Stuff in my Life OR the Rant of Fat Woman Returns

I'm not sure where to begin.

Oh, yes I am.

HIM, otherwise known as my husband, and also sometimes known as Pain in the Ass Man, (and not in a good way), went to the doctor a little while back.  Why you might ask.  HIM had a pinched nerve.  Normally I would be compassionate and sympathetic, having had pinched nerves before, but, but but...  Okay, I call him on his cell phone to see how it's going at the doctor's office and HIM says, "Well, the doctor is concerned that my spine is weird and he's giving me an X-ray, and making recommendations for specialists and some other stuff."  HIM comes home with all these special instructions and medication up the hoo-ha.  (There's enough muscle relaxers to take out a small country.  Also I think they wrapped him in bubble wrap, but he took it off before he came inside the house.)  So what is the problem?

I went to the same exact doctor last year.  SAME EXACT DOCTOR.  Yes.  With a pinched nerve.  Do you know what I got?

HIM: "I have a pinched nerve booboo."  "OMG!  Mr. Bevill, let us massage your neck muscles!  Let us take an X-ray!  Would you like to rest and relax while we call an ambulance to take you to the next room over?  Would you like a margarita?  That nurse's name is Pinchy Cheeks Mary and she's very good at patient relaxation techniques!  Have some drugs!  Have some more drugs!"

How the Medical Doctor interprets
where the male patient points.

Me: "I have a pinched nerve booboo."  "Whateveh.  Do some back exercises.  Take some ibuprofen.  Loose some weight.  Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out."

How the Medical Doctor interprets
where the female patient points.

Really.  The only good thing is that now I have HIM's extra muscle relaxers so that I can take some the next time that nerve in my back decides to go all hinky.

Subject change: The evil perpetrating raccoon in our back yard has been captured and put into the Raccoon Relocation Program.  (HIM came up with that one.)  The problem: there's at least one more hanging out back.  They know where the bird feeder is and they're not afraid to unscrew the top to get to the seeds inside.  Dammit.

So we got a humane trap and caught one.  It was relocated to a safe spot where it could roam, and steal, and cavort to its little heart's content.  Happily I put the bird seed back out.  The next day there were little raccoon footprints all over the place and an empty bird feeder.  (I swear I heard evil raccoon laughter coming from the woods.  Bwa-ha-ha-ha!)

It looked like this except ALL OVER EVERY PART of the deck.
The only good part was that the coon could not open the bear proof garbage can with
the bird seed inside.  I was mildly surprised that the coons
hadn't carted the garbage can down the stairs and rolled
it out into the woods.

I am certain that raccoon number 1 did not hitch a ride back from the wilderness sanctuary where he/she/it was deposited some twenty miles away, so guess what, we have more than one.

The next day we catch the other one.  He's transported to where the first one went.  We read the Wikipedia entry in detail, hoping that the author is a real animal specialist.  Turns out sometimes they live in groups of up to four.  (The raccoons, not the animal specialists in case some of you were wondering.)  Glorioski.

Pretty sure this one is watching from the woods out back,
planning how to get us back.  Pret sure.

And I thought we would just put the cage out there, throw bird seed in it, and voila.  Problem solved.  Haha.  Nothing is ever that easy.

Now my back hurts from carrying the cage around.  Maybe it's a pinched nerve.  I could take the raccoon to the doctor with me.

Oh I know, it didn't really fit the theme, but I feel guilty about
transporting the raccoons away from their home and I laughed.

Lessons Learned as a Mother

As it is Mother's Day, it is apropos.  Before motherdom I was unaware of many things.  I firmly believe that I owe my mommy friends apologies from the time that I was not a parent and they were and I thought something nasty about them because their child interrupted them while we were on the phone.  (I did not understand!  I'm sorry!)  So here are a few of things I've learned.

1.  Baby poop comes in every color, shape, and consistency imaginable.  Blue, yes.  Green, yes.  Brown, for sure.  Pink, fuchsia, yellow, magenta, puce, some other colors too.  It's true.  Also just because your child weighs twenty pounds doesn't mean they're going to poop out a child sized turd.  No, they can go full metal jacket because it's an unwritten law.  If they didn't fill up their diapers (ALL THE WAY UP SO THAT IT SPOOGED OUT) at least on one occasion, it's because there was something wrong with their intestinal track.

