Escapism is Often the Purpose

Through no recent effort of my own, I have managed to sell another copy of Like Two Opposite Things this week and while I genuinely appreciate every single sale, I have to admit that the royalties are nothing to the comment I received from a friend recently.

She said she reread the book as a stress-reliever. She wanted to escape to a simpler world where the conflicts were less intense and the ending was realistically happy.

Truth: that’s exactly why I WROTE the book. Because *I* wanted to escape to a simpler world and a happier ending.

One of the reviews I received said that nothing much happened at the beginning of the story. And maybe I spent a little too much time world-building and expositionizing and whatnot (although I disagree) but for better or worse, it really was done on purpose.

The best part of reading stories like Harry Potter–FOR ME–is escaping into a fantasy world. But I don’t want to battle demons and save my friends so much as I want to live in a castle and go to Charms class. Maybe it doesn’t make for quite as exciting a story but I would gladly read 20 or 30 or 40 thousand pages of just daily life in the castle and student gossip and complaining about Muggle Studies homework.

My life is exciting and stressful enough most of the time. I just want to be somewhere woodsy with my best friend fretting about boys (and/or girls) while we canoe away the morning with nothing pressing to distract us from the business of a blissful boring life.

And, I mean… if you feel the same, feel free to buy my book:

 Like Two Opposite Things

Spend a couple of weekends with a bunch of 15-year-olds in a campground in the 90s whose biggest concerns are love and sex and relationships.

Mom Vacation at Target in 10

Moving is not going well. Let’s just say I currently live in my in-laws’ attic because some bureaucrat has decided to take a longer long weekend holiday instead of signing the one piece of paper I need to buy my home. Yes, it should have been signed months ago but the man building my house didn’t send it then. He sent it yesterday. And it’s too nice out today to sign papers that let people buy the houses they are contracted to buy tomorrow after having already sold the house they were living in yesterday to someone else.

So I live in my in-laws’ attic and only see a computer two or three times a week when I get to go to work.

My boss just asked me, as I projected colorful mucus from my nose holes on this my 8th day of being ill, why I don’t just go home. What home, bossman? The one I don’t own anymore? The one I don’t own yet? Or the one where no one will tell me where anything is or how to get things done, where I don’t have a key or know the alarm code and I’m not supposed to be feeding myself or leaving without making plans for someone to let me back in?

Oh Target? You meant why don’t I go to Target? Why not indeed. Target, here I come.

Get It In, Get Yourself Out, Go Camping

Our move date has been pushed up a few days so the scramble to pack is in full effect.

I did start writing something new but now my laptop is packed somewhere? I think? And between giant work projects and spending all my free time wrapping things in paper and pretending that’s enough to protect them from getting broken, I’m pretty busy.

I hear the next Camp NaNoWriMo is in July? Here’s hoping I can make it!

The Only Girls I Want are Gilmores

In this role, she has brown hair.

 

I don’t get a lot of “free time” so I don’t like to waste it.

And no, it’s not fair to watch the first 10 minutes of something (or read the first 20 pages or listen to the first song) but again, I don’t like to waste time, especially on something that makes me roll my eyes a couple dozen times before I even know what the thing’s about.

10 minutes of Girlboss was enough. The only good thing that happened is that an old lady straight up smacked this girl in the face. This girl–played by the girl who always plays an obnoxious, pouty, self-absorbed brat–needs a slap in the face. Every day. Until this obnoxious stereotype of all millennials being obnoxious, pouty, self-absorbed brats goes away. Because the majority of millennials I know are real people with actual personalities and problems and accomplishments and goals and setbacks and perspectives other than this very limited one.

I guess I will go clean the bathroom now instead of enjoying a little coffee and Netflix before the kid comes home from his grandparents’ house. Thanks for wasting my free time on this garbage today, Netflix.

How about more Gilmore Girls, less crap I could watch on cable TV.