Last night, I went to the Stephenie Meyer book talk at the Tattered Cover Bookstore. I have always been a fan of book talks, not always book talk of people I've hear of either. Actually, I have an offal habit of showing up to book talks that I really should have known more about. Like Eragon for instance. I had heard that Eragon was a big sucess. I had heard that he was speaking that night and I had heard that he was an interesting person to listen to, so I went to the book talk. He was a good speaker and I'm glad I went (I have a signed copy of Eragon, now), but I felt sort of silly coming up to the signing table and saying, "well, no. I haven't read you book, but I will!" I still haven't finished the book. *slams head against wall.* This time, I did at least read half of the first book before I went.

This one, reminded me a lot of the Harry Potter premiers: where everyone dresses up and answers Harry Potter trivia or just randomly quizzes you on it, just to see if your a real fan. I fail miserably. All kinds of people at the talk were bearing t-shirts saying stuff like "Edward, I love you!" and "Jacob, pick me!" and stuff like that. Some of them were pretty cute, some were pretty funny. I started to wonder what it would be like to be a fan convert. Simultaneously, as I was sitting in that folding chair, midway between the front and the very back taking in the sights and sounds, I had to admit that I didn't quite feel like I belonged here.

I took a seat next to a couple of nice people from Chicago. They told me about their trip across the United States, the girl told me a little about her school and it was very interesting. The time passed easily for me.

As for the crowd, they were only waiting because they were forced to. Coming there early didn't mean the festivities hadn't begun. They talked and joked and pointed and laughed racously. A couple of girls from the Twlight series fan club kept running up and down the isle telling everyone to "shh!! they're going to kick us out!" They bonded. The time stretched on and the tension in the room mounted exponentially. The hands on my watch finally pointed to seven, the doors opened and... she came in.

A wall of screams hit the little bookstore like a nuke hitting hiroshima. You could almost swear that the books covered their ears along with me at that moment, whimpering in terror as the words were blasted from their pages and sent away, burnt and melting, into a sudden darkness. A group in the back of the crowd began to chant, "Ed-ward! Ed-ward! Ed-ward!" The author gazed around timidly, waving as she found her way to her seat. They introduced her, they asked us which 'camp' we were in: Edward or Jacob and the excitement around this 'much debated issue' called for another round of screaming. A stainglass breaking whine sprung from the inexpert choir of girls, all trying vainly to be sopranoes. They loved it. They owned it. They probably would have screamed all day if they thought it was appropriate. I'm glad they had fun. Unfortunately, I've never been much of a screamer. "It's a lot like getting drunk" I thought dispondantly, "It's only fun when you're doing it."

The author, with an expression of someone who is trying to compliment a bad dish, skipped her "talk" and went straight to questions. It was the usual string of questions: what is your advice to young writers?, why did you do X in book X? What will happen in the new book? What is your writing process? The answers were dolled out dutifully and then the signings began.

Numbers ranged 1-50, line up. Numbers ranged 51-100 line up, etc and so forth until they filed us all through the assemlby line and we were permitted to flit out of the doors.

That was it. I came to a book talk, attended a rock concert and came out of a book signing. I walked out and phoned my mom to tell her why I was so late. She asked if I had fun. Yeah, I said, sure, it was fun. I had met some interesting people from Chicago after all. So yeah, I had fun. It was just an interesting experience.

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I was reading Twilight today. After my other Blog entry about the other book in its series, Eclipse I decided to be a good reviewer and actually go out and buy the book. There is a part of it where the main character gets lost and runs into some sketchy folks. They turn out to be really sketchy, and they try and to jump her before she saved by her vampiric beau. It was strange though, when it got there, I just didn’t get it. This is the part I'm talking about:

“I started to realize, as I crossed another road, that I was going the wrong direction. The little foot traffic I had seen was going north, and it looked like the buildings here were mostly warehouses. I decided to turn east at the next corner, and then look around after a few blocks and try my luck on a different street on my way back to the boardwalk.

A group of four men turned around the corner I was heading for, dressed too casually to be heaving home from the office, but they were too grimy to be tourists. As they approached me, I realized they weren’t too many years older that I was. They were joking loudly among themselves, laughing raucously and punching each other’s arms. I scooted as far to the inside of the sidewalk as I could to give them room, walking swiftly, looking past them to the corner.”

At this point, I thought, “Well that was stupid! She could have asked them for directions!!!!” I read the whole section up through where they tried to jump her and I thought, “Wow… I totally didn’t see that coming.” I thought to myself, “Why didn’t I see that coming?” That, I have decided is a complex question.

