The Party Pony

Subliminal Messages Behind Common Valentine's Day Gifts

2012-02-04T17:40:00.000-08:00

Today this blog is lucky enough to welcome renowned psychiatrist Dr. Q. P. Turnipseed, an expert in human behavior and motivation whose various works include Why You Can't Stop Piddling in Your Shorts, Hey Fatass! and Who Moved My Oysters? Welcome, Dr. Turnipseed!

Dr. Q.P. Turnipseed. Photo credit: James Turnipseed, Jr.

With Valentine's Day fast approaching, Dr. Turnipseed has taken some time to evaluate the secret meanings behind some of the gifts you might give and receive on this "most romantic of days." What she reveals may shock you.

"The giver of this gift has recently been kicked in the nads, and also stopped taking his
Prozac approximately 2.5 weeks ago. He blames you completely but can only say so with chocolates."

"This stuffed animal contains within it many layers of meaning. It also contains a small videocamera."

"He who gives a pile of stuffed canine nethers to you for Valentine's Day pretty much wants to
have an orgy with you and your sorority sisters."

"The person who gave you this stuffed dog plans to tattoo your name on his face. He wants to kill you."

"The boyfriend who gave this gift feels inadequate. He knows that his girlfriend would rather be caressed by a gorilla who sings and dances to its own rendition of 'Bad to the Bone' than ever look at him again. You can help the situation by referring to him as your 'dream lover gorilla' so incessantly, and in a tone so babyish and high-pitched, that next year he gives you the dog pictured above."

"The person who gave this really wants to be kissed, but decided to express his/her feelings through the use of an animatronic heart that will give the recipient a fatal heart attack when it starts inching, inching slowly through the boudoir at 1:00 a.m. This gift is a mistake. It is always wise to express one's feelings openly, not through the use of cursed, goggle-eyed objects. Note the spatulate paws, which suggest an inability to grapple with deep emotions."

"The person who gave you this gift wants to imprison you in his basement in that special room that was built outside of code in 1972. Run and call 9-1-1! Seriously, there are some really weird freaks out there and THIS ISN'T NORMAL."

"If given by a man, this gift usually suggests that he is cheating on you at this very moment with that waitress down at Mo's, and hopes that Mr. Romance will buy him enough time by enthralling you with witty sayings such as, 'Do you have a map? I keep getting lost in your eyes.'

If given by your best female pal, she's really sorry that she insulted you with this gift but she thought you needed a talking doll since you're so lonely and all and kind of have become antisocial since your long-time lover Bob left.
Plus, it could double as a dildo! I didn't say that. You thought it. I know this since I have written a lot of books on human psychology."

"The giver of this gift is eager to please in many ways. Rowwwff! If you were given the white dog in the background, it probably means that you are coming up short in some manner. Step up your game to satisfy your lady."

"The suggestion here is that your love has left the giver bereft and penis-less. He or she will soon expire."

Scary High School Textbooks From the 1960s

2012-01-24T18:20:00.000-08:00

A smattering of the academic fare that was discovered in my attic. (The former owner of the home being a parochial school administrator.) There are many of these books. Here are some of the more alarming of the batch.

Everything you've always wanted to know about sin, sluts, interracial marriage, and nudity, answered by your favorite cut-up, "Monsignor J.D."

"Yes, unless you're a totally rude fuck!"—Monsignor J.D.

"I am a bit out of touch with techniques. Are you referring to the cheeks of the buttocks? If so, a light grazing is acceptable in the eyes of the Lord, but more vigorous 'pressing' or 'grinding' would be considered immoral. As would any ape-like maneuvers."—Monsignor J.D.

I took the Dysfunctional Method.

And it led to this!

Repeat: Boys and girls should not be allowed together in the same room.

Oh! What if I wish to know very little? Does this book cover that?

I don't think that car has seat-heaters or Sirius XM OR airbags.

If you are white and prosperous. If not, youse fucked.

Perfectly healthy, normal teenagers.

A mentally ill teen who daydreams of lustful car trips with older women!

The fear of the "unknown" is worse than being chased by a maddened cow? I think not.

For shame, Puerto Rican children who are having a delightful time in a water sprinkler. This is by no means the best outlet for your youthful energies!

This photograph was found inserted inside Problems and Opportunities in a Democracy. It puzzles me in several ways. For one, is the mannequin intended to be homosexual? Where are #s 1 and 2? Why does Bobby Sue look happy with her date but Mary Lou look like she just got stuck in the arse with a pickle?

"If you run too much water into a bathtub, some water will overflow from the tub."
(Is that statement about the left testicle really true? Need to know!)

Living things are slumped marionettes dangling from a crucifix.

OK, I'll give this a shot; I'm only slightly "high."

That big chunk of text helps SOOOO much. Thank you, Robinson's New Higher Arithmetic!

Strange Things I Have Photographed in the Suburbs

2012-01-14T11:07:00.000-08:00

In my work as an amateur naturalist, I continue to catalogue the oddities of that savage land known as Suburbia. Here is my latest collection of photographs snapped in the wilds of Southern Westchester.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something thick and black and previously used by a burglar.

This Mamaroneck shop features grand-daddies, infants, occasional flames, and one very very small roast turkey.

So many people ignored this sign. So, so many naked people. What a clothing store!

Is it just me, or is this statue "shaking the dew off the lily"?

$2.00 additional for the large earwig.

"Don't look now, Mary, but there is a giant, grotesque ear with gnarly legs and toenails and shit walking behind you."

Spotted outside that corner bar that's been closed for 3 years now. The creature is fervently hoping it will become a wine/tapas lounge, rather than another dive.

Speaking of dive bars, this animal spent way too long at the "Town House II"—an establishment that is strictly "teeth optional."

The poster warning of the dangers of marijuana was spotted in a high school health classroom in Mamaroneck. It has little blue testes. Look closely at the hand dangling by his side. Now, wait for it...wait for it...

Okay, NOW I need a stiff drink!

The 2012 Apocalypse: A Fragrant Love Story (with exclusive film stills!)

2012-01-01T13:01:00.000-08:00

As the Giant Ball of Destructive Space Cheese hurtles toward their home, Sadie "Screwgun" Pickens and Miz Ida Lumplett make their peace with their Lord. "I always knew the pocka-lips would come in 2012!" cries Ida.


While next door, their neighbors—the rich and fastidious Butterworth sisters, Jilly and Betty "Better With Butter" Butterworth—are also facing their fate. The Cheese will crush them as surely as it will their poor yokel neighbors. "Where to hide the valuables?" muses Jilly. "Aw, hell, why am I still a virgin?" bemoans Betty.

Sadie Pickens and Ida Lumplett ain't goin' down without a fight. They plunder their "ammo cupboard" for some weaponry to use against the space mutants that are, no doubt, riding atop the Giant Ball of Destructive Space Cheese!


The Cheese makes contact! The house is rocked as if by a giant explosion. Betty Butterworth loses her pants in the chaos, while Jilly Butterworth loses something more precious...her mind.

"Look, Jilly! Something's creeping up the veranda! Stop that infernal giggling, you idiot! Have you lost your wits?"


Then...the stench assails them. It is unearthly. Betty's mind also snaps, like a crisp cracker. Is all hope lost?

Good God—there is something peering in the window. And it has EYES. Perhaps three eyes in total!

"Perhaps our fragrant visitors are male, Jilly. Perhaps now is my chance to become a woman. For after all, I am not presently wearing pants."


Meanwhile, next door, Sadie "Screwgun" Pickens defies an alien intruder. "You step one foot on my property and I'm a-gonna blast your cheesy hide from here to next Sunday. Stop that simperin,' Miz Lumplett. This ain't no time to git lucky."


With the plunge of a sharp letter-opener, Jilly Butterworth ends the life of her beloved sister. "How...could...you!" groans Betty, as she expires. "I want that cheesy devil out there all to myself, missy," says the perfidious Jilly.

"But Sadie, he's handsome, ain't he? How am I looking?"says Miz Ida.
"Why, he's walking over to the Butterworth sisters' estate! Them damn bitches. I hope they enjoy the stink a' cheese!" fumes Sadie.

Jilly Butterworth is claimed by her new lover. "Pretty blonde lady and Gouda will make excessive love and furry babies. Omgmghphppharggh."

THE END.

Blah! Gah! Wards!

2011-12-21T18:05:00.000-08:00

I have recently been gifted with two lovely awards from two lovely blog friends that I have been late to pass on to other worthy souls.

Here is the first, "The Lindsay."

Your blog went to rehab multiple times and it did it no good.

And the second, the coveted "One Decadent Blogger."

This was not an accident. Why'dja buy a cream-colored carpet anyway when you have pals like me, numbnuts?

I decided, rather than spread these horrors about the InterWebs, I would instead shelve them and re-gift two others that are prettier and more fragrant than a Care Bear's dongle dipped in drawn butter.

From the lovely and talented Anita at A Still and Quiet Madness, an award (below) that helped me realize that my blog was not the spotty, barnacle-encrusted wasteland I had always assumed it to be. Thank you, dear Anita! I shall pass this award on to the deserving Jennifer of Serendipity's Library, for her blog is durned purty and also features a CREEPY DOLL named Charlotte. I adore creepy dolls. I will also send this award the way of J. Lea Lopez of Jello World, whose humorous literary dissections of songs are lovely indeed. I don't know where she will fit this flower-bedecked award on her blog bookshelf, but never mind that!

And from the equally lovely and talented Angela at The Starving Novelist, an award (below) that made me clutch my breast (both, at once) and faint dead away with the honor of it. It is with humility and beatitude that I accept the award below. I shall pass this award on to Lisa at Kicked, Cornered, Bitten and Chased, for there is nothing more lovely than the snout of a monkey or the rubbery lips of a llama. I shall also pass it to one of my special favoritos, Michelle of Greenwoman, for her nature photographs are stunning and make one want to eat mushrooms and wander in the woods speaking to the little people.

Enjoy, you deserving creatures! Pass these awards on as you wish; rules are for the birds. Have a Happy New Year!

Book Giveaway and Launch Party: Catherine Stine's FIRESEED ONE!

2011-12-18T16:15:00.000-08:00

Fellow blogger extraordinaire, Catherine Stine, has just released her new YA thriller, Fireseed One. In celebration of her launch, I am hosting a book giveaway here. Visit Catherine's blog today for more launch party festivities, including giveaways, interviews, and excerpts.