2.  You can get by with five hours of sleep.  In fact, you can get by with three hours of sleep.  Sure there might be optical delusions happening and you might want to limit your driving of your car.  (The popo doesn't consider newborn and/or colicky baby as legitimate excuses for running a stoplight.)

3.  In direction correlation to number 2, cat napping will save your life.  One must learn to take naps when one can.  On the dining room table, of course.  On the living room floor surrounded by parts of Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, oh yeah.  In the car while the kid sacked out in the back, hell yes.

4.  Babies can and will fall asleep in the car when you most don't want them to.  If you're going home with the kid and a nap is due, they will be asleep by the time you get home.  It's the law.  And carrying them into the house WILL wake them up.

5.  Do you remember all that stuff that Mom used to say to you as a child?  If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.  Because I told you so.  If your friend jumped off a cliff, would you jump off a cliff?  There are starving children in China who would love to have that.  You know those things.  Well, you swore you wouldn't, but the truth is, you will say that.  They will pop out of your mouth faster than the Millennium Falcon on the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.  Furthermore, you will know you're saying these things and wince while you're saying them, but you can't not say them.  (Okay, who got the Star Wars reference without thinking about it?)

6.  It's okay to play every game with your kid.  Go ahead, try out the tunnels at McDonalds.  They smell like pee, but you may never do it again.

Okay, there wasn't something else about
baby poop but I felt compelled to
add this.

Happy mother's day, ya'll.

Rainy Sunday Afternoon OR I am Bored, Bored, Bored!

Things to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon:

1.  Toilet flush.  This does not mean flush the toilet until you're bored with it.  This is a game invented by Cressy, our 9 year old daughter, or invented by kids at her school.  (I'm not sure I really want to know.)  One person is it.  The other people run like hell.  If one is tagged, one has to freeze until someone comes along and "flushes" your hand.  Lots of screaming, shrieking, running away, and panting heavily are involved.

2.  Cooties.  This game is a lot like toilet flush except one is it and has cooties.  Then one gives the cooties to other people by tagging them.  Then the one with the cooties has to chase the others until cooties are transferred.  Cressy's cat, Megaroy, was tagged several times.  He did not understand the concept of "cooties."  In fact, he thought he should watch us all from the stairs and then proceeded to lick his butt.  Oh, the excitement of the Fat Woman's house.  (I was looking for cootie related pictures to steal/copy/appropriate and found there was a military order of the cootie.  I am not making this up.  See here.)

3.  Watch Finian's Rainbow.  I made everyone watch the DVD.  I don't care if they don't like musicals.  I wanted dancing Fred Astaire.  I wanted to quote Og when he leers, "Fairy land was never like this."  I wanted to see Og singing about if you can't have the girl you love, then love the girl you're with.  I made the cat watch.  (Petulia Clark really can't act.  But she can sing.)  (Go watch it.  You know you want to.)

4.  Watch HIM play with his rocket.  (This isn't really dirty.  HIM was testing his rockets.  I even filmed it.) http://youtu.be/K-20bFDbx0w

5.  Name top ten movies of all time.  We spent ten minutes arguing over whether or not trilogies counted as one or three.  (Jaws is still my favorite.)

6.  Try not to think about penguins for twenty minutes.  (Can't do it.)

Moron Cat has conquered Old Green.

7.  Wander around taking inane pictures of the moron cat.  (I didn't do it.  It was totally Cressy.)

8.  Compute how many variations of drinks Sonic really can do.  (I gave up after three minutes.)

9.  Pretend you're a robot.  (Good for about 2.5 minutes.)

10.  Stare outside at squirrels who are sitting in your Adirondack chairs.  (Good for about 60 seconds or until the squirrel runs away.

11.  Write a blog.  (Good for thirty minutes.)

How a Writer Thinks OR How This Writer Thinks

I've had a lot of questions from fans and readers this month.  How do you get your ideas?  How do you write?  How do you make yourself write?  What color underwear do you prefer?  (Well, it was implied.)  (Maybe just in my head.  That is the problem, after all.)

Therefore, the reader's guide to C.L. Bevill AKA Fat Woman AKA the strange writer in that one house that badly needs its front yard landscaped AKA Six-Gun Meg (Also only in my head in the really good dreams.)

