1. I sold a novel.
2. I wrote a novel.
3. I freaked out about novels.
4. I took a lot of walks.
5. I made some damn good soup.
6. I had a lot of luck.
7. I had a lot of fun.
8. I laughed a lot.
9. I hardly cried at all.
10. I did better.

Thanks for sharing it with me. Despite what sometimes looks like long odds, may 2009 be magical and so full of awesome that the word "awesome" requires modifiers like "rad" and "bitchin'" and "gnarly."

Love,
Greg

So, physically, I've been feeling relatively crappy: weak, too easily fatigued by exercise, bluh and blah. I'm not ill, but I'm feeling far from my best. And I've felt this way since moving from Phoenix last year, which entailed leaving my kung fu school. My San Diego school just doesn't give me as long a workout, as intense a workout, or as many workouts as my old school. And I've been using that as an excuse for falling out of shape, and I was feeling down for allowing myself to give myself excuses. So, for the time being, I'm going to be supplementing my kung fu classes with actual gym workouts. I don't like gyms or the things that happen in gyms. I know I can lift some of those weights, but if you hooked up some hydraulics, you could get a machine to lift those weights much better than I ever could.

Anyway, yesterday I went to the apartment complex gym and fired up some Rush on my iPod and lifted a bunch of weights. And you know what? I feel great! If I'd done last night's workout a few years ago, before I started martial arts, I'd be unable to move today. But I just feel nicely worked and virtuous.

Also, our gym has a heavy bag and a nice big aerobics floor where I can practice my forms if I want. Maybe even swing the staff around.

So, now instead of feeling all bluh and blah, I feel happy that I did something to stop feeling bluh and blah. I feel happy that I haven't lost all the benefits gained over the previous few years.

There's nothing quite like the feeling of getting up off one's ass, is there?

Dithering and indecisiveness. These are my weaknesses as a person and as a writer.

Logic and audacity and willingness to embrace absurdity. These are my strengths as a writer. I don't know that they're my strengths as a person. Maybe the absurdity.

Have you learned anything about yourself from your own writing?

I'm not yet clued into the rhythms of the seasons in San Diego, but the tourist season must have officially begun. The beaches this weekend were crowded, the paddlewheel boat was running across the bay, the trail was full of bikes and skaters and pedestrians, and Sea World is at this moment firing off artillery (just fireworks, but it sounds like we're being shelled).

For the first time in many years, I am not dreading summer. If it gets to be 115 degrees it'll be due to environmental collapse rather than business as usual.

Anyway, I think it's only supposed to be, like, 60 degrees tomorrow with fog.

Favorite Dad Quote of the Weekend:

"Anyway, about my pants. There's good news and there's bad news."

Not that anyone had been talking about his pants ...

***

I just looked at the TV schedule and realized that today will be devoted to sitting on my ass and watching basketball. First up is San Antonio vs. Boston. It's a shame Garnett is hurt, but still, it's two teams that have a great shot at meeting in the Finals. After that, Lakers vs. Miami, in which we'll see a fired-up Shawn Marion, who just got traded from my Phoenix Suns for Shaquille O'Neal. Shawn's going to have something to prove, and I think he and D-Wade are going to combine nicely. Later, Denver vs. Cleveland. Not a big fan of either team, so I might skip this one, actually. And then Phoenix vs. Washington. Shaq won't be suited up yet, and we'll be without Marion, so the Suns are going to have to gut-up and hope to get some play out of Boris Diaw, who seems to have become frightened of the rim. It's a shame, because with his size and skills he has the potential to be awesome. Come on, Boris! Be awesome!

***

I've been looking forward to seeing sales notices about my book in Publishers Marketplace and Locus, largely because then I'd get to see how paid professionals describe my book. Because when people have asked me to describe my book, it's always gone something like this: "Uh, it's got gods and some stuff about DNA and the end of the world. It's my damn Norse novel."

Not a stellar elevator pitch.

But I got asked for a description for SFScope, and I had to provide something, so this is what I came up with:

A mythic fantasy in which a minor Norse god, a modern valkyrie, and a Viking thug are pitted against the Norse pantheon in an attempt to stop Ragnarok, the long-ago foreseen destruction of the entire universe. It takes place in contemporary Los Angeles and in many locales from Norse mythology.

Not terrible, maybe a bit long, and I'm still looking forward to seeing what people who describe books professionally come up with.

***

Oh, and this was how the conversation about the book with my dad began on Friday.

Dad: Whatever happened to that book you were trying to sell?
Me: I sold it.
(beat)
Dad: How much money did you get?

I got a ton of Starbucks gift cards from family for Christmas and my birthday, and since I like free drinks, I've been doing most of my coffee joint writing at Starbucks. The only drawback (for me) is that Starbucks doesn't really inspire me to take coffee/computer pics to document my writing progress. But this morning I found myself at a place in University Heights, and I remembered that taking pictures of my coffee and computer is one of the things I do, so that's what I did.

I'm not so sure about the coffee joint. I think I overheard the barista making fun of my drink (an Americano). If I want snotty comments from anyone, I'll call my dad.

I'll be seeing my parents on Friday to help them with errands. If the subject of my book comes up and Dad's first question is how much money I'm making, I might accidentally leave him at the store. I know that sounds mean, but it's not like he's never done it to me. It's like, dude, if you take a four-year-old to the bookstore, it's also your responsibility to bring him home. The same goes for the supermarket eight years later. Although I guess I should have known better than to wander off to stare at raw meat.