This book is very good indeed. The well-drawn and likable characters, suspenseful plot, and superb world-building make for a compelling page-turner. I particularly enjoyed the author's speculations about food sources and how these could morph in fantastic ways in the face of drastic climate change—this provides the platform for a life or death struggle that blends romance with eco-terrorism and thrilling adventure. Peppered with humor and action, the story's futuristic references, including the clever jargon and pop culture of the time, are delivered with a natural and deft hand. Catherine Stine's research and meticulous attention to detail transform her strange and wildly imaginative world into one we can readily picture becoming our own. Fireseed One is a compulsively readable—and alarmingly plausible—vision of our future.

Catherine is giving away three eBook versions and one paperback version to the lucky winners. You want to get your hands on a copy! If you should be so lucky as to win, please add your review to Amazon, Goodreads, your blog, and so on. This contest will close in approximately one week.

To enter, simply leave a comment below with a way to contact you should you win. If you tweet about the book (tag me @feralpony so I see it), like it on Facebook, or write a blog post about it, you will get extra-special bonus points and your name will go into the kitty innumerable times!

Here are more details about the exciting setting and plot of Fireseed One:

What if the only person who could help you save the worldwas your very worst enemy?

Fireseed One, a YA thriller, is set in a near-futureworld with soaring heat, toxic waters, tricked-out amphibious vehicles,ice-themed dance clubs, and fish that grow up on vines. Temperate climate has replaced Arctic ice, and much of what is now the United States is a lethal Hotzone, cut off by an insurmountable border from its northern, luckier neighbors, Ocean and Land Dominion. It is rumored that roving Hotzone nomads will kill for a water pellet or a slice of insect loaf, and that the ZWC, a dangerous Hotzone activist group, has infiltrated the border to the northern Dominions.

Varik Teitur inherits avast sea farm after the mysterious death of his marine biologist father. WhenMarisa Baron, a beautiful and shrewd terrorist who knows way too much aboutVarik's father's work, tries to steal seed disks from the world's food bank,Varik is forced to put his dreams of becoming a doctor on hold and venture withher, into a hot zone teeming with treacherous nomads and a cult who worshipshis dead father, in order to search for a magical hybrid plant that may noteven exist.

*With nine illustrations by the author.

To purchase the book via Amazon, click here.

To buy Fireseed One on iBook for your iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, click here.
For Nook users, Catherine is offering a special launch party discount! The Fireseed eBook is officially $2.99, but during this party, you can buy it for only $1.50, directly from Catherine! Email her at kitsy84557@gmail.com and she'll send you a link to Paypal, and then the eBook.

To find Catherine on the web:

Her web site

Her blog

On Facebook

Her Goodreads author page

And, my interview with the author!

1. The book is rich in futuristic detail about a world drasticallyaltered by climate change. Do you have a scientific background that helpedinform your imagination? What inspired the theme of the book?

I’m fascinated by hybrids,including how many future applications there are for algae—agar. I did tons ofresearch in prep for writing Fireseed One,and the more I read about transgenics (plants genetically modified with foreignelements), the more fascinated I became. Did you know researchers have alreadycombined proteins in human saliva and breast milk with rice RNA to createinfant resistance to diarrhea in the Third World? I simply asked, “What next?”In the story, there’s a hybrid of grapes and fish, so that fish can grow up onvines and avoid toxic water. Expect even stranger hybrids in the novel too.Spinning out possible “Frankenstein Scenarios” is wicked fun.

2. How many Fireseed books do you have planned? Have you alreadymapped out the next one?

Yes! The next is called Children of Fireseed, where I inventvery weird transgenic scenarios, and inspiring variations too. Hint: whatadvantages would you have if you could get your nutrition from the sun? TheFireseed cult will reappear, as will Armonk, Nevada and the little girl withthree missing fingers. (You’ll understand when you read). Oh, and another hotromance. The Fireseed novels will probably expand to a trilogy.

3. The plot is very well constructed for maximum suspense. Do yououtline your plot in advance, or do you write more from the hip?

I love building tension! I writea longish synopsis, an outline, and I free-write around the themes andcharacters—who wants what and why, how characters will clash, where I take theromantic relationships—all of that. I also do research. I’ve learned fromexperience that planning will keep me from writing a five-headed monstrositythat reels off into outer space! A writer can always alter storyline as he orshe goes. I think people fear that once they outline they aren’t allowed tochange it. So not true.

Flyfish Vines. Art by Catherine Stine.

4. One of the unique features of Fireseed One is the inclusion of your own illustrations. Which camefirst for you, writing or drawing? Or were they simultaneous talents that younurtured?

I wrote a lot in high school.Then I attended an art college and got a BFA in painting. I was published as anillustrator first. There were a bunch of artists in my family, so it was expected.But I was always, always writing. To fuse the two, I assumed that I would writea picture book. But my first published novel was middle-grade. Go figure. I ambeyond thrilled to now combine story and picture. It’s great that there’s a YAtrend toward illustrations. I’ll also be illustrating Children of Fireseed.

______

I, for one, have never thought of a hybrid between fish and grapes. She did. Creative genius! Thank you, Catherine, for the giveaway and the interview. We'll be rooting for the success of the book and await the positive reviews.

Eldest Son Unleashes the F-Bomb (and the Kraken!)

2011-12-14T18:17:00.000-08:00

Eldest Son (age 8) is enrolled in a special creative writing workshop at his school, which meets on Fridays. When I arrived home tonight he told me he had completed his short story for the week, and would I like to read it? Then he leaned over and whispered in my ear: "It's sort of inappropriate."

I was expecting a panoply of farts and poo talk, so I took the paper he handed me and started to read it out loud. The story was titled "How The Kraken Learned to Hate Bad Words." It starred a sailor named "Sdrowdab" ("Bad Words" spelled backwards) who gets into some hijinks on the high seas with the infamous Kraken. The Kraken and Sdrowdab get into a tussle, at which point ol' Sdrowdab unleashes some language that would make a sailor blush:

'"Fuck Fuck Fucky Fuck!" yelled Sdrowdab. "You're one slimy ass Kraken! Oh, Fuckity Fuck Fuck!"'

"Profanity offends my finer sensibilities," said Geoffrey Q. Kraken. "I'll take a double espresso, sir."

I did a double take, stopped reading, and gaped. Eldest Son smiled meaningfully.

"Ah, yes, what you said about inappropriate? Um, well..." And then I searched for a delicate way to put it. "Your teacher might be a bit...surprised. Shocked, even."

He burst into tears and snatched the paper from my hands.

"I knew it!" he screamed. "I'm gonna recycle this!"

Middle Son got very excited and managed to get his hands on the paper. He has just learned to read and is very proud of his skills. So he sounded out the word: "Fuck-tee? Fuck-tee? Fuck-tee!" He looked to me for approval.

Littlest Son said "Fuck-tee! Fuck-tee!" and laughed with great gusto.

"That's kind of a...bad word," I said.

Eldest Son burst into tears again and displayed his uvula.

"Wait, wait!" I said. "It's not like you have to scrap this story. How about you change the 'F' word to 'Fart'?"

"You know that will ruin it!" he wailed.

Well, he was right. Sometimes the F bomb just can't be replaced with a tame little replacement like "Fartity Pants" or "Farty Fart." Would Go the F to Sleep have become a bestseller? I don't think so. "Aw, sugar!" a coworker said recently. I cringed. Let's call a shit a shit, after all.

I asked him, "Where did you hear this word?" (Had he been reading mother's blog?) He shrugged his shoulders.

"You know, Eldest Son," I said. "It's just a word. Words can't hurt us. We shouldn't be afraid of words. Did you know that some people have banned books because they have bad words or thoughts in them that people don't like? I think you ought to bring that story in. Just be prepared. Your teacher's eyebrows will go up."

Why was I saying this? I don't know. I didn't want him to feel censored.

It was no use. He tore the story into little bits and ran off crying, saying things like "I wrote a banned story. I wrote a story that's gonna get banned." I gathered the bits and saved them. The pencil marks had faded from his grubby, angsty clutch. I could barely read the end, where the Kraken, deeply offended by the slew of bad language from the potty-mouthed sailor Sdrowdab, sinks beneath the waves "never ever to be seen again."

Fuckity fuck fuck, it was a pretty good story! But he made me promise not to tell a soul about it.

I lied very sweetly.

It Ain't Bad to Get Mad!

2011-12-06T16:55:00.001-08:00

My kids have a doll called "The Elf on the Shelf," which was a gift from last year's holiday season. It sits on a shelf or perches on top of the fridge or dangles from a light fixture during the day, staring with baleful eye at the children's antics. During the night, it flies on swift wings and narks to Santa about their misdeeds. Then it returns and sits in a different spot.

My children named their elf "Harry Spotts," and registered it with the Elf on the Shelf web site.

What it says or does makes no difference, for is Santa really going to deliver coal to my children? All the threats are in vain, for if they get one less plastic rinkamadink for Christmas they will not even notice, and will continue to carry on with their "mouth farts" and other atrocities at the dinner table.

"The elf is watching!" we may exhort, and they pause. But then they continue with the "mouth farts" and other bad things, and we know, in our hearts, that they have won.

I said to my husband the other day that I need my own Elf on the Shelf. My elf will have one clear purpose: To prevent me from sending angry emails. I am an Angry Email Sender. Ever since the advent of email, I have been sending angry ones. To wit:

• The three-pager I sent my wine-sodden, fat roommate back in Stuyvesant Town to tell her she was a fat, wine-sodden bitch

• The four-pager I sent my other roommate back in Brooklyn, to explain to her that she was a nutbag whose cats urinated excessively and she needed a swift kick in the brain

• The email(s) I sent to the beloved husband some years ago, to tell him that he had offended me in various regards and I wished to explain my rightness in all things, and his wrongness

• The email I sent to certain management personnel at a particular establishment not terribly long ago, in which I used the phrase "soul crushing" to rather devastating effect, such that it is now (soon to be) a trending hashtag on Twitter

If I could have written an email to my three boys expressing my foaming furor over the continuing #mouthfart trend, I would have done so! I find email to be a very handy tool for expressing rage.

Apparently, I need an elf to stop me from hitting "send," and to kindly direct me to put my missives in the freezer for a while to cool off. My elf will be called "Mr. Jinks" or maybe "Dave."

But do I? Isn't it okay, sometimes, to say exactly what we think? Is it okay to remain silent while a coworker sits next to one at a business dinner, chewing his or her salad with a dreadful "monghgh monghgh mongrrg" sound? It is acceptable to stand by while good people get reamed, and naughty ones get rewarded? Shall we be meek and quiet while someone tells an offensive joke, or lets her cats poo on one's comforter for sport, or drinks the last dregs of the wine box? Shall we make merry with the evil poo-head who piddled on our petunias?