1.  My ideas come from very odd places.  I might be reading something and shoot off on a tangent.  For example, I'm reading about Greek mythology right now and strange little tidbits keep popping into my head.  Especially since the one Titan whose mom was Mother Earth started eating all his children to keep them from being too powerful.  His wife tricked him on number six and gave him a baby sized rock.  (Which says something about his omniscience, doesn't it?)  Consequently, baby no. 6, Zeus, got away to conquer the gods another day.  Anyway, the point being I read a lot.  I watch a lot of things and everything in my life is constant grist for my mill.  Occasionally people suggest scenarios for some of my characters and who knows what will happen in a Bubba book.  As I live in the deep south now, I have lots of ammunition.  Here's another example.  A month ago, a rescue worker was interviewed about a drowning victim on television.  I'll quote the words because they're pretty much the most important part.  (Funniest.)  "Next, we're gonna look in the direction of down under the bridge."  (Do I have to explain why I think that's funny?)  I didn't make that up.  It was on a news station.  I swear.  Also every month someone dies in a manner that's befitting a Bubba book.  You know, man gored to death by a rack of antlers in his living room.  "Billy Joe said to hold his beer and watch this," his wife lamented sadly.  I'm inspired by everything.  (My family knows this and I have been officially prevented into blogging about specific familial events.)  Even HIM, the man to whom I'm married, does stuff that makes me laugh and then write about it.  (There's a lot I don't make up in my blogs.  In fact, I only heap on the story telling in an amusing way because that's the way I see it.)  By the way I saw this from James Rollins about where authors get our ideas and thought it was funny.

2.  How do I write?  I'm assuming that they mean what my schedule is.  When I'm writing a book, I usually set a quota per day and write to that quota.  (I do 2000 words a day now.  Any more than that and my brain short circuits.)  Very rarely do I not meet my quota, but occasionally shizz happens and I get discombobulated.  My sister got very ill in February and went into the hospital for a month and messed me up.  (Not that she did it on purpose.)  I was so stressed out I couldn't write a word.  I think I put out one whole blog the entire month of March.  Anyway, I write up an outline, which usually goes in the garbage a few weeks later, and I attempt to follow it, but then I end up writing another outline, and I write a few more weeks.  I can write up to three or four outlines depending on the book.  For example, I'm on chapter eleven of Mountains of Dreams and I think the outline is on chapter five.  (That's some messed up writer shizz.  Good thing I'm not answering to an editor or I'd be hosed.)  That's called literary elephantitus according to Stephen King.  The short answer (I am capable of succinct answers but not in this blog.) is that I write x words a day and follow an outline, until I have to rewrite the outline.  As I get toward the end of the book, I usually write a little faster.  When I'm done with the first rough draft, I collapse for a week, then I reread the novel.  Corrections in plot and pacing are usually made.  I go back and beef up parts of the novel that I felt were weak or that I didn't support the plot properly.  I look carefully for errors.  Then I give the book to HIM.  HIM gets to read it first.  HIM usually points out a few errors and then says, "It's good," whereupon I slug HIM upside the head because I want a little more input than that.  ("It's wondrous capabilities of story telling amuse my senses and titillate my soul, but only in a good way."  Would that be too much to expect?  I guess so.)  I go back over the book.  Then I send it to the editor/proofreader, Mary.  Mary works on it and sends it back when she's done.  I make corrections.  Then I reread it again.  By the time I'm done, I've probably read it a dozen times and my mind is a pile of grayish oatmeal.  Somewhere in the time that Mary has it, I get the cover done, I write the trailer, and I plan my marketing strategies.  Then I send it to the formatter.  When they give it back I put it out on Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords.  Then I collapse again.  (And you thought writing was easy.)

3.  How do I make myself write?  Occasionally I don't want to write.  This happens because I'm very tired or sick or stressed.  Usually I do something else and let things just percolate in my head.  It's like watching a movie.  If I'm stuck at a certain point in the novel, I just kind of let my mind wander and scenarios roll through my head.  They're kind of like mental what-if-this-happened-then-what-would-happen?  I can work out all kinds of things in my mind.  Remember it's telling a story and telling a story shouldn't always be predictable, so when I run through ideas in my head, sometimes it's the bizarre ones that really get my attention.  Playing those kind of games usually gets me right back on schedule again.  What if...?  How many what if questions can you think of in five minutes?  What if the sky was green?  What if I was a man?  What if I had four arms?  What if we all walked on our hands?  What if Henry XIII's wives all got together and chopped off his head?  You're basically teaching your brain to go down different paths.  It works for me.

4.  Underwear.  Anything but white.

I do not wear this, but thought it needed to be included.
From http://www.smashinglists.com/25-weirdest-and-unbelievable-bras/