We have rope. With interesting knots!!!

I also sketched in two paintings yesterday, so I’m feeling more sane than I have in weeks. Working on paintings = instant sanity.

I get some photo editing in and I’ll be a whole new woman.

I have also got all the current perks worked out for the upcoming Alice Assassin campaign and I am pretty excited about it. Getting the show on the gallery walls will be made of total awesome, especially in conjunction with the book release. At this point, we’re 38 days out from launch of the campaign.

Knocked down the 18 miler on Sunday. Only one more this Sunday and then I begin the taper, the period of time where I allow my muscles to heal in prep for the marathon in (holy shit) 25 days.

And did I mention that the Bean is turning 3 this April?

Yeah.

First Quarter of 2012?

Burning it down.

I know. Look at me. Living la vida loca…

The writing is coming together very slowly. My brain is just not regrown enough. So I’m letting it take its time and just relaxing. Reading and working on all the metric tons of things that the press needs right now with the 12×12 initiative. Soon enough, something will light my cranium up again and I’ll be off to the races.

Mostly I just want to paint. I’m hoping to do that this weekend.

Otherwise, it’s just the same old same. Lots to do. Not enough hours in the day. Avoiding politics, because it alternately enrages me or terrifies me. Being the mother of daughters right now is enough to give you the cold sweats if you let it. Doing all I can to make sure the world they inherit sees them as people with rights and not slaves.

And when I can’t take anymore, I retreat for a bit and read. Remember that magick is real. Get back to it when my strength returns.

Which means I should get back to pushing this rock uphill.

Have a good weekend, my darlings…

Have a snippet of what I’m apparently working on now.

Roy would be a lost boy, if this were Neverland.

But this is Hollywood.

Once upon a time, Roy had a father, a brilliant homicide detective who came to a sticky end. Once upon a time, Roy was attacked by vampires, but no one believes that. Once upon a time, Roy hid himself in the darkest parts of Hollywood that he could find so he could forget his past, stay lost in cheap whiskey and bad memories.

But Roy’s girlfriend, Suzabell, begs him to find out who attacked her best friend and nearly left her for dead–if she was actually the girl they meant to attack. Then Suzabell is killed and her body disappears, only her head left behind for identification–if she’s really dead at all. Roy’s search for clues takes him through all levels of the city, from classy lounges to lowlife dives, from goth bars and strip clubs, to police headquarters and his father’s peers, from the thin blue line to the morgue. “The Night is an Adder” unfolds over ten days on the streets of darkest Hollywood and what Roy finds makes him wish he’d never gone looking for the answers.

May the spirit of Raymond Chandler help me…

When times are hard, I write and I file and I fill out paperwork. And last year, there were some giant things to process. I am going to preface all of what I write next with this: the Ant is fine. And there’s a reason I have to lead with this. A little after Thanksgiving, the Ant found a large lump in her breast.

The Ant does not have health insurance. My dayjob will not let me add her as a dependent.

This is part of the reason why the end of 2011 was such hell for all of us. Scrambling to get her to the Venice Family Clinic, one of the few free clinics in California. Getting her to the imaging center. And then waiting. And waiting. And waiting. For what was eventually a clean bill of health.

[Through it all, I must especially give thanks and shower blessings on Joyce, our friend from the Santa Monica dogpark. I don't know what we would have done without her support.]

The entire incident terrified me. We lost my Aunt Jan to breast cancer. I have too many friends who are survivors or children of survivors. But most of all, I couldn’t bear to think of what would happen to the Ant’s body of work, should the diagnosis have come back as the worst. Because just that year I had watched several artists die, their estates in shambles, their survivors left to the wind.

And then I remembered Neil Gaiman posting his will form for writers. And I channeled my fear into paper and defiance against the final dark that we face in our lives. Because what Neil had posted? It wasn’t enough. It was merely a start. And I know too many people who will do only that and think they are done. You are not.

The Ant’s scare crystallized it all for me. It wasn’t just about her. It is about every single one of my creative friends who doesn’t have insurance. Who wouldn’t even know where to start.