That's when I realized. It ain't bad to get mad. It's GOOD to get mad. It's not like Santa's going to bring me coal because I hit "send" on that email that included the words "reptilian" and "fuck-headed douche muppet" in the same sentence. And do you know how I know that? Why, Sesame Street taught me:

Happy holidays, goats! Get maaaad! But only when you're dealing with some real assholes, of course.

Book Giveaway EXTRAVAGANZA!

2011-11-28T16:43:00.001-08:00

I have picked zee winners out of my magical randomizing hat! And they are:

1. Jennifer of Serendipity's Library!
2. Angela Cook!
3. Stacey!
4. Lisa Ann!

I will divide the book into neat mathematical portions and send them your way. Rah!
Check in next time for another chance to win.

________________________________________

Yo, Book Sluts! I'm back. And, in honor of Cyborg Monday, I'm going to give away a big ol' pile of books. I have ARCs, new titles, and even a CD set.

These books keep creeping around my desk with their pages ruffling mournfully, begging to be read. (The CD set just lies there like a lump.)

"Fie on you, books!" I say. "Can you not see that I am working hard here at gazing listlessly into space and pushing this paperclip back and forth, back and forth, while dreaming of revenge against my enemies? I have not time to read all of you. I can read only one of you today!"

They fling themselves at me in anger, slapping me with their inky pages, but I will not be deterred.

"However!" I shout. "I will find you loving homes. I will do so today."

The books are mollifed....for now. Enter this giveaway post haste so I can speed them on their way into your eager arms! (The books are really very tame. Pay no mind to my hyperbole.)

The rules are simple for this giveaway:
1. Leave me a comment with a way to contact you should you win (if certain titles appeal to you, say so!)
2. Follow my blog
3. Tweet at least once about this giveaway, and please tag me @feralpony so I see it (if you don't tweet then just send me some good karma/prayer/what have you. Something like "Gee whiz, I sure hope that nice Party Pony blogger gets a pile of money in her mailbox today!")
4. If you write a blog post about this giveaway you get super ginormous points
5. Thank something, anything, for your life. Right now. You are golden.

I will pick winners soonish...in a couple of days. Good luck!

A red dog named "Clifford"? Hmmm.

Anyone seen this movie yet? It sounds amazing.

ARC, ARC, The Clockwork Dark!

That cobra gonna bite cha!

I like authors named "Jennifer."

Ooh, I read Life as We Knew It and it was so understated, yet so believable and compelling in the end.

I think she is going for the "hot librarian" look.

Another author named Jennifer! Is this a trend?

Stephen King endorses it!

Dat be blood dripping from that microphone!

The CD set. Suzanne Collins endorses it!

MG fun.

Please tell me the "J" stands for Jennifer!

I am running out of steam to write captions. How many books are left?

Is that fish carnivorous?

Plucky kids, I'll wager!

Recognize that look? Hot librarian!

Scary as Shit Children's Book Illustrations (Part 1)

2011-11-19T11:52:00.001-08:00

For Christmas, Santa has brought you menacing stuffies with blood-red eyes. Plus, they are infested with rodents.

"Hello Jibboo! Have we met before in another creepy, dark alley?
Why do you peck me in the duodenum with your awful beak?"

Greetings! Is this the hindquarters of the Pickle Creature, or its forequarters? Either way, it's damnably happy!

"Dance, monkey, dance!" chortled lascivious old Grandfather Bunny. And the bunnies leapt to his foul command.

"Enter my lair and feast on my trotters! Mwa-ha-ha-ha!"
(The Party Pig would have been an awesome blog name. Damn!)

"Then there were dolls—dolls with blue eyes and yellow curls,
dolls with brown eyes and brown curls,
and the funniest little toy clown you ever saw...."

"Kill, kill, KILL!"

"Mmm, what up, Danny Beaver? It's so hot, Danny Beaver," groaned Rabbit. "Come sit in the grass with me. You like my fluffy white tail? You wanna get you summa that? Maybe you like a lick-a my ice cream? "

"My nice monkey friends skinned me! I will now watch my skin dangling from a telephone wire. That's really weird."

My Holiday Catalogue: Gifts That Will Inspire Ire, Spittle, and Occasional Terror

2011-11-12T15:14:00.001-08:00

It's a star. On top of a tree. This is why it qualifies for "Inventor's Corner." Because it's a star. On top of a tree! (They trademarked "menorahment" so don't you try to borrow it.)

This guy's nickname in high school was "The Slanket." He touched girls underneath big blankets then, too, but now the girls can't get out because his patented "The Slanket (R) Siamese" is actually like a big molesto-sack!

What's really in that bottle of "Go Away Gray"? Is it really "Go Away My Weak Flaccid Weiner"? Mmm, mmm, she seems to think so!

Well, you had me at "the secret is in the soft silicone poly magnetic feelers that soothingly manipulate..."

Auntie June in a Box; fits neatly under the bed for winter storage. Emerges fresh and lifelike!

Is the cat pooing, do we think, while this photograph was taken? Or tinkling? Or both? And of what is he thinking? Philosophy? The world economy? Gnawing on your nads? It is a subject of much debate among shoppers everywhere.

Yummy home-grown fungus in a box! I so can't wait to eat this.

Keep recalcitrant employees captive at their desks with the "shoe boot." No more two-hour lunch "hours" and gossip by the water cooler. Plus, they will have toned metatarsels.

He doesn't look bashful. He looks kill-ful! He's GOING TO FUCK UP YOUR SHIT! Happy holidays.

This is funniest when you're bald. In fact, it's a laugh a minute! Precisely one laugh per minute, until doomsday arrives and/or bald uncle Jimmy swings his golf club at your scampering rump.

Fun With Anagrams

2011-10-30T18:08:00.000-07:00

I've been playing with the Internet Anagram Server and thought "ain't words just magic things?" So I typed some of your blog names into the thing and this is what I got. Can you find yours on the list? For the record, The Party Pony turns out as "Nay, Pet Trophy!" or "Thy Rapt Peony" or "An Hyper Potty" or maybe "Ya! Pert Python!"

Anyone else gearing up for NaNoWriMo and gadding about like I am?

A Mandated Illness Quits

Dairy Grew Toe

Reek I Riot Or

Mange Owner

A Cab Disconnected Hidden Trekker

A Dauntless Flaming, A Engagement Unloosens Tit

Refine Reprint A Writs Wort

Ad Feeds A Huge Monsoons

Shattering Vine Volts

The Linen Jug

Relent, Wino!

A Berried Linty Prissy

A Starling Razor Climb

Accede, A Intestine, Thy Iris

Slithering, Why Wilt?

Uneasy Zen Nap

Try, Vacant Seer

Slimy, Stern Linens

A Marmot's Hue

Hie, Jolly Nuts!

Toffee and Brittle Confections of Sheer Unrivaled Deliciousness

2011-10-25T18:52:00.000-07:00

Friends! Do you like sweets? Yes, you do. You crave the deliciousness of sugary treats. You defy your dentist at every opportunity! You like to fill your pockets with smackerels of goodness and mouthwatering crunch (wrapped in pretty packaging, of course, so as not to collide with the lint and old pennies and Barbie doll shoes and bits of stale "Veggie Booty" that also occupy said pockets. Or maybe that's just my pockets).

You deserve to eat these most amazing toffees and brittles. My dear friend Michele makes them, and she is a gifted artist. A trained chef!

They are all tasty. And get this...I don't even like sweets. I would rather eat a bag of Cheez Doodles any day, and yet I cannot resist the lure of the fascinating toffees and brittles at La Petite Occasion.

This one is my particular favorite: The Dark Chocolate Toffee Wafers. I need say no more. Look upon them, ye mighty dieters, and despair!

Yum.

7x7 Link Award (plus 7 lies!)

2011-10-21T13:09:00.000-07:00

Lisa Ann, our fabulous resident animal trainer (and writer who recently secured an agent for her book, Below the Surface!) has kindly bequeathed to me the 7 x 7 link award. If you need a dolphin wrangled, a lion tamed, or a squid manhandled, you must visit her at Kicked, Cornered, Bitten, and Chased (one of my favorite blog names, by the way).

The purpose of this award is to breathe new life into some oldies but goodies by asking bloggers to identify some of their favorites in various categories. I have done so!

1. Most Beautiful Post: I am rather partial to this one, about The Great North Woods. I wrote it a long time ago.

2. Most Popular Post: I have checked my "most popular" list and this post is ALWAYS there. It's about my search, in the year 2008, for a DJ Lance Rock costume. DJ Lance is the star of the kiddie TV show Yo Gabba Gabba and I was obsessed with him. I wanted to BE him. (This year I have a crazy new costume planned. I was born on Halloween so I am a little bit touched. Photos will appear.)

3. Most Controversial Post: Back when I lived in New Rochelle, NY, I used to blog about my neighborhood. I also did regular posts for our "hyperlocal" news service at The Loop. The editrix picked up this story about SoNo New Ro and it caused a firestorm! Here is a typical piece of hate mail I received: "I was completely offended by your rude comments pertaining to Craft Form apparel. That store offers a valuable service for ladies who have had mastectomies. It is clear that you hate women, especially women who have had mastectomies. You must hate people with cancer. You also hate black people and all minorities. You are a terrible person. New Rochelle is a lovely town."

4. Most Helpful: After spending some time on Query Tracker and sympathizing with the lovely writers who were getting rejections, I wrote this post about Rejectozolonaxil, my new miracle pill to deal with the hideous emotions that come when you hear "no" from a stranger. Many people sent their thanks for this bit of levity.

5. Most Surprisingly Successful: I was so used to being a "funny" blogger for so long that, sometimes, writing something that wasn't really intended to be funny was strange and scary. I learned that I don't always have to be tap-dancing while wearing a wig made out of brussels sprouts. Here is Why Do We Write?

6. Post That Didn't Get The Attention It Deserved: There are so many of these, because I wrote this blog almost in the darkness for so long, when it was read by only a few friends who didn't even know how to leave a comment that wasn't "anonymous." I wrote on and on and it was like tossing bottles onto the sea. I picked this one out of that batch: Don't Cry Silly, You're Not Dead Yet.

7. Post I Am Most Proud Of: I'm not sure why, but I just love this post, The Houses Have Eyes. It's snarky and sad at the same time, which is what all my best posts have in common.