First, these four men were “dressed too casually to be heaving home from the office, but they were too grimy to be tourists.” When you work at a warehouse, you don’t wear really nice clothes like you would wear working at an “office” job. That’s because, in the mix of pigment, salt, the dust on the paper rolls or whatever else you run into, the clothes are grungy. Then when those are stained, you aren’t exactly going to go out and buy new clothes, right? Thus, they aren’t tourist or office workers, they are warehouse workers. Would you expect any differently?

Second, “As they approached me, I realized they weren’t too many years older that I was.” Great! You have sometime in common. If are a good looking girl and there are a bunch of boys about your age lying around, ask THEM for directions! They will point out the streets, draw you a map and even walk you there if you let them. I was lost practically every day I was in Germany. This is a well tested fact.

Last, “They were joking loudly among themselves, laughing raucously and punching each other’s arms.” To me, that means, “Wow, would you look at that, they are having a good time!” I don’t GET the punching arms thing, but it means that you are one of the guys. I was walking down the hall with one of my D&D buddies one day in high school and he punches me in the arm. I look at him and I’m like, “Ow!” He blushed, looked very flustered and replied, “Sorry, I forgot…” As far as the laughing raucously, all kinds of folks laugh raucously. My RA and I laughed raucously at this documentary that we were watching. We got a noise complaint.

There was only one time when I ever felt really nervous about someone in that way. I was in Germany (lost again) and I managed to get on the bus going entirely the wrong direction. I ended up at the end of the bus line and the bus driver said that I had to get off. I didn’t want to because there was a sketchy guy sitting on the bench glowering at everything, but there was no arguing with him. I got off with my colorful tourist junk and sat on the other end of the bench from him, staring out at the street, trying not to be too bothersome.

He continued to glare and smoke and smoke and glare. He almost looked like a part of the bench, his long jacket so worn that it looked like it had become partly tar. The stubble on his chin sprouted erratically in his ashen face. He scooted a little further away from me. I think that was what hurt most. There was something distinctly elegant about him, but I could tell that he didn’t like me. I looked at him once and then looked back at the road, chewing at the insides of my lip. I wanted to know how long it would be, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask him. Finally I bucked up my courage and asked, I think it was in some abhorrent German, when the bus was going to come back around. He shot me a glare.

“The driver has to have lunch. He’ll be back to go the other way in about thirty minutes,” he told me in English. I smiled, but his face remained closed. So, I sat on the end of the bench and wrought my fingers until the bus finally showed back up to take me back down the line. I got on the right bus and finally got back to the place I was staying very late. As you may have guessed, I didn’t have a scratch on me.

Now tell me honestly, am I naive? Should I have seen this twist in the plot coming? Or is this all a misunderstanding? In the end, it means that there is one of two lessons that we can learn from this. 1. I really need to be a little more careful. 2. When your lost, you should really just ask for directions.

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Well, I had a little bit of a rough day today. Thank goodness it's Friday, right? So, we got me some soulfood! Aka: chinese food. Albeit, americanized chinese food complete with MSGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG (well not anymore, but heck, so long as it tastes good.) So having that perfectly lovely diversion, I cloistered myself in the study and pulled up my most recent Borders "shortlist" which tells me all the 'what's what' about books these days. It's like the tabloids except for books! It also is only one page long and doesn't spread gossip (coincidence! I think NOT!). So, I pulled up a recliner and watched the "Borders Book Club" in which author Stephenie Meyer talks about her latest book "Eclipse" which, accroding to the Wall Street Journal is perparing to 'Eclipse' Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on the bestsellers list! OMW! Well, I couldn't listen to the whole interview because they kept on talking about the previous two books Twilight and New Moon and I actually want to read them now, but what she was saying , which was very interesting was not worry about publishing. Writing is the fun part. If you write then you are a writer. If you want to publish a book, then you are... well not. This strikes a direct contrast to another writer who I saw at the Tatter Cover a month or so ago. She said that she actually doesn't like writing, but already she's written twelve or so books and makes her living as a columnist. I guess it takes all kinds, doesn't it. What this woman and Stephenie Meyer say is very important, though. On the one hand, you shouldn't feel like your literary destiny should come to a halting stop just because you don't really want to write your book today. Books don't get done if you don't write them and writing them is work. On the other hand, there is no sense holing yourself up in your basement composing the great american novel when all you really want to do is go around the country and talk to people. For me what it meant was that I wanted to go back and read my story.

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Cuuuuuuuuuuuuuute!

