last night.

By the way, the cat’s name is Wally. (Not to be confused with Willy, the dog who lives next door.) We found this out when Steve dumped him on our bed with a rueful “I couldn’t resist” night before last. The cat snuggled up between us, happy as could be. Someone started calling, “Wally! Wallly! Waaallllllyyyyyyy! Here Kitty!” Wally flicked his ears and stared out the window. Then he yawned. He slept at our house all night. Alas, no kitty food, so he left when Steve did.

This is remarkable.

It’s not remarkable that he opposes the gay marriage ban and thinks it should be left to individual states. Nor it it remarkable that he has publicly acknowledged his gay daughter. But think about this. In a single public statement, he underscores what we have known all along: Our current administration looks out for number one. You think he would have made the same statement were it not for a gay daughter? Think again.

Reuters just published an article entitled Neither Bush Nor Kerry Understands Women Voters, which states that:

Most American women … don’t feel that President Bush or John Kerry understand them, pollsters and independent experts said on Tuesday.

Then we find out that this broad generalization is based on a study that Lifetime did of 1,000 women. Hmmph. Every woman I know–admittedly, not an accurate representation of the population–is firmly entrenched on the Kerry side. On the other hand, I don’t know a single woman who watches Lifetime. Or at least admits to it.

What bothers me about this article is that there’s this incredible leap of logic; Lifetime viewers probably represent a small percentage of the population, but the thrust of the argument is that all women feel this way. It’s sloppy thinking and sloppy reporting.

Steve had already put down a pot to catch the leak from the skylight by the time I awoke to a lovely Seattle gloom. Not, alas, before the library’s copy of Martin Dressler got pretty damp. (V. good: it has the feel of a classic, reminded me of Gatsby, captures a forgotten age and innocence. Highly recommend even though ending disappointing but inevitable.)

We also seem to have a cat who belongs to a neighbor, but streaks inside whenever we open the door. Fluffy and affectionate, he sits on Steve’s lap on the porch swing blithely ignoring the “Here, Kitty, Kitty” issuing from two houses over.

Tonight, off to kill more brain cells and finish stripping the paint off the dining room floor. Sigh.

That’s the sound we woke up to Sunday morning. The skylight in the bedroom leaks.

Not so great either, but in, oh, five years or so, it’ll be nice.

Naturally, I have great (read expensive) plans for the bathroom that involve vitreous tile. And yesterday we found a great place that sells all sorts of recycled housey things for reasonable prices. I have a feeling we’re going to be haunting it.

Tonight is the first night in the new place.

Not only are the purple floors not only a dark blue, they’re smeared with white paint from the walls. It’s not even Pollackesque–just a mess.

Steve is depressed. He hates the house. To be honest, so do I. Everything the previous owners did at 9313 Lima Terrace was chintzy. They installed windows that don’t open. All added materials are cheap. And powder blue toilet and tub, for crying out loud!

Still, I think we can make it quite nice.

I am trying to get ahold of the Home-Buying One to see what he thinks about slapping a coat of pale paint onto the floors as a stopgap. After all, if we get the floors refinished, what’s one more layer?

Dear Ms. Munshi,

We quite like your story, an economical zinger, and would like to publish it in an up-coming issue of BQ. We offer $150 for First North American Serial Rights and the right to use it on our website for up to a year once it’s published. We pay on or a little after publication and will send along a couple copies with the check.

At the moment our lead-time is about a year.

If these terms are suitable, please include the text of this email in your reply and let us know.

Looking forward to hearing from you, and thank you for a tightly-written, intelligent jolt of a story.

Steve just called me to tell me the floors are not only purple, they’re dark purple and have paint splatters on them. He said I would hate it. To which I blithely replied that I hated the carpeting more. We’ll see.

Oh my head.

From John L. and pretty funny.

I’m bleary this morning because I packed the coffeepot last night. (What was I thinking?) During the drive in, I thought, “This is great! I’ll give up caffeine!” Then reality set in when I almost backended another car.

The move is shaping up, and the old apartment looking bare. We’re getting to keep some of the built-ins because they’re tearing down the old place the moment we move out.

I’m getting excited, though am not really looking forward to this week. Steve spends tomorrow ripping out the powder blue carpets. He spends the day after that U-Hauling stuff. I’m not sure what he’s doing on Friday, but he’s taking it off too.

And then, in just under two weeks, I’m U-Hauling the rest of my stuff from Boise. YAY. I’m getting excited.

It is a truth universally known that the whole point of a reading a romance is to avoid the happily ever after because it never is. That said, I was compelled to pick up this book because … well, who can resist? And, aside from some glaring grammatical lapses, a far too liberal sprinkling of archaisms, and a sometimes clumsily pieced together plot, it was pretty entertaining. Basically, it tells us what Austen couldn’t: that Lizzy and Darcy have a rip-roaring sex life.

On style.

except WOW.

Took a load over to the house and stuck in the garage last night. Then went swimming at Seward Park. Doing the same tonight.

Mike Hurley was in town for three days, took off yesterday. On Monday, we went to the Buena Vista for the view and the best mojitos in town.

I am a writer who hates to write.

We start on the 18th. Steve is taking a few days off, ripping out the carpet, the falling apart deck and removing the concrete in the back. (He’s scared the tenants into moving on the appropriate day by warning them he was having a dumpster delivered. “Should I have it dumped in the front or in the back?” my sweet boyfriend asked innocently. “I wouldn’t want it to block your moving.” “A dumpster?!” she asked incredulously. “Well, we really hadn’t planned that far ahead.) We move that following weekend, so home will be 9313 Lima Terrace South by the 23rd at the latest.

Then, I fly to Boise on the 27th, pick up stuff. Am taking the entire next week off to mosey on back, unpack, rearrange furniture while Steve’s gone. Maybe even paint. Hmmm, I wonder what Martha Stewart’s new paint collection is like … prison gray? incarcerated indigo? insider trading teal?