I am late to this party (just like I will be late to the #rapture party happening today around cocktail hour, because I've got to get to the liquor store and put on a pretty frock and stuff), so some of my pals already have this award. But I have sought among the valiant, the deserving, and the just plain crazy and I have found these 7 worthy bloggers who may not yet have the award. Go forth, 7x7 Masters!

Because I like to break the rules I have told lies about all these people. Only one statement is true. Can you find the fact among the fiction?

Tracey's Tavern
Tracey has never touched alcohol.

Suzanne Payne
Suzanne used to be a rodeo cowgirl.

Angela V. Cook
Angela would not like panties made out of fish.

Justin Holley
Justin has a unicorn tattoo.

Kalen O'Donnell
Kalen eats butterflies.

Mary Baader Kaley
Mary owns her own Egg Emporium.

Riley Redgate
Riley is 78 years old.

A story of bladders, pee, and an errant strawberry

2011-10-15T19:16:00.000-07:00

Lastweek, I had surgery on my innards! Most specifically on an organ that I shall call myblah-dére. Which had gone askew, drifted free of its moorings, and was eventually (maybe when I hit the age of 90)going to lead me into the Depends aisle if the doctor didn’t fix it. Threeeight-pound babies sitting atop it might have caused it to slip from itsaccustomed position and go on a strange peregrination, saying hello to the colon and sidling up to the spleen. (The blah-dére is a known sidler, and should be given Tic-Tacs to carry.) It was on itsway somewhere. It needed to be harnessed.

Organs that wander need stern discipline. I was embarrassed about this business, because blah-déres ain't the stuff of polite society, but now I'm posting it on my blog. Go figure. (People would rather talk about butts or boobs or even colons.) But suppose your heart wandered, or your duodenum? Or your liver just up and hid somewhere in the cavity of your chest, cringing from your nightly devotionals to the Lords of Booze? You wouldn't put up with it, not for a minute.

I was not interested inshopping for “Poise” brand products (although I hear they make a fine and worthy product). Neither should you be, one in three like me! Go to the hospital and get that sonofabitch hoisted back on deck like adrunken sailor. Ashamed? Pfah! It’s more embarrassing to tinkle while doingjumping jacks or while doing ballet leaps to “Moves Like Jagger.” I’m goingto become one of those “hot trampoline girls” now. Not a droplet of pee shall 'scape my nethers. I'm going to drink lots and lots of iced tea and beer and then go on the trampoline.

I share this hideously embarrassing story sothat others may seek the same path as I have. Because I'm cool like that. Although Whoopi, the spokeswoman for Poise, is very righteous for speaking about her "spritz" in a public forum, I don't like the thought of her wearing a "pad." I can't even say "pad" without using quote marks because it's such a horrible word, rather like "panty." Do we like "pads" for our periods? The last time I wore a blasted "pad" was after birthing my third child, and it was like wearing a couch cushion between my legs. No grown woman ought to submit to this injustice! (There is a school of thought, by the way, that suggests that wearing diapers is insulting and wrongful for babies. No baby ought to submit to this injustice!)

Blah-dére surgery is covered by insurance, although you will need to check with your own health care provider.

Whilst in hospital, I hadthe delight of sharing my room with an 87-year-old Italian lady namedPhilomena. She’d had surgery on her back that morning. As I was eating my “clear”dinner of chicken broth and lime jello (my second such miserable meal of theday), I could smell her dinner of chicken breast with gravy and mashed potatoesfrom the other side of the curtain.

“I no eat!” said Philomena.Those were about her only words of English.

As soon as her extendedfamily left the premises, she began moaning and groaning like the star of atragic opera.

“Oh, mamma mia! Lo sono nel dolore terribile!”she cried. I could hear her writhing about, chewing on the scenery a bit forgood measure. "Come ho fatto a finire que? Non mi piace questo posto!"

Then she started to gawp upgreat gobs of phlegm and then swallow ‘em down again. She did this all eveninglong. It sounded something like this:

“Schllurfkgkgkk…gulp.SHNMMJKKlllffp…gulp.”

After each series ofwrenching, barftastic noises, she started to call out for me.

“Miss. Missuz! Missiz!Heeeeelp me! Heeeelp me! Aiuto!”

I could tell the poor olddear was in pain so I’d ring the nurse on her behalf. The nurse would comerunning in with a Percocet for me.

“No, not me! Her!”

“But we can’t understand aword of Italian!” said all the nurses.

“Um, I think she is inPAIN. Show her the sad-face pain chart,” I suggested.

They rolled old Philomenaaround on the bed and asked her lots of questions and she babbled at them inItalian. I think they may have given her a Tylenol, but nothing stronger—forshe never went to sleep!

After the third incident Iaccepted the Percocet for myself, and drifted off into a blissful slumber. Anhour or so passed, and then:

“Miss! Missuz! Oh, Missuz!Heeeeeelp me! Snlurklegurklrsmskfkg….gulp.”

I rang the nurse and toldher I needed another Percocet. She asked where the pain was.

“In my head!” I said.

Finally, morning came.Philomena was moaning and thrashing about in a frenzy. I called the nurseagain.

“You gotta help this lady!”I said.

Finally, they gave her aPercocet while she was in the midst of poking at her breakfast, which includeda fruit salad.

It wasn’t long before shezonked out, and I was finally able to read my book without disruption. Butsoon, Philomena’s daughter showed up.

“Mamma!” she said. “Mamma!Wake up! Open your eyes, Mamma! What’s a-wrong with you, Mamma? Mamma!”

The daughter startedslapping and tugging at the mother, and crying out for the nurses. Oh Lord, Ithought, what if the old lady corked off?

Then the daughter screamed:“Oh Mamma mia! She got a strawberry inside her mouth! She’s a-gonna choke! Youkill-a my mamma!”

There was much activity toremove the strawberry while the daughter wailed things like, “You drug-a mymother! You drug-a her and feed her strawberry! Questo e molto male!”

The strawberry was finallyextracted and Philomena gave a gentle snort of pleasure, lost in herPercocet-induced dream. I wondered what she’d been like in her youth, anddecided that she probably screamed and carried on just as wildly when, as agirl, a boy dropped a newt down her shirt. No, she’d lost none of her spunk. Hopefully not any of her spritz, either. Bring out a trampoline for Philomena, for she wishes to bounce as high as the darkening sky.

Mind the Gap!

2011-10-11T19:05:00.000-07:00

Please do not feed sugar cubes to the rats on the subway. It causes them to smoke and play loud music.

If you step into the gap, you will be sucked quickly to Hell while the grey-faced people look on. Your tummy is unbecoming for a man your age and professional assignation.

Do not vomit hot dogs at the robotic device whilst prodding it in the duodenum with your finger in a rude and aggressive manner.

What about ponies? They do not poo in the streets!

If you do any of these bad things in this playground your head will immediately pop off like a spiked volleyball. You will also lose your feet, which are really ugly and have an oversized big toe, kind of like Uma Thurman's in Kill Bill.

When Rejection Makes Us Young Again

2011-10-06T19:38:00.000-07:00

For the writers among us who want to be published (and for everyone who has ever been spurned, or loved):

A request for a full manuscript offers the same giddy anticipation of Christmas morning—a package waiting to be opened. Will it contain coal, poo, or something shiny? It is hovering, an energy waiting to be born. A stone on a hillside waiting to be pushed. A request feels like the lurch of sighting the admired boy in the lunch line, seeing oneself in window glass and wondering "Am I pretty today?" And then he turns to look at you.

The loveliness of that request, that look, can carry one through the day, like those lazy afternoons in high school when the boys streamed out across the playing fields and the sun fell low. There's a crispness in the air and everything is possible and melodious.

It's all longing, and all your youth is longing.

Then the rejection, sudden, which feels inevitable when it arrives. Always, there's a heat within it. It feels like a slap, but one devoid of any true anger and love. It's a slap that shouldn't sting, but it does—every time. There is an immediate urge to cover the screen or the paper with your arms, and you wish that they were swan's wings. Your heart is beating in your face.

The sting fades faster each time, but it's still a sting. Suddenly you don't want to look your children in the eyes. The day is beautiful, but you feel a bit faint and lifeless, like someone abandoned you at the dance. All that possibility. The lovely things that might have come to pass. Is there a fine place to hide?

You remember what the boy said. He is your oldest son. He reads everything.

He says: "When is your book going to be published?"

"Not yet," you say. "Not yet."

"Well, you'd better be writing the next one in the trilogy. You'd better start tonight."

"Okay."

He turns in the doorway and adds, "I don't want you to write the next one. I need you to write it."

Your arms feel like the wings of birds at your side, this time not for shame.

The longing never goes. You are young, and want everything. People will say "no," and you still want. You have the recklessness of the toddler who smacks his head on the stairs in his efforts to climb. You continue to pet the dog that snaps at you.

Fool child, who keeps climbing trees and falling out, falling with tarry hands and brambles in your hair and the taste of the moon. Good for you. Someone should still be climbing trees on this earth.

Hark! Hark! I Have Free ARCs!

2011-10-04T13:43:00.000-07:00

Ok, Book Sluts! I have now officially (and oh-so-randomly) chosen winners! I was going to choose two but I am too much of a softie so I chose THREE. The post office needs the money, right? Here they are:

Beverly Diehl:
Born Wicked
My Family for the War

Kathy Coleman:
Grave Mercy
The Fine Art of Truth of Dare

Brooke:
Bloodrose
Harbinger

I will contact you all personally to let you know. Congratulations! For those of you who didn't win, don't despair: There will be more giveaways just like this. Come back again, fair book sluts. Giving away books warms the cockles of my heart, and also my duodenum.

Please review and let us know how you enjoyed these titles!

_________________

Let's not meddle around here. You know what you want, and why you are here. Free books!

YOU ARE AN ADDICT.

But that's OK, because I like to feed your addiction.

Better yet, these YA books are unpublished and as yet untouched by human hands! Except mine. I groped them a little bit. (But you would too, if you came across a book called BORN WICKED. And that woman on BLOODROSE looks like she don't wear nothing under her clothes. Just saying. Damn it, did I learn nothing from NYC's Slutwalk '11?)

If you get them you can gloat and think something along the lines of the sign I once saw in a Brooklyn storefront: OUR STUFF IS CHEAPER THAN IF IT FELL OFF THE BACK OF A TRUCK.

So are these books.