But I do, because I sit here in the beige cube at the dayjob and I touch these papers every day. The way that the rich plan for the inevitable future. How, touching ten thin sheets of paper, handed to me from one of the attorneys I admire the most, I see written in black and white the depth of love and continuing protection from beyond death. Because the words aren’t always about money. Buried in these documents, are often sudden transcendent, brief paragraphs of prose that have nothing to do with the law, or estates, or property. They are the last breath and wishes of someone who wanted to make sure that whoever was left behind, wasn’t abandoned.

And I remember, still with anger, how my father did none of these things and left my Margie Mom in penury.

I just…

I just can’t let that happen, if it’s in my power to prevent

Not for anyone I love. Not for any of you that I can reach with my words.

So here are the things that you need to do and you need to do now. They are specific to California, but if you search on Google, you will find forms for your state. If you cannot find them, ping me and I will hook you up. I know how to find the forms.

Simple Will

Creative Property Trust (this goes with the Simple Will)

Advance Medical Directive

Durable Power of Attorney

You need *all* of these forms. A will is not enough. You must have a trust spelled out, either a testamentary trust or a living trust. You must have an advance medical directive. You must have a durable power of attorney. Filing fees will cost a nominal amount. It is a small fucking price to pay to take care of whoever is left behind. If you give a shit *at all* about the ones you love and your legacy, you will do these things now.

Because you may not be here tomorrow.

My father was gone at 59.

Will is gone at 33.

I dodged a bullet on a diagnosis that could have been an aggressive and fatal brain tumor.

The Ant dodged a bullet on a diagnosis that could have been the same disease that took my Aunt Jan.

Don’t fuck around. Get this shit done. Now.

Because love is paper and your hand held over your loved ones in protection even unto your death.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

We will not discuss how I got this shot. *enigmatic smile*

But I had to get it. Sky like that doesn’t happen very often. It didn’t capture the light pinks very well, which disappoints me, but that’s okay. You get the idea.

That sky made me want to paint more sky horses…

* * *

Yesterday’s 16 miler went pretty well, though the tide was in at the beach, so it was tough going. No hard pack sand to run on, on the way out, and I hurt today. Sore and very tired.

But.

On the way out, rolling around on the beach, an adolescent seal was chilling when I went by. I have never been that close to one. Literally three feet. And it just looked at me and chattered like a cat and then waddled back into the ocean, when I looked back, all brown and sleek and glossy-eyed. Between that visitation and the tiny tiny white seabirds that look like animated sea foam…

Yeah.

It’s hard and I’m tired, but my soul is full.

But moving on.

So. Busy, busy, busy week. Lost Tuesday to rain, so I’ve done this week’s training runs back to back to (tonight) back, which I was worried about, but which the body is responding to with not even a hiccup. It is *wonderful*. But it does mean that on the 8 miler nights, I get nothing else done but running. Which is actually fine. It is more than enough to get home, love my family and then run 8 miles under the full moon.

The new novel continues to slowly accrete mass, like they do. I am debating what I want to write for ScriptFrenzy, if anything. I have yet to dig up my old screenwriting idea file.

Not much else going on. I run. I write. My camera and easel languish right now. But the marathon is less than six weeks away. I will need them then, for after.

Minimalist photo with my dirty cameraphone lens and all. I like it.

* * *

Started a new novel and promptly ran across a tweet from an agent saying that vampire novels are dead.

The new novel is about vampires.

*sigh*

This is when I, yet again, ignore the fuck out of the market and what other people say and keep writing the fuck out of what I want to write. This happens all the time. I start a new project and promptly run across someone saying that it’s dead or over or not worth it, pick a dismissive line. Not really sure what it’s about, other than maybe the Universe basically checking in to see if I mean it.

Yeah.

I mean it.

Roy’s story is a small, closed one. It’s not about saving the world. If anything, it’s pretty straight forward noir. That’s where my head is. With PIs and dames with legs for days, but how they would be today. Appetites that can’t be satisfied and demons that won’t go away. Because that’s what I see looking out my window. Noir exists for a reason.

But whatever you do, don’t call it horror. Horror’s dead, dontcha know.

I think I shall get back to work on my novel here that is not a horror novel.