(picture deleted to failure to link. Read http://www.seraph-inn.com/index.html on the most recent page to see)

*sniff* *tear*

(Case for the ninja! From the Anthology of Japanese Literature: complied by Donald Keene)

After the death of his wife

"Since in Karu lived m wife,

I wished to be with her to my heart's content;

But I could not visit her constantly

Because of the many watching eyes-

Men would know of our troth,

Had I sought her too often.

So our love remained secret like a rock-pent pool;

I cherished her in my heart,

Looking to aftertime when we should be together,

And lived secure in my trust

As one riding a great ship.

Suddenly there came a messenger

Who told me she was dead-

Was gone like a yellow leaf of autumn.

Dead as the day dies with the setting sun,

Lost as the bright moon is lost behind the cloud,

Alas, she is no more, whose soul

Was bent to mine like bending seaweed!

When the word was brought to me

I knew not what to do nor what to say;

But restless at the mere news,

And hoping to heal my grief

Even a thousandth part,

I journeyed to Karu and searched the market place

Where my wife was wont to go!

There I stood and listened,

But no voice of her I heard,

Though the birds san in the Unebi Mountain;

None passed by who even looked like my wife.

I could only call her name and wave my sleeve."

*sniff* "Journeyed to Karu and serach the market place; where my wife was wont to go!" "None passed who even looked like my wife." Still wondering about the "As one riding a great ship." It reminds me of... mopeds.

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Today I made a Barbeque Chicken Pizza! I know! OMGWTFBBQ? I didn’t believe it to be possible either when I first heard the tale. How could those two amazing flavors ever meet? It all began, when I headed for home this fateful Tuesday afternoon. I had run out of work a little earlier than usual and, seeing as I had my car, my freedom and a relatively full bank account, I decided to go home. It was about 4:00 and I was thinking about my parents, toiling away at work and I thought, “Well… Since I have time, I am going to make dinner.” But what one earth should I make? I thought about the list of recipes that I knew (spaghetti) and the litany of recipes I have made but promptly forgotten or lost the recipe for and I came to think about a particular Barbeque Chicken Pizza which my eldest sister was very fond of. It’s her recipe. She and her roommate would make it with this special kind of sauce that they got in great big jars from Nebraska. She loved the pizza and raved about it whenever we got on the topic of recipes. So, once I got home, I decided to give her a call.

Boop, boop, boop, no answer. Normally I don’t leave messages. It’s a bad habit, I realize, but I know that they will be able to find me on their caller-id and I also hate calling people, but today I was feeling a little more confident and I left her a short message about how I would like to try her BBQ pizza. I hung up the phone and flipped on the boob-tube for a little moronic enjoyment punctuated by TV shows I hadn’t seen in forever and news stories I didn’t actually watch. I had almost forgotten about that whimsical idea of making the Barbeque Chicken Pizza when my phone began to ring. I looked around, was that me ringing? Why on earth would someone- Oh! I frantically pulled the flashing pulsating machine out of my pocket, jumping around as though the thing had suddenly turn to ice before slamming it to my ear, “Hello?”

It was my eldest sister. She had gotten my message, she said, and she would love to give me the recipes! She told me the whole recipe from crust to topping, everything down to the very last nuance. I was very appreciative. The pocket notebook piece of paper was positively dizzy with English characters by time we were finished, some of them legible but most of them not. I had gathered enough information, however, to begin my trek to the store. So I called my mom and my dad, leaving messages for both of them telling them about my adventure, got back into my automobile and hoped they got the message before they started cooking something else.

I pulled out of the driveway and flipped on my windshield wipers and klove before careening (scratch that. I don’t believe my dad would like to hear that I “careened” anywhere. I drove at a safe but suitably dramatic speed) out of the driveway and headed out to the store. I was almost to the store when suddenly, my pocket began loudly to make itself known to me, for the second time. Phone? My brain stammered. DRIVING! it hissed urgently in response to the elevating noise coming from my pants pocket. I pulled into a parking place and stopped. “Hello?”

“Hellooo, Katherino.” It was my mummsie. She, as it happens, was thinking about making pizza, too (“Great minds think alike”). She was making one with pesto and tomatoes, but wanted to tell me that she had already obtained the necessary crust and that I should go and gather my ingredients. I agreed and thanked her before hanging up. I pulled the car a little closer and ran through the rain into the supermarket. It is a pretty supermarket. It is very open, not like European supermarkets. Supermarkets in Europe are much like their countries, they are big enough, but they have a lot of streets and a lot of people in them. This supermarket was a little more like Cheyenne: populated, but open enough to prevent anyone from going Highlander on someone’s ass. (Excuse my Klingon.)