The rules are simple for this giveaway:
1. Leave me a comment with a way to contact you should you win (if certain titles appeal to you, say so!)
2. Follow my blog
3. Tweet at least once about this giveaway, and please tag me @feralpony so I see it
4. If you don't tweet do something else nice, like help a young lady across the street without fondling her just because she's dressed like a slut.

I will pick 2 winners soonish...in a couple of days. Good luck!

Cate Cahill and her sisters are witches! If their secret is discovered by the priests of the Brotherhood,
it will mean an asylum, a prison ship—or an early grave.

See the blood drizzling from the "O"? Yeekers! There is a wolf, too.

A 17-year-old fleeing from an arranged marriage will be trained as an assassin...and a handmaiden to Death.

Plagued by waking visions and nightmares, her only comfort the bones of dead animals, sixteen-year-old Faye thinks she's going crazy. [These books sound awesome; why am I giving them away? I am a dope.]

Funny kissy cute!

At the start of WWII, Franziska is torn from her family to escape the Nazis via the kindertransport train. Being German in London and piecing together a new life isn't easy.

Awesome-Sausage Blog Award!

2011-09-30T19:34:00.000-07:00

So sorry. There are not many sausages here, only sauce. But if I had the time there would have been a lot of damned sausages raining down! I have enclosed one sausage at the end.

I am terribly belated in giving out the award given to me by the awesome and inspired Anita Howard of a Still and Quiet Madness. Thank you, Anita, for my awesomesauce! Without further adieu, I am going to pour a big vat of awesomesauce down the neck of....

...Mary Frame, aka Marewulf, of It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Gets an Agent. Proud member of the #goatposse on Twitter, and now bedecked with sauce.

Rules:

1. Thank and link to the person who gave me this fabulous piece of work. I did that!

2. Pay it forward to no more than one person per month. Elaborate why said person is deserving of said award. The month is almost over so I'm getting this one in under the wire! Mary is swell and clever and writes a wonderfully helpful & smart blog, so we lurves her. Do you not see the people stalking her in the photo above? We like her! So do the stalkers!

3. Answer the following questions:

- What is your favorite song currently playing on your iPod, CD player, etc.?
Low's album "C'mon"

- If we peek into your Internet history, what would we find?
How long should a humor memoir be?
Light sensitivity
Brain tumor
Time between dinosaurs and now
Personality disintegration
Station Liquors Mamaroneck
Allergy to fluorescent lights
Boom!
Cell phone cancer risk

-And lastly, what is your all-time favorite movie that you watch over and over again?
Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, shit like that

-And here's nice big photo of The Sauce so that Mary can grab it and post it on her bloggeroo:

Awesome-Sausage! Tastier and less vegetarian. Porky. Greasy. Bad for you.

If it scares you, if it causes you doubt, do it immediately

2011-09-24T05:50:00.000-07:00

Hey Slapass, What Are You Supposed to Be Doing Right Now? Taint This.

2011-09-19T19:26:00.000-07:00

Hey fathead!

What are you doing here, anyway? Are you malingering, procrastinating, wasting your precious gifts, face deep in a laptop when you could be face deep in the lap of a fine young man or woman, ignoring your garden, ignoring your children, ignoring that strange man at the front door with the funny tic in his eye and the metallic smile, wishing you were somewhere else, wishing you could run off and join the circus, wishing that the world would stop and grant you a few more hours, biding your time until the muse comes up and bites you on the perineum, wasting your time until the oceans rise and wash over you and your uncompleted manuscripts?

Go on, get outta here! If I catch you on Twitter later this evening, there will be hell to pay, I assure you.

Are you still here? Do I have to take the switch to you?

Go away. Your naughtiness will be recorded in the annals for all to read and you will be mocked and people will throw potatoes at your head. And maybe bricks and nails.

I'm getting really angry now.

Go and make beautiful art, muttonheaded buffoon! The world is mooning over you, prematurely. The celebrity rags have already prepared their articles.

I am going to get on a plane now and whup the daylights out of your porkchop ass. Get ready, dinkums. When I arrive, I expect to see a first draft. Or hear your fine composition on the peee-a-no. Or taste your cake baked in the shape of the state of Texas. Or see the tree that you have carved into a fine replica of Abraham Lincoln. Or pet the little knitted Zombunny that you have stitched in your spare time.

Go now and do what you are meant to do.

A La Cart!

2011-09-13T11:51:00.000-07:00

As a longtime observer of shopping carts in the wild, I was intrigued to discover an influx of foreign carts into our neighborhood. Suspecting that these carts were here not to mix and mingle and learn English, but were bent on bad business, I faithfully recorded their secretive plans and movements and had their comments translated (at considerable personal expense). The startling results reveal rich cultural differences between American and foreign carts. No plots were revealed.

Oh, vous délicieux phallique jaune objet. Je suis violant vous maintenant ! Oui, me violer vous pensez-vous ? Je suis un panier d'achat et suis très amoureux. Va-va-va-voom ! N'est-ce pas?

(Oh, you delicious phallic yellow object. I am raping you now! Yes, do you feel me raping you? I am a shopping cart, and am very amorous. Va-va-va-voom! N'est-ce pas?)

Ich bin Vizened und alt, und Sie werden nicht löschen Sie mich aus diesem Pol. Nein! Nehmen Sie die Hände weg meine Gestricken Kleider! Ich habe Stiefeln im Innern von Mein selbst, und Wille verwenden es, um Ze Sheeet von Ihnen!

(I am vizened and old, and you will not remove me from this pole. Nein! Take hands off my crocheted garments! I have jackboot in interior of mein self, and will use it to kick ze sheeet out of you!)

Gehen Sie weg!

(Go avay!)

Soy un tonto baile. Voy a Remolino y Molinete y mostrar mi tren de aterrizaje a los chicos, y voy a vestir un tutú rosado. Me deja en el Salón de baile!

(I am a fool for the dance. I am to whirl, and twirl, and show my undercarriage to the boys, and I will wear a pink tutu. Show me into the hall where the dancing takes place!)


Yo, man. Pass me een rook. Een rook. Ja. Ik had veel te veel Miller Lites. Fuck. Ik ga te kotsen. (Yo, man. Pass me a smoke. A smoke. Yeah. I had way too many Miller Lites. Fuck. I'm going to puke.)

Prayer for the Fallen

2011-09-10T18:42:00.000-07:00

Here is what happened, then. Some children in a nearby school on that day had run from the blast, herded by their teachers. When asked later, several of the children said that the birds were on fire. Rumors among the children gained courage, as if the children expected to be told that they were correct, that they had divine imaginations. When told, no, your birds are not birds, some of them might have secretly concocted further strange and magical things made of wings and paper and fire. Monsters of air, ghosts of light and pressed metal. Anything with teeth and a heart could not live. I will make it on paper, the children said, and my fat yellow sun in the corner of the sheet will stay faceless.

But these were not birds, nor conglomerations of paper, steel, glass, bent at rigid constructions that defy the edgeless human form. They were people. They were men and women, clothes flaring out like vain, unfamiliar parachutes.

What happens at the moment of leaping? Can you still believe that everything happens in its proper time and place, and that time has brought you here to this conclusion? Do you curse the light? Or do you fall thankful for the light you have been granted all these days?

And those on the stairwells, in darkness, falling. And those on the planes in the bright blue Tuesday sky. The papers rained down like shorn birds deep into Brooklyn-calendars, promises, names, remnants. I touched the railings of my stoop and my fingers were printed with the dust of the dead. I had walked for miles in shoes long since discarded. I had seen the white flags shaken from the burning girders. I should never regret my life.

I want to think that they did not ask for mercy, but found something saved from bright days long ago. A day picking pears, stung by an errant bee that fed on the sweet pulp. A whistle across the fields, and the whisking tail of a dog at the door. Stumbling home barefoot that night drunk and in love. A newborn placed on your chest, its mouth and hands seeking, your hair slicked with sweat. A bowled and ancient sky by a lake, and the sound of a guitar, and laughter. Much beyond anything, love. You flew, you flew, you were born.

Remember us and all fine things and all good people who do so honor the dead.

9/11/11

"Thems are the stupidest people I have ever met!"

2011-08-31T11:11:00.000-07:00

A discussion with my five-year-old son at summer camp, after his first night in the cabin:

Mom: How do you like your new cabinmates?

B: Thems are the stupidest people I have ever met!

Mom: They seem nice! Why would you say that?

B: Well, N. farted on a piece of gum before he gave it to me.

Mom: Oh. Did you chew the gum?

B: Well, yeah. It was my first piece of gum ever; come on! OF COURSE I chewed it.

Mom: And what about K.? Is he nice?

B: He's the second stupidest person in the whole world. N. is the first. He's so mean to me!

Mom: What does he do?

B: Well, when I am sleeping in the night, he climbs up to my bed and punches me in the head! I never wake up, but I think he's doing it.

Mom: You said you don't wake up?

B: No, I stay asleep! I'm tired from running around and stuff. He's gotta stop punching me in the head while I am sleeping, though. That kid is a rotten kid.

Note: Both N. and K. were determined to be sweet and decent children, and the three became fast friends.

Hate Mail From My Readers

2011-08-26T18:02:00.000-07:00

July 12, 2011

Dear so-called "Party Pony,"

I am a small Shetland pony who gives rides to children at parties. Some of them are critically ill, and are missing limbs, eyes, noses, and important organs. In my service work as a Party Pony for these children, I consider myself a hero. Imagine my froth of indignation when I discovered you using MY name to spread your foul breed of goat worship and dirty language about Care Bears and other inoffensive creatures. Your post on "Poo Poo Snowballs" sickened me to my very hooves, and I was struck speechless by your story of "Poo-Splosion." Some of us cannot help but defecate in the vastness of nature, to our great shame. Must you speak of doo-doos in such an inane and disgusting manner? Please cease and desist all use of the "Party Pony" moniker immediately. You will be hearing from my attorney.

Signed,

The Real Party Pony

5/23/11

Dear Party Pony,

How dare you lambaste all these food groups, you fucking nutcake? Eat yourself some Prozac and and stop giving apples and corn and other healthy foods a bad name. We are really pissed off and inclined to hurl ourselves at your head.

—The vegetables and fruits of southern Westchester, NY

Dear Ms. Prescott,
I am a protector and lover of wild shopping carts, and I find your posts on them to be offensive in the extreme. While purporting to be a naturalist, you objectify and sexualize the behavior of the carts, while neglecting to mention their almost-human emotions and treatment of their young. You portray the carts as aggressive and savage; why, nothing could be further from the truth! Shopping carts are gentle and shy creatures. Do not stalk them any more, or you may find me at your door—and I won't be coming for tea and crumpets.
Sincerely,
H. Hoogsworth Lillyfat

Date: 4/21/2008

Re: http://thepartypony.blogspot.com/2008/04/attack-of-cones.html

We are going to fucking kill you.

