Please unicorn eat tacos with me, Please unicorn...

Yes, please do.

That title is the second top comment on the video for the dubstep remix of Passion Pit's sleepyhead, an awesome song in it's own right.  Who doesn't want a taco break with some unicorns, for realsies?

I'm a dubstep fan, and I'm not ashamed.  Chalk it up to my slow but constant ascent away from reality, as I become further and further embedded in the internet.  Some are going to argue that I may want to change 'ascent' to descent, and hey.  It's a roller coaster, brother.  I just hang on.

The second Rainey book is totes pau.  But I, in my infinite wisdom, have decided to christen my graduation and return to the mainland (after running away as hard as I could for...wow...FIVE weeks?  My bad) with learning how to use Adobe Illustrator.  You know, so my book covers don't look like they were made by an angry walrus trying to follow up the 'hey girl' Ryan Gosling meme with clever MS Paint retorts (btw, the best 'hey girl' retort is def this one, although this is still by far the funniest OG of all time).

Not a lot else to report; I am writing.  A lot a lot.  But that's old news.  I think I will post an essay I wrote on writing (and painting--as that may explain somewhat my latest obsession) almost a decade ago up in this biz sometime soon, but I've been lazy about so many things lately.  It's okay.  These things are seasonal.

The Awesome at the End of This Blog is yet another youtube video.  I stumbled on this while obsessively watching Erykah Badu videos from the 90s--what can I say?  About five years ago My Morning Jacket played my hometown while I was home and it was an amazing show.  Nothing beats live music.  Not even the internet.  So this combo is just off the chain, no playin.

Yowza!

I am crying right now, no joke--I am so glad Vanessa's the one wearing the make-up here.

So, after two months, that might sound ominous, or even sad, but it's neither; I just discovered Who Do You Think You Are?, a show that follows celebrities as they trace their heritage.  It's a very American show, with the perfect mix of panache and self promotion and sincerity...And I just can't stop watching it.  It's a very heady mix for an emotional history nerd.  I'm watching the Steve Buscemi episode right now, and I might cry again.  Partly from joy and partly from horror, in both cases.  Our history, as a people, is very complicated.

But anyway.  I digress.

I finished the second Rainey book--it's out with the betas as we speak, and so far getting some good reviews.  I have less confidence in the success of this book because it's a bit riskier.  Being fourteen was really hard.  I didn't want to leave that unexamined, in the case of our lonesome little human heroine.

Other than that, I am shopping at the MIT flea market, studying for the National Boards, visiting my millions of wonderful relatives and friends, and attending weddings on mountaintops during hurricanes.  So not kidding.  It was rad until I got home and saw all the sad news in Vermont.

I will have to return with a more flamboyant post in the near future--I'm thinking about writing one on making covers.  But to do it, I have to finish working on the new covers.  Sigh.

I hope whoever might be reading this is well!  Check out those shows, if you like nerdery.

So...I published a book.

Well.  I mean, I think I did.

The technical aspects of self-publishing (which, in my case, is misapplied since I totes couldn't have done this without copious amounts of all kinds of help, technical and otherwise) are daunting.  My brilliant and patient friends and family, some of whom are in the acknowledgements of said book, are really responsible for pretty much everything.  But I'll talk about the actual process of getting this published some other time, and try to make sure I'm not just repeating things other smart folks have already explained.

Oh my gosh.

Currently Rainey Monroe's first adventure, called Scarcer Than Hen's Teeth, is available on Amazon and Smashwords.  If you happen to like .99 cent mysteries that feature humorous hillbilly (and human) fourteen year old detectives facing the kind of dire odds we all do in high school--but with a twist....wink wink...you'll probably like this story.  Personally, I really like Rainey.  She would've been exactly who I would've wanted as a friend when I was trying to navigate the beginning of growing up.   And she probably would be someone I'd want to have as a friend now, too, while I'm thinking about it.  Who doesn't need more sassy friends, right?

If you happen to read my book, a review would be super cool.  Good or bad, whatevs.  It's cool.

By the by: if you are not a member of the OYA (Older Young Adult) Club--and even if you are--you may want to explore the 'prude filter' on Smashwords.  I am so not kidding.  I am 31, married, and yikes.  Totes don't believe in censoring the actual authors of said books...but...please, god, censor my brain and make me forget some of those titles.  So.  Moving on.

Aaaand...I'm not quite egotistical enough to claim my book as the Awesome at the End of My Blog, so...here's something I've been really liking lately:

I'm not sure how y'all feel about electronica, so it may not be everyone's cup of tea.  However, if such is the case, perhaps you are into...Australia?  Or, perhaps, hexacopters?  Might be a quadcopter, but still, thats what we're watching.  So.  Awesome.  Also, I thought it might be the dumbest name ever for a band, and then I felt like a big ole jerk when I found out the gal--that's right, one Norwegian chick, how rad is that?--who is Mr. Little Jeans named her project after a character from Rushmore, one of my Favorite Movies of All Time Ever.  So, perhaps we double dip today, and I leave you with this quote from the film, which, PS, is basically the summation of all my rebuttals when I get down on myself about grad schoolery, or life, or writing:

Bill Murray is in love with Olivia Williams, as is Jason Schwartzman (I mean really though, who isn't, amirite?).  The latter--an ambitious playwriting prep school kid--has talked the former--a wealthy but miserable businessman--into building a massive aquarium to impress this woman, in the ways of such indie films.  A conversation between the pair as they scheme and compete, vying for her affections:

Max Fischer: How the hell did you get so rich? You're a quitter, man! 
Herman Blume: I spent eight million dollars on this. 
Max Fischer: And is that all you're willing to spend? 