I am just continuously amazed at what a great little camera is in the iPhone…

* * *

Anyway, it’s Monday again.

Yesterday’s run was fucking brutal. I can only think that I did not get enough sleep on Saturday, both nap and night wise. All other components of my training are right where they need to be. It’s just my sleep that’s not there and I find that I am chafing against the restriction, because every minute I am not awake is a minute I am not making something new.

I resent it.

But I need to be able to run effectively.

It’s a trade off. I just have to fucking do it.

Today, I am sore and tired and mean to do as little as possible after work. Another rest day, because my brain may have regrown and the Post Novel Ennui might have lessened, but the body now requires nothing more than to not move and to drink and eat all the things. Tomorrow is a five mile run.

I have started editing the memoir, now that the brain is somewhat back and I am discovering that the edit is proving to be more difficult than the writing. When I was writing, I was in it. Now…

I am not.

And there are almost no words for what I am feeling as I work with these words. I am shocked at the depth of my grief. I am tentatively hopeful that I will be able to communicate a tenth of who my father was to my daughters. I pray that I will do some small justice to his memory.

I owe it to him. I owe it to myself. But above all, I owe it to my daughters.

* * *

So, yesterday, I inadvertently ran 18.14 miles, instead of the 16 miles that I was supposed to log.

How, you may ask, do you overshoot your turnaround by a whole mile?

You run in flow. And forget to pop out occasionally to check your mileage.

Oops.

So what is flow? Actually, you already know what it is. It’s that place of unconscious competence where your mind goes away and your body does what it does. Any commuter will tell you about it. You make the drive home so many times, your mind just goes away and before you know it, you’re home but don’t remember driving any of it. *That’s* flow. It’s moving meditation.

I’m really good at flow. I’ve been doing some form of it since I was fourteen. Marathon training deliberately invokes flow, because when you’re in it, not only do you run better, but you actually run *faster*. I know. It makes no sense. But when your mind isn’t screaming the whole way about “Oh my fucking gods, how many miles?”, your body just gets down to the brass tacks of just doing it.

But being really good at flow and at a point in my training where nothing hurts and I’m apparently really really strong means, I popped out of flow, looked at my mileage and went, “Oh fuck.”

Because instead of increasing two miles from last week’s run to this one, I’d increased by four. That’s non-trivial.

The last two miles home were hard. HARD.

But I did it.

And more importantly?

18 miles is the magic number. If you can run 18 miles, you can run a marathon. As of yesterday, my body told me it was ready. I can run the marathon. Now it’s just about building more strength, more endurance, and remembering to not go so far into flow that I miss my turnarounds.

This is the body I remember having. I am so damn happy to have it back. Especially since, once upon a time, there were people who said I would never walk without pain after my car accident, let alone run.

This is me. Running.

Except the hearth was cold when Alice let herself in to the enormous flag-stone paved kitchen. And no pepper flew through the air. No smell of baking bread from the ovens. No Frog had been at the door either, which rather surprised Alice. The footman was always coming and going with some nonsense for the Duchess from Red and no sign of the jerk.

Cook sat by the hearth, slumped, apron bundled in her lap, brown skirts clean, not a streak of flour on them anywhere, her beige shirtwaist equally clean. The dishes were stacked and neat by the drain board. The only consistent thing was the baby, wailing away in his bassinet, alternating between pig and human form. But Cook moved not at all to console him, which was nothing new, but something… Something was just not fucking right.

“Cook?” Alice ventured.

Cook looked up slowly, veritably this world’s or any other’s ugliest woman, followed only by the Duchess. But Cook didn’t smile, seeing Alice there on the threshold.

“Oh. Hello,” she said.

Alice stepped all the way and went over to the baby who had graduated to hiccuping sobs and oinks, picked him up and began to rock him. He clung to her neck, fat little arms holding on tight, his white baby clothes smelling of detergent and baby.

“What’s wrong?”

No soup. No broken dishes. No pepper. No footman. What. The. Hell, Alice thought furiously.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Cook started to move, her face clearly saying that yes, something absolutely was fucking wrong. Alice went over to the ice box, found the baby’s bottle and began to feed him. He didn’t need changing, which meant Cook hadn’t been completely checked out.