—The Cones

12/24/10

Dear Party Pony,

You will be getting a turd for Christmas after this unkind post about My Workshop.

—Santa Claus

JennyPhresh,
*I was completely offended by your rude comments pertaining to Craft Form apparel in this post. That store offers a valuable service for ladies who have had mastectomies. It is clear that you hate women, especially women who have had mastectomies. You must hate people with cancer. You also hate black people and all minorities. You are a terrible person. New Rochelle is a lovely town.
Sincerely,
Anonymous
* Note: I really did get this piece of hate mail.

Dear Jennifer,

Thank you for posting these helpful etiquette tips for The Rapture. Because of you, many people behaved in a seemly fashion during My Most Holy Judgment, instead of running around like ill-mannered lunatics. Despite this, I have decided to smite you, because you are generally heathen and inappropriate and have been so since childhood.

Best,

The Lord God

P.S. God uses the "Times" font. I do not care for Arial. I despise Comic Sans still further. This is why it is not offered in the Blogger menu.

This post was inspired by E.B. Cummings post, It's Important to Apologize When You Offend Someone; thanks to her, I now have a handy form to send to all these individuals! Rah, E.B.!

Haikus for Strange Abandoned Items

2011-08-25T11:36:00.000-07:00

Lashed to a tree branch
The abandoned lovey waits.
Days pass, and seasons.

Cruelly shorn of clothes.
Are those her pants in the weeds?
Ah! How the world is weeping!


Cry havoc, gummies! When the grenade exploded A part of me died.


Lone chicken nugget. Once crisp, now not fit for man. You rest on rough stone.


The jalapeño! Wedged with such ferocity. May buttocks meet you.

The humanity!
Who would unleash such terror
Into a calm dawn?

A Million Suns ARC giveaway, plus four more!

2011-08-22T08:12:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Winners have been selected randomly from my magic party hat. Thanks to everyone who entered! If you didn't win this time, you might win the next time. I picked:

April (@PhiliaFelice)

Angel C. Mermaid Books (@mermaidvisions )

Enjoy the books and report back on what you thought!

_______________

I have some shiny new ARCs to give away! This treasure trove includes the hotly anticipated A Million Suns, by Beth Revis, as well as exciting titles by Beth Neff, Janet Lee Carey, Julia Karr, and Mary Lindsey. Picture yourself in a lawn chair, a stack of these by your side, as you sip a drink with an umbrella in it and call for Jeeves to bring you some fresh canapés. (Jeeves not included in giveaway; you must supply your own gentleman's gentleman.)

All you have to do to be eligible is:

1. Follow my blog.

2. Leave me a comment.

3. Tweet at least once about the giveaway (make sure to tag me @feralpony so I can see it). If you don't use Twitter, you can commune with your associates through witchcraft, ESP, Carrier Goat, or skywriting. I will surely take notice, because I am all-knowing and all that rot.

Good luck and have fun! (P.S. Contest will end Wednesday morning 8/24.)

They may look like ordinary girls, but they are criminals at a juvenile detention facility!

I see a lot of book covers with maidens in flowing dresses looking drugged, dragged about, and possessed, don't you?

The others have to wait until January 2012! You don't.

All sixteen-year-old girls are forced by the Governing Council to get an XVI tattoo, announcing that they are prey.

She looks drugged, dragged about, and possessed as well! Excellent.

Belated Blog Awards

2011-08-20T17:45:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I spent the last several weeks languishing in the belly of a large ursine animal. I shared the space with one can of tuna, a jar of peanut butter, a belt buckle or two, and a very surly hiker who insisted on complaining and not making the best of the situation. I escaped, and returned to civilization to find that I had been given some lurvely blog awards. I now have the wits about me to bequeath them to other deserving ladies and gentlemen. (Or just ladies. It seems I have left the men on the sidelines holding their dance cards and their winkers. Next time, boys! It wasn't meant to be a slight. But you always tend to misplace my awards next to the urinal, you know.)

The Liebster Blog Award is given to bloggers with less than 200 followers, all in the spirit of fostering new connections. The rules are delightfully simple:

Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
Post the award on your blog.
Bask in the love from the most supportive people on the internet—other writers.
And best of all – have fun and spread the karma.

I received this award from TWO people: The lovely Catherine Stine, author and illustrator and all-around talented individual, and Angela V. Cook, writer, great pal, and member of the nefarious #goatposse. Thank you both!

And from Lisa Ann, animal trainer and aspiring writer who snuggles with the four-legged and finned on a regular basis, I was also gifted with the Blog on Fire award. I had it, but getting it again means I am SUPER META ON FIRE AND LIKELY TO CAUSE A BIG CONFLAGRATION AND DRIVE PEOPLE OUT OF THEIR HOMES. So thank you, Lisa Ann!

I will re-gift the Liebster to the following people:

1. Tori: I dunno how I found her, but her writing is Grade-A, marvelous, amusing, and so weirdly original and offbeat that she needs a big fat following now. She's just sending out awesome beauties into the universe. I don't think she is an "awards" kind of person so she may trunk this award in a chest with some Fitzgerald and Hemingway novels.
2. Jennifer of Serendipity's Library: I cannot figure out how many followers she has because she is so durned secretive, she must have hidden them under a pile of Harry Potter paraphernalia! But she is lovely, and seems to write all her posts in verse, as they are center justified. Crazy! Cool!
3. Carissa Elg, who is the author of the Pendomus Chronicles, a sci-fi genre bending dystopian series that sounds fascinating! Follow her. I command this.
4. Riley Redgate, who is super-talented and funny and clever and also is, by all reports, a teenager. Wow! She is also a member of the Skeleton Key Blogvel crew.
5. Mary Frame. Mary, Mary, Mary! She is a goddess among men. Can it be that I am first to give you this award, or am I just too drunk and stupid to find it among your recent blog entries? Either way, to you it shall be given.

Summer of Bloggerly Love: Guest Post By Michelle Simkins

2011-08-17T05:34:00.000-07:00

Today I am honored to share a guest post by the astounding Michelle Simkins, aka Greenwoman, as part of her "Summer of Bloggerly Love" tour. The general theme: Love. I'm guest posting on her blog today, so be sure to visit. Here, I give you Michelle and her take on our lexicon of lurve. Nom nom nom!

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Y'all, we have a problem. It goes a little something like this:

Love [luhv]

noun

a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.
sexual passion or desire.
a person toward whom love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart.
(used in direct address as a term of endearment, affection, or the like): Would you like to see a movie, love?

verb

to have love or affection for: All her pupils love her.
to have a profoundly tender, passionate affection for (another person).
to have a strong liking for; take great pleasure in: to love music.
to need or require; benefit greatly from: Plants love sunlight.
to embrace and kiss (someone), as a lover.

And those are just the official definitions. The dictionary forgot "to, like, really totally enjoy?" As in, "I love avocados." Or, "to find unbearably cute," as in "I love puppies."

And forget about defining love as "want to stalk" or "think you own". That's much deeper than I really want to go in this post.

Do you see my problem here? Our love lexicon SUCKS. We REALIZE there's an enormous difference between the affection we feel for a parent or child and sexual desire (unless, of course, you are reading The Collector's Edition of Victorian Erotica, in which it appears that people only have intimate encounters with their relatives or their teachers, or both. And usually there is a switch or riding crop involved somewhere. And excessive use of the word "lascivious". Not that I would know from experience or anything.) And we know that sometimes sexual desire comes without "profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person."

We won't talk about sexual desire and avocados.

The lack of terminology for the varieties of love and affection gets us in trouble all the time. If I tell you "I love you" on Twitter, chances are good that I don't mean "I want to spend the rest of my life with you and would jump in front of a speeding train to save you." Rather, my meaning probably falls somewhere between feelings of friendship and enjoyment of avocados. Probably I like you more than avocados, but it's hard to say. I like avocados an awful lot. So what do we do? I think we need a new Lexicon of Love, people. I would like to make some proposals toward that end. Let us consider the following terms.

aff could be used when we feel affection for someone, such as a child or a friend or someone with whom we've had meaningful interactions. "I aff you." I think it's cute, don't you? And then we'd have a new noun too. "She's my affie." It's like BFF. Only, more sincere (because let's face it, BFF's never ARE Best Friend's Forever.) But that's another blog post.

fam could be a term for affection such as we'd feel for a member of our family.We could use it to express not just familial love, but also the kind of deep friendship that we feel for our chosen families. "I fam my friend Linda.".

lust. We already HAVE a word for sexual passion and desire, and it's a good word. I think we should start using it more often. Dude, if you just want to sleep with someone, call a hard on a hard on. No need to say you love them; say "I lust after you", and nobody gets hurt.

nom is a perfect way to express our deep enjoyment of certain foods. "I totally nom avocados." Because nomming is more than eating, right? It's consuming with gustatory delight and enthusiasm. It is the love of the eating world.

wub: I have often seen casual love and affection spelled "luv" or "lub" or "wuv" or "wub". I have chosen "wub" because of it's similarity to web. And I propose that "wub" should henceforth be used to denote the specific variety of love we feel for those who amuse and delight us on the internet (or web). It is, you see, web love. I wub you, Feral Pony. I wub the Goat Posse. And none of you expect me to drop to one knee with a little velvet box. Unless, of course, it's a little velvet box full of avocados, and someone just kicked me in the leg.

If we adopt these or similar terms, we could then reserve the term "Love" for "profoundly tender, passionate affection" and avoid confusion. I would be free to express my feelings for the funny folk I meet on the internet without anyone showing up in my driveway with a UHaul and a Justice of the Peace.

And I'm definitely open to other suggestions. I know I have many friends who are more clever than I am and who can help me solve this linguistic problem.

Let's nom some avocados, affies. I wub you all.

Sex Toys of the American Presidents

2011-08-14T17:45:00.000-07:00

Our famous "Presidential Treatment" is now available in 44 deluxe options! All designed for her pleasure, and loaded with historical goodies. Each model sells for only $9.99 plus shipping and a lot of excessive handling. Your package will be delivered in a tasteful brown wrapper covered with patriotic flags, stickers, and slogans.

Lyndon's Johnson. (A reconstruction of an older model, the Andrew's Johnson.)