Sorry for the ramble. I think I'm tired. I learned the first two moves of Meteor Fist at kung fu tonight. Yeah, only two moves, but I gave 'em all I had.

Dear Life,

I enjoyed you very much today.

With sincere thanks,
Greg

PS. Kelp!

After the holidays and enjoying a house guest (hi, David!) and spending a week out of town, I feel like I'm just starting to settle back into the post-holiday routine. I'm working on a small, low-paying, but easy freelance gig (the sort of thing I need to be doing much more of, only with bigger pay, since it doesn't look like I'm going to be getting any adjunct teaching this semester), and after finishing the latest "final" draft of the Norse book, I'm getting back to the actual writing of the YA weird beach book. Since I found last week's visit to the Museum of the Weird in Austin so inspiring, I'm starting the book right in the middle of the shrunken heads and the Fiji Mermaid and the What-Is-It???? in the box.

Made a nice reprint sale: "Far As You Can Go" to the audio anthology, mini-Masterpieces of Science Fiction from Audio Text, due out I'm-not-sure-when.

Speaking of routines, time now to strap on, change into t-shirt and kung fu pants and go smack big wooden sticks.

It's been a rather fun and festive weekend 'round here. On Friday night we obtained a Christmas tree from the local tree peddler (okay, it was Home Despot). The tree got trimmed up Saturday night, with the newest decorations being the Tibetan prayer flags sent in the post, compliments the Dalai Lama, and I think they look very nice in the pine boughs.

This morning we went for a bike ride around the bay and ended up at the Mission, a good café that serves what they call "conscientious" food, by which they mean plates of yummy bigness. I had the apple-smoked chicken sausage, rosemary potatoes and eggs:



Lisa had the cinnamon French toast in blueberry conscientiousness:



Then we rode down Mission Beach and maybe burned off some garnish.

Continuing down this healthy path, I baked Pioneer Woman's French breakfast puffs, which are basically nutmeg, sugar & cinnamon donuts in muffin form. Mine didn't turn out as beautifully as Pioneer Woman's, but still pretty nice:



Then followed a session of concealing gifts behind wrapping paper, and now my family's stuff is ready for the post office.

I also went through Cannon Fist sparring form a few times, which maybe burned off one finger-lick's worth of sugar and cinnamon. Probably not even that. Now I am sleepy.

At first I thought they'd given me the best mug in the joint today, but when I look back, Knott's Berry Farm was my least favorite of the Southern California amusement parks. The train robbery used to scare the shit out of me, and the fake '49-ers would get snippy with me for my lack of gold panning skills. It's like, buddy, I'm five years old, give me a break, maybe when I'm a grizzled old alkie like you I'll befriend a mule and get really good at this.

I was much more interested in the alligator farm across the street from Knott's. My grandmother kept pointing at the big gators, and I was sure one would leap up and chomp her arm off.



***

And while I'm feeling nostalgic, Malls of America has a nice post about Old Towne Mall, formerly of Torrance, California. It was a goofy place, really, styled like a turn-of-the-century Main Street, USA, but I loved it.

In the late 70's, a big Friday night for my family might involve a trek out to Old Towne, with dinner at the food court (pizza for me), a trip through the cheesy dark rides, some smash'em up in the bumper cars, and if I was really lucky, a foray into the comic book shop, the only one I knew of at the time. I remember spending birthday money on Warlord #1. At ten bucks, it was easily my biggest purchase to date. (Later I'd buy the Rankin-Bass illustrated version of the Hobbit for an astronomical $30. Fortunately, I had bookstore gift certificates.)

I'm at the Borders café, where an Asian man has been talking on his phone in his (I presume) native language (Chinese?) at an admittedly annoying high volume.

Across the café, an elderly white man shakes his head in dismay. "Only in America," he says, loud enough for me to hear through my headphones.

I'm not sure exactly what he means by that, but I think I've got a pretty good idea.

A woman walks up to the Asian man and asks him if he can keep it down. The Asian man nods apologetically and lowers his volume, then ends his call.

"Keep it quiet!" the white man then hollers from about 20 feet away, "or you're gonna be out on your ass!"

This is probably where I should turn up the volume on iTunes and focus on my work. Instead, from about 20 feet away, I turn to the old white man and say, "You can ask someone to keep it down without threatening them. That's completely unnecessary."

The old man stares death at me.

"And you know, threatening someone is actually a crime? Do you know that?"

He doesn't say anything. He just stares at me. I stare at him. The old man balls his fists. Hot rays of crispy death radiate from his eyes.

He's thinking that if he was 30, 20, maybe even 10 years younger, he'd jump up and wrap his hands around my skinny throat. He's thinking, It's not racism, I don't care if that guy is Chinese or white or black or green, I'd still tell him to shut up or get tossed on his ass, and who are you, you punk, talking to me like that? You don't know what kind of man I am, what kind of life I've lived, how dare you assume anything about me.

Maybe that's what he's thinking.

White or black or green, doesn't matter. Maybe it really doesn't to him.

Only in America.

We continue staring at each other for another few seconds before I put my headphones back on and turn back to my laptop.

My hands are still shaking as I type this. I fucking hate confrontation, I really do.