The first ingredient I spotted was the rotisserie chickens, rotating brightly in their Plexiglas case, just beyond the produce. I went up to figure out how to open it, but was dissuaded by the “Hot! Do not touch!” sign on it. I figured I would have to ask someone, and I didn’t want it to get cold, so I set about gathering the other ingredients before coming back. I skittered hither and thither with the renewed energy that my horoscope had promised me. Finally, without much ado, I returned to the chickens and, turning to the boy across the counter, asked, “Hello, can I get a chicken.” I pointed at the chickens illustratively.
He stared at me perplexed and then responded, “No, no, those chickens aren’t ready.” I pouted in consternation. “These chickens are ready, though!” he said, “those chickens won’t be ready for 20 minutes, but these chickens are ready.” “Oh!” I said brightly, “Then I’ll have one of those then.”

Seeing as I was carrying all of my ingredients, the fellow made an effort to help me out, shaking out a thin plastic produce bag while I used my free hand to choose and drop a chicken into it. He twisted it up for me and I thanked him profusely before heading to the checkout counter. I like to checkout with real people. Self-checkout is a speedy option, but I think it a little ego-centric don’t you? At least if you aren’t going on a date or something.

The horde of clerks did not notice me at first. I stood there and tried to project my presence into the back of their skulls combined as doing the more old fashion technique of “sticking you neck out and wobbling from side to side until you managed to catch someone’s eye” routine. I finally caught the attention of the only clerk who was working, who, in turn, managed to gain the interest of everyone else by default. The clerk nearest to me gathered my ingredients from my and flicked them over the scanner. I gave him my card supermarket card which, he was surprised to find, was attached to my keys, my hand-sanitizer and my wallet. He apologized and we laughed self-depreciatingly (me at my tendency to attach all my worldly possessions to one carabineer and he at the fact that he hadn’t guessed) Gathering my brown plastic bags (yes, you read it correctly brown PLASTIC bags) I skittered out the door.

It was not long before I was home. I dropped my ingredients, greeted my mother and then set about cutting up what I had bought. It is important to cut things up in a pizza. If you don’t make things bite-sized to begin with, then when you finally go to eat it, it ends up being a disastrous affair of trying to use your teeth for the purpose you should have used your knife for. My mother, with her strong white hands, massaged the dough and stretched it over the pizza dishes. Her pizza she created quickly, a gentle process of smoothing out the pesto and lavishing its surface with delicate low-cal topping. All while I furiously tried to chop my pepper and pull apart a chicken leg from my rotisserie chicken. I dripped and dropped my pizza together. Adding it together like a modern painter: scorning the licked surface and replacing them with licks of paint, creating a tactile surface or cheese, peppers, chicken and barbeque sauce. I had just finished when my mother lifted up my masterpiece. She had a chance to exclaim with an appreciative “Ooo” before it disappeared into the oven. Then, we waited.

It was a flurry of activity. My mother pulled out her pizza, my parents slicing off their own pieces and scurry off to eat them, my mother to eat while watching her shows, my father in the kitchen with me. I let my dog in and we roved around the kitchen as I cleaned up the mess that I had made with the whole endeavor. Finally, after a moment of rest, it was done, steaming with the rich tastes and smells that make some conspiracy theorist suspect that there’s something addictive about food. Personally, I have always thought there was something addictive about staying alive, particularly when it tastes good. I began to cut it up and dish out the slices, a momentary panic flooding over me as plates danced before me, begging me to fill them as I looking at delicious piece after piece slip away from my grasp. I scooped up a piece, went over to the table and devoured it, and another, and another until I started licking my fingers thinking, “The barbeque sauce bottle was right, this is finger-licking good barbeque sauce!” Then I took pictures and came down to right this entry.

So that is the end of my story. At least until the next time I make dinner.

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When you check your own webcomic to see if it's updated! >.> Strangely though, I think I've done it five times already. Idly navigating through the +favs in my webcomic folder I flip through the new monday comics in hopes of hearing a new portion of my favorite stories. Top on this list are:

• Dr. McNinja Which is very funny


• InverlochWhich is ENDING! *tear*


• Red String Which updates really regularily... and... tehehe, is very romantic


• World Break which updates in bright spurts! Oooo, pretiful


• Lackadaisy which is really good, amazing art, updates sporadically


• No Need For Bushido(which do to incidental factors sometimes updates Mondays


• Smackjeeves Which is my webcomic community... which will probably burn me alive for having not been online for so long *cough* *cough*


• and Zion Andrews which is my said truent webcomic that I keep on checking... to see if it's updated... which it won't be... until I update it.

So many projects! So little time! Ah well, I think I may scurry off into the bushes and write my novel which is... as it is... slow going XD.

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