Meanwhile, Cook shuffled to the hearth and swung the huge cast iron soup pot out of the way on its hook and began to build a fire, but she didn’t move in her usual jerky fast way. She moved like an old woman.

“Why is everyone lying to me today?” Alice asked, not meaning to use her trained killer voice on her oldest friend, but it rather slipped out.

Cook slowed and then stopped, faggots half built in the fireplace.

“How can you possibly understand? No one’s ever told you. No one’s ever known.”

Okay, the riddles were to be expected, Alice decided, but sweet Baby Jesus!

“Cook. Please,” she tried instead.

“What’s older than Time, what lives for Wonder, and what would you give for your Heart’s Desire?”

Alice blew a breath out in a short puff. Baby had settled down, redness going away and retaining more of his baby form, only the pig snout to indicate his other shape.

“Must we? Really?”

“It’s riddles or nothing, my love,” Cook said and went back to fire building. Had a fire going in short order and began the back and forth trips to fill the pot alternately with small buckets of milk from the ice box. The ice box never ran out of milk, a fact that Alice was very jealous as, since every time she was at home, there was never a damn drop of it.

“Like that, is it?”

“Like that.”

Alice sighed.

“All right then.”

“I’ve said more than I should.”

“Alices are that important, are they?”

“Not Alices,” Cook said, shaking her head. “The Alice.”

Alice felt her eyebrow rise. So much for her damn Game Face.

“The Alice.” Alice just left it hanging out there, but Cook didn’t rise to the bait. “Huh.”

“I’ve said too much.”

“Everyone keeps saying that shit and it’s getting old.”

“It’s a rare truth. You should be grateful for it.”

“Can’t say that I am,” Alice remarked and put Baby down, who had nodded off on her shoulder and tucked him back in to his bassinet.

“You shouldn’t have come back. You should have stayed away, like you promised,” Cook said, stirring the pot desultorily and pouring in the pepper, but with none of her usual gusto.

“Red…” But Alice didn’t finish. Cook was right. She hadn’t been forced to jump down the rabbit hole. No one had showed up and pointed a gun to her head. Just a big fat red envelope and like she’d never shredded orders before and pretended she never got them? Yeah, right.

Her gut tightened. She was already peeved by the whole thing already. But this was shaping up to piss her completely off. Timothy said she had anger issues. She knew she had anger issues. She didn’t see why she needed to deal with them. Waste of time. But he made a point and often that her anger clouded her ability to analyse situations. She always had countered that analysis was for the analysts and she was a shooter, yes?

He never agreed.

Worse, she was starting to see his damn point.

But seeing his side of the argument didn’t stop the fact that she was now officially fucking angry.

Which wasn’t helped a damn bit by the Cat materializing in the door.

“You’re still here? Shouldn’t you be getting a move on? I thought you said you wanted to get back in short order? Or was that not true?” the Cat queried disingenuously. “Shouldn’t you be at the March Hare’s already?”

“Bite me,” Alice replied. Drew her handcannon and fired in one smooth, well-practiced move. Except the damn Cat was already vanished, leaving behind the grin.

Cook threw a dish on the floor in solidarity.

“I should be going,” Alice sighed.

“If you hurry, you’ll get to the March Hare’s in time for tea.”

Alice shuddered.

“Oh, come now. Anyone could have made that mistake,” Cook chided.

“I’ll take your word for it. Feel better, Cook.”

“Get smart, my love. Your gut isn’t going to be enough this time.”

And on that last cryptic warning, Alice let herself out just in time to see the Frog Footman coming up the drive. She nodded at him as she walked and rotated her shoulder, holstering the hand cannon. As she left, she could hear Cook begin to sing to the baby:

Speak fiercely to your little boy,
And train him to be fearless:
Give him rifles, bombs as toys,
Because he’ll needs be deathless.

Hoorah! Hoorah! Hoorah!
I speak fiercely to my boy,
I teach him to be fearless;
For he can kill with joy
His skills with guns are peerless!

Huh, thought Alice. That was new.