Well put, my friend.  Words to live by.

Oh boy. It's been a long time. (Awesome at the bottom)

I don't even know what to do with myself--I am four days away from finishing grad school, and it's making me a weeeeee bit crazy.  Even for me, crazy.  Cray-cray.

I am 40,000 words into the second Rainey book.  She is cranky in this one, but then, so am I.  I can say with some certainty that facebook is at least partially responsible in both cases, for forcing me to have difficult conversations with old friends.  I knew getting that account was a bad idea; its like a private reality tv station for each of us.

But then...so is a blog, really.

See what I mean about cray-cray?  On the other hand, I am fervently hoping both of these will be available on amazon by the end of the summer, and now wouldn't that just be something.  Wow.

Coolest thing I've seen in the last two months:  http://lab.andre-michelle.com/tonematrix.  Seriously.  Check it out, you'll love it.

There is a lot of whining in the post below, and a little awesome. Skip to the bottom for awesome.

I'm listening to my upstairs neighbors root around in the basement downstairs.  Supposedly we were going to have that little number to ourselves, but.  Such is the way of landlords.

So now they have access to two parking spots and three floors out of the house, while we are barely holding on to two spots and one floor.

I didn't actually start this entry to whine, but whining seems to interfere with a lot of what I'm doing lately; I think it's at least partially due to the fact that I wanted to have my book published by the end of March, and we are now halfway through April.  I am really grateful to the enormous number of people contributing to it's life, but having spread the necessary jobs around so thin I also find I'm biting my nails and working hard on respecting the pace of other folks.  In other words, publishing a book, so far, is a lot like having a wedding: you are dependent on the kindness of the people who love you, and thus very grateful while also nervous and hand-bitey and ready for the whole thing to be done.

My natural project speed, as I may have mentioned, is totally bipolar.  The book in question was written in roughly two weeks (55,000 words), edited in one, and is now waiting (2.5 months) for a couple additional comments/edits.  I'm ready to let Rainey go meet some new friends, basically.  And start writing about pirates.  Cause that's how.  I have two other books at roughly 30,000 words a piece and one that needs editing...and has for a year.  Tri-polar, maybe.  Quad-poltastic.

I found the following video via Bust; as always, a little caution is advised--not only because the articles on Bust may be better suited to Older Young Adults (acronym OYA, pronounced OH YEAH!) but because once again...you are about to fall in love...over the internets.

You've been warned.  The associated blog is, as they say here in Massachusetts, wicked.

In case you were curious:

I CANNOT get the song that starts in this video at 8:00 out of my head.  

CANNOT.

You may recognize Darren Criss, of Glee fame, and Nick Lang, of Starkid fame (they are both really famed of the latter, or however that phrase should work), and if you don't, you are about to fall in lurve over the internets.  A dangerous business best avoided in most cases, but in this one, you won't be able to help yourself.

The song is in a play that has a Big Starkids Only theme, and I didn't want to link to it...on the bizarre off-hand chance that someday someone a lil too young for it will be reading this blog.  Hopefully, they will not have found this blog through my twitter account, where I have yet to successfully filter myself.  If, however, you do read my heathen thoughts there, you may remember that once upon a time I said I would gladly be a bigamist in the case of Joey Richter and Lauren Lopez, should they ever amorphize into a single beast with a name like...Lichtey Ropez.  For example.  In the Big Starkids Only play, Joey Richter sings this song to another beautiful, amazing starkid, Jaime Lyn Beatty...Thus the need for an awesomeness tag (really, a recursive awesomeness tag would be ideal, but.  There's only so much nerd I'm willing to cop to at any given time).

In case you were wondering (different, but similar, to a state of curiosity), I have no filter in real life.  My face is an open book, as the saying goes, and my mouth usually provides the footnotes, for better or worse.

I haven't yet had the time to make myself sit down and re-write the opening to Rainey's Mystery Numba One, which is the part I think needs the most work.  However, one of my good friends stayed up late to read it, and told me she loved it, and it needed to be published...So, this was a great week, in other words.

Back to business.  But seriously, see if you don't just find yourself humming this later...wait...just wait...there's something I need to say...

Wishes

Aerial work and Dark Dark Dark

This photo was taken during an art installation in the Netherlands by Tod Seelie; the Miss Rockaway Armada traversed the globe with their traveling art barges and wooed the masses with circus magic and street art.

Sometimes I think it'd be nice to do something like that.  I imagine that was the thought those folks had just before they actually went and did it.  It's similar to the thought I had when I decided to actually send out my last book to my friends for some feedback.

Sometimes just asking to be recognized as who you are feels reckless and brave, which strikes me as backwards.

The one friend who did read it said he loved my book.  "Nancy Drew at Monster High School!  Brilliant!"  It made it a lot easier to believe that they are worth sharing--I can't help but write them.  It's that second part that's tough.

But I think I would've loved my main character when I was her age.  The summer between eighth and ninth grade, when I was fourteen, I was mad for adventure.  I see the girl in that photo above dangling somewhere between heaven and earth, and remember my best friends and how much we laughed and did ridiculous things just to do them--dancing in puddles while it rained, scrambling up trees, taking photos of each other swinging high on the plank bench in the back yard--and I want them to find Rainey, who's currently in a different but similar kind of limbo.  Not as elegant as tissu work, but the effect is the same.  

Deep breath.  Re-write time.