Lincoln's Log. It will emancipate your vagina! Comes with a removable top hat.

The Warren G. Hard-On. Unfortunately, reviewers note that it lasts for only a minute and a half.

The "Tricky Dick." Get impeached tonight. Special half-off price on "Ike and Dick" when purchased together!

Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose. Sounds effects an additional $3.99.

The Grover Cleveland. He comes twice!

The James K. Polk "Poke."

Old Hickory. Always stays hard; includes knobs.

The Millard Fill-Me-More.

The William Howard Taft Shaft. Comes complete with muttonchop ticklers.

I Like Ike...up my wing-wang!

Tippecanoe and Fuck You Too!

Not pictured in this catalogue, but available for order:
The Harry S. Truman: Comes in both Fat Man and Little Boy sizes
The "Stay Out of My Bush" George W. Bush
The "Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am" Obama
Take One for the Gipper
"Vice" President Gore
Cal's Cool Cucumber
The Garfield: Get Assassinated!
The Mount Rushmore

Coming Soon! The GOP hopefuls, including:
The Bachmann Turner Overdrive
The Rick Sant-OH!-rummm
Tim Pawlenty of Inches [Note: Withdrawal already announced.]

Heading Up North to the Land of the Pines

2011-07-21T18:34:00.000-07:00

This is just a short note to say that I will be absent for two+ weeks. I'm going to the woods. I won't have any Internet connection, and my phone service will be spotty at best. I'll miss you, my friends!

I will climb a mountain and thank someone for my life.

I will jump stark naked into a freezing pool of water in the shadowed woods.

I will play music for children, and paint, and run for the sheer joy of it.

I will abandon fluorescence.

If I get eaten by a bear, please send flowers. (Just send them here, because that's where I'll be. In the belly of the bear. In the great gulf, remembering everything, owing nothing.)

The Perversions of Squirrels: A Children's Story

2011-07-15T18:47:00.000-07:00

I have fallen behind in my postings, for two lovely bloggers recently bequeathed to me the "Seriously Cute" blogger award: Cherie of Ready.Write.Go (Cherie, Cherie, I Sing of Thee!) and Riley Redgate of In the Jungle. (Isn't "Riley Redgate" a great name for an author, by the way? And she's a teenager. What was I doing as a teenager? Learning how to smoke cigarettes behind the school gym, probably.)

Here is the award they gave me. I'll give it to some people, too. But you have to wait until the end!

Even my wee turds are cute. Even the one you stepped on while running shoeless through the fresh green grass, %$%#$! Am I a Shi'Tzu? I think so. If so, even my darling anus is cute. I am cute all over.

I'm supposed to list down 5 books/films/TV shows I've read or watched in the last 12 months. But, of course, I won't follow these rules. I think you've learned that by now.

In an effort to prove just how much I merit this award, I decided to share with you a children's story I adapted several years ago (recently unearthed from a box in the attic). The original title was Squirrels All Year Long. I did this during work hours for my former employer so, in essence, I was paid to "translate" this work into a new and righteous form. (I did say "former employer." Current employer, if you are reading this, you well know that I would never mangle a children's title on company property.)

I give you Squirrely All Year Long. 'Twould be sad to leave it in the attic, yes?

If you've gotten this far, you may have been tagged 'n' bagged. These fine individuals have earned the Seriously Cute Blogger Award, and may do with it what they will. Following the original rules is OK! Or, you could take on this challenge instead: Show us why you are so durned cute, and use a visual or two.

I choose:

K. Marie Kriddle, whose take on my last wicked meme was laugh-out-loud hilarious.

Jaded Little Girl, whose comments on my blog are like prose-poem bombs.

Kerri of Write.Eat.Repeat., who appeared to me on Twitter in a pleasing vision.
The Inner Owlet, a fellow Blogvel writer and fun-lover.

Jen Winsword, because I just love her Twitter handle (@googlypants) and Blog name. Wrath of Jen? I too, am a Jen, and have wrath.

Lettuce Is The Devil, because he wrote a post about turd-burgers. What will he do with a "Cute" blogger award?

Panty-Meme Pony

2011-07-14T18:29:00.000-07:00

Now I've gone and cooked my own goose. After several of us taunted, bullied, and threw root vegetables at Greenwoman on Twitter, she went ahead and rose to the challenge of creating a meme entirely based on the theme of panties. That's right, undergarments.

I'd rather not go into the sordid history of this meme.

The rules are, of course, copy the questions, answer them, and tag others to do the same.

What do you call your panties/underwear/undergarments? Do you have any commonly used nicknames for them?
I call them Turtledove, Strümgang, and Misty.

Have you ever had that supposedly common dream of being in a crowded place in only your underwear?
Yes, and the worst part is that I was wearing them on my head—not on my nethers!

What is the worst thing you can think of to make panties out of?
Brussels sprouts, rutabaga shavings, and discarded vampire fangs.

If you were a pair of panties, what color would you be, and WHY?
Puce. Puce Panties is pleasantly and pulchritudinously alliterative!

Have you ever thrown your panties/underwear at a rock star or other celebrity? If so, which one(s)? If not, which one(s) WOULD you throw your panties/underwear at, given the opportunity?
I would throw my (clean and freshly-laundered) panties at Greenwoman.

You’re out of clean panties. What do you do?
If I dare
I shall wear no underwear
The wind will whip and whistle
Through my nether hair
If I dare

[too bad I missed the Poetry Schmoetry meme, eh?]

Are you old enough to remember Underoos? If so, did you have any? Which ones?
Yes! And I never got them! Just like I never got a Big Wheel and a PONY. Mom? Mom?!! Oh yeah, you don't read my blog (and don't even know about it) which is why I can say "fuckity fuck fuck" without worrying. But, mother, you are growing on in years. Perhaps it is time to introduce you to the frenetic author you birthed from your loins.

If you could have any message printed on your panties, what would it be?
Liquor in the front. Poker in the rear.

How many bloggers does it take to put panties on a goat?
17.

Tag Four People and tell them why you are being so cruel to them.
1. Cherie of Ready. Write. Go. Because she is a marvelous member of the ever-ridiculous and awesome GOAT POSSE. (#goatposse)
2. Bethany. Because she will bring it in all the ways that it should be broughten! (Dirty martini ruins grammar.)
3. Tracey Hansen. If it involves panties and perversion, she may not be left out of it.
3. Suzanne Payne. This charming woman keeps showing up on Twitter with funny comments, and now she must pay the price of the panty meme!

The Great 50-Book Giveaway

2011-07-12T08:25:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Winners have been chosen. Thanks to everyone for participating! I'll host another giveaway in August, so please come back and try again.

As predicted, I did not have a box large enough to hold all these books so I have chosen three big winners:
Mindy McGinnis
Denise Krebs
The Oros Family
And a special consolation prize of a surprise book goes to...Mary Frame

I'll be Tweeting to let the winners know. Please DM me @feralpony with your mailing addresses, and the books could go out as early as today. Hurrah!
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I am going to give away 50 books. Yes, I am. They include many ARCs, some published titles, and even a bonus 7-CD audio edition of Everlasting. These books are all YA/MG titles. Imagine a great big stack of them teetering on your coffee table, toppling over and crushing your breakfast croissants! But you won't care about your flattened pastries, because you'll be up to your eyeballs in dark underworlds, angsty teens with acne, princesses, mutant wolves, and sword fighting.

These books could be yours. Or at least some of them. I might have to choose more than one winner if I can't find a big enough box to house these books. It's going to take a BIG box. Look at 'em:

All you have to do to be eligible is:

1. Follow my blog.

2. Leave me a comment.

3. Tweet at least once about the giveaway (make sure to tag me @feralpony so I can see it). If you don't use Twitter, you must go out to your rooftop and call me on the wind. "Party Pony!" you will cry. "I want those damned books!" I shall surely hear you.

That's it! I will pick a winner or winners sometime soon...perhaps on Thursday of this week. Questions? Send them my way in comments. Thanks for joining in!

Skeleton Key Blogvel: Chapter 6

2011-07-11T03:21:00.000-07:00

Skeleton Key is a YA "round robin" novel or "blogvel," with each chapter written by a different blogger. It was conceived by the imaginative and unparalleled Michelle Simkins, aka Greenwoman. This week is my turn to throw a new twist (or two) into the thrilling plot! Below, I give you chapter six.

To catch up with what's happened so far, visit the earlier chapters.

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5

The full posting schedule can be found here, Table of Contents.

Chapter 7 will be posted next Monday 7/18 at Hey Now.

Chapter Six

This time, the journey by fire wasn’t instantaneous. As I clung to Ax, I could see fields, mountains, cities whipping below us. Both our bodies were wreathed in flame—as if together we were the wick of a candle, our bodies melting and melding together….

Stop! I thought to myself. He couldn’t see me blushing thanks to the red-hot flame that likely made me as attractive as a beefsteak tomato. It’s not as if we’re soulmates or anything. I snorted out loud and noticed that even my breath felt fiery hot in my nostrils. How was that possible?

“Where are we going?” I yelled over the roar of the flames.

“The next embassy,” said Ax, his breath adding to the gust of heat that surged around me.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what happened when one was intimate with such a mate—would I be crisped like a shish-kebab? What a way to go. There. I’d gone and thought about that again. It was downright embarrassing to daydream about making out with a dragon. And disturbing.

There was something I hadn’t mentioned to Ax, however. I already had a boyfriend. Dex wore glasses, read sci fi and fantasy novels and comic books, and kept newts in a glass tank. My sister Ashley had always called Dex a nerd; she’d even said he was lame. (I hadn’t spoken to her for a few days after that.) But Dex made me laugh. He took me ice skating in the park. He loved the smell of my jasmine perfume. And he was an exceptional kisser.

I tried to picture Dex and Ax battling for my heart. Poor skinny Dex wouldn’t have a chance against…um…the most powerful supernatural beast on earth. I almost laughed out loud at the thought of Ax gobbling up Dex’s poor newts. (Did Ax like to eat newts? I had no idea.)

Right now Dex was probably weeping because he hadn’t heard from me all day. And cradling his newts. Okay, so maybe he was a bit lame.

“What?” said Ax. My face must have given away my thoughts.

“Nothing.” I didn’t feel like sharing the whole boyfriend thing right now. Was exclusivity expected in the dragon community? What would Ax look like if he got jealous? I pictured him swelling up to an enormous size, the steam pouring from his ears, his eyes a fierce yellow. Maybe he’d start to resemble his brother, Skynjar. The thought wasn’t pleasant. At least Ax didn’t wear glasses.

“I was just thinking about my sister,” I lied. “Wondering if she’s worrying about me.”

“She is older than you?” said Ax. I noticed that our flight had slowed dramatically, so that we seemed to be hovering within the flame. Maybe Ax wanted a little “alone time” with me up here, so we could get to know each other.

“Not older. The same. We’re twins.”

“Twins. She is a perfect match to you?”

“I don’t know if I’d call her a match—we’re impossibly different. She’s completely flighty, and I’m pretty calm. As you might have guessed by the fact that I’m not screaming my head off right now as we ride around the earth in a glowing ball of fire. But we’re identical, like two peas in a pod, if that’s what you mean—”

Ax’s eyes glowed an even fiercer yellow and he breathed in deeply, sucking some of the flames in with him. When he did so, we dropped precipitously.

“Yikes!” I said. “I’m not that calm!”

“We must go and claim this sister,” said Ax. “She will be vitally important. She is in New York City?”

“Yes,” I said. “Wait. No, no, no. You don’t understand. Ashley’s not like me—she’s going to freak out! She doesn’t have any supernatural powers or anything! The only kind of Hummer she would be able to comprehend is the gas guzzler. She has panic attacks and she’s scared of spiders and she only cares about clothes and shoes! She has 65 pairs of shoes! Like pumps and sandals and boots and all sorts of shoes.”

I was babbling. I couldn’t imagine the expression on Ashley’s face when she saw Ax. Calling my sister “flighty” was the understatement of the year. Ashley was about as stable as a butterfly.

Ax wasn’t listening. He clutched me tighter and the heat rose and roared around us. The next thing I knew, we were smack in the middle of Times Square. Crowds surged around us. I heard the blare of a trumpet, and the banging of drums. Sweaty bodies pressed against us, tourists lunging to get a good photograph.

“Oh great,” I said. “Times Square? During a parade?”

Ax grunted in reply.

A fat tourist knocked me off my feet, and I fell to my knees. I was nearly tramped by a phalanx of baton-twirling teenagers, all wearing little white skirts and spangly leotards. Ax caught my arm and hauled me out of danger.

“I can survive flying in a ball of fire, only to get squished in some kind of Pride Parade,” I said. “What are these people marching for, anyway?”

Someone in the crowd shouted: “Go Meat!” I saw a banner for Hormel sausages fluttering above me. It was a carnivore’s parade? Only in New York! Or maybe Germany.

“Your sister,” said Ax. “Where is she? We must find her.”

“Why?” I asked. “What is it about us being twins?”

“Identical twins have great power, because of their bond. They are forged from the same egg. United, then divided. Divided, but still united.”

“I see you took Biology 101,” I said. I realized I was getting a bit snippy.

“And the prophetess saw you in a vision,” added Ax. “What if it was your sister she saw?”

“Oh.” That thought hadn’t occurred to me.

I sighed. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer. He’d quickly see that Ashley was about as useless as a Fourth of July sparkler in a snowstorm.

“She’s at her job,” I said. “She works for a women’s magazine only a few blocks from here, called Chic. She’s, um, the fashion editor. The youngest ever in the magazine’s history.”

Ax frowned when I said “fashion editor.” Maybe, just maybe, he was realizing how ludicrous this whole venture was.

“We will go there,” he said. “You will go in and get your sister out. But we must hurry. We have wasted enough time. The killer is out there, and he will not stop.”

This time it was me who led the way. I took Ax’s hand, noting how warm and solid it felt. How strong. He kept an easy pace with me as we wove through the crowd, past a chorus line of men in sausage costumes and a woman dressed as a burger patty. Ax sniffed the air, as if all the celebration of meat was making him hungry.

“When was the last time you ate, anyway?” I said.

He started as if I’d bitten him. “No need. Not hungry.”

That made me wonder: What did Ax eat, anyway?

We reached the offices of Chic magazine, which were housed in an imposing, glass-fronted building. I had no idea what my sister would say when she realized I’d lied to her about my supposed vacation to Tonga, and that I wanted her to join us on a crazy mission to defeat a monster killer. A monster killer with a skeleton key, who was going to mess the whole world up really badly. Maybe if I mentioned that her shoe collection would be threatened…?

“You'd better stay out here,” I told Ax.

I was about to ask the man at the desk to call my sister and let her know I was here, but there was no need. Ashley was coming down the escalator, along with a parade of interns, fashion assistants, and camera people. And standing next to her on the descending escalator was a very tall, pale, and beautiful woman. The most beautiful woman I’d probably ever seen. She had astonishingly sleek, black hair, red lips, and long limbs. There was something terrible about her too, though. She reminded me of a spider.

Ashley saw me right away and darted over to me—we were always like magnets to each other.

“Beck!” she said, astonished. “What are you doing here? Did you know we have a shoot with Angelica today? She’s the latest new model, just came onto the scene. I literally discovered her. She came to my door, out of nowhere! How strange is that? She’s going to be big.” Ashley’s eyes looked strange and giddy, like when she had too many margaritas.

I stared again at the gorgeous woman, unable to tear my eyes away.

But she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking over my shoulder, and her eyes narrowed like a feral cat’s. I heard her hiss.

I turned, and there was Ax, standing in the foyer of the building. He was staring at the woman called Angelica. And for the first time since I’d met him, Ax looked afraid.

I Have Ruined Your Nice Meme

2011-07-06T20:02:00.000-07:00

I was recently tagged by the illustrious and maniacal Greenwoman and also by the glamorous and mesmerizing Anita Howard on a "meme" that's been making the blog rounds lately.

I don't know who cooked this meme up, but the questions are vaguely bizarre...maybe even sinister. For example, the meme asks "When was the last time you ate chicken meat?" Why chicken meat? Why emphasize the "meat" portion of it? Why not "chicken claws"?

I do not wish to know when any of you ate chicken meat, much as I love you. Please keep this information to yourselves in future.

I decided that, rather than answer these questions, I am going to investigate the meaning behind them, track down the author of the meme, and make sure she or he is escorted to a suitable home where they can care for those with damaged minds.

But I don't have time for that! So instead, I'm going to switch these questions up, dog. And ask a whole set of new and inane memish questions! And visit them upon you, and your children, and your children's children!

Are you a rutabaga?
No.

When was the last time you ate lion meat?
During that safari which went so horribly awry in 1989.

Upload a heartwarming picture of something that makes you smile.

I actually no likee clowns. This is a joke! Why are you hiding in the woodpile?

If you could go back in time and kick the crap out of someone, who would it be?
Why, that bully from 9th grade, Jujyfruit Assbat!

Name one habit that makes other people plot your demise.
I sometimes hammer nails into people's heads without the slightest bit of warning.

What song would you like to be playing while you are kicking the crap out of someone?
Pink's "So What," or maybe Tchaikovsky

Where da muffin top at?
The muffin top is ineffable, and cannot be found by human hands.

How many goats, stacked atop one another like Yertle's Turtles, would it take to reach the moon?
1,564,768 and 1/2 goat

Describe yourself using obscure Latin words.
Cupiditas Pullanus: Little horse with a party spirit!

Why does evil exist?
Stop right now! This meme is hurting my brains! It's not even a real MEME because I just made it up. It would be a meme if it was actually all over the place and viral, like a bad STD, like that other "chicken meat" meme. People are insane!

What the fuck are you thinking right now?
I'm wishing I had not uploaded that photo of the clown.

Tag 11 blogger friends, or some other random number that suits you. Ha! You can't say "no tagbacks" because I just made up new rules! BOO YAH. Make up your own rules or be enslaved by another blogger's.

1. Justin Holley
2. Cherie
3. Greenwoman
4. Bethany
5. Tracey Hansen
6. Kalen
7. Mary
8. Angela
9. TS Welti
10. Mrs. Kim
11. Anita

Pick a funny nickname for number 1.
The Woolly Mastodon.

Make up a rhyme about number 2.
Cherie, Cherie, I sing of thee!
Your name rhymes with that of J. Holley
and also with that of T.S. Welti!

Where would number 3 hide in the event of the apocalypse?
In the henhouse, in her goat pants.

Where does number 4 purchase her pants?
She doesn't wear any pants!

What would number 5's favorite dance move be?
Anything that involved not wearing pants.

If number 6 had a war cry, what would it be?
I am Kalen
Hear me roar
I am a fucking awesome writer
And an ac-tor!

Tell number 7 you love 'em. Come on! It won't hurt to say you love 'em!
Aw, gorsh, Mary! I loves ya!

If you and number 8 pulled a prank together, what would you do?
I love the prank with the bucket of water above the door. It's a classic. Come on, Angela. Yes?

Number 9 is fine because...
She's an author! Check out this interview for her new book, The Fifth Specter.

Tell a little story about number 10.
Me and Mrs. Kim go way back. Check out her foodie recipes! Once, she brought salmon mousse on a hike.

Number 11 dreams about...
Insects and faeries and ghosts. Tonight, she will dream about a vast ship on an ocean, and the water filled with sprites, and the moon dancing on the waves. She will not dream about that awful clown. This I wish for her.

The Story of the Clam

2011-07-05T18:22:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, my son came back from a sleepover and dumped his overnight bag on the back steps. It sat there in the hot sun for many hours. Finally, I picked it up and decided to clean it out. I reached in and noticed something was moving at the bottom of the bag.

It was a bivalve. A clammy sort of thing, with the penile appendage poking out of its shell. Ah yes, a clam indeed. I had eaten this sort of thing at seafood establishments, with drawn butter. I regretted that now. The penile appendage was wiggling. The clam was alive.

It was sitting next to his pajamas and toothbrush, along with a fair amount of sand. There were two linty pennies at the bottom of the bag. I picked the clam up between my thumb and forefinger. It pulsed against my skin. Its movements were foreign, alien. Yet it lived, and I lived. It sat all day in the hot sun and still lived.

“Please take it outside,” I said to my son.

“We thought it was dead,” he said. He and his friend had found the clam in the Mamaroneck river.

“It’s not dead but it’s gonna be soon!”

He took the clam outside. He didn’t come back in. We walked out to find out where he’d gone. He was around the side of the house, crying, heartbroken.

His whole body shook with the tragedy. And I remembered that hopelessness. I pitied every aphid, every butterfly, every ant I’d trapped as a child. I remembered the little rabbit that I’d saved from a cat that had shaken it and ruined its organs; it had died and gone stiff in its shoebox of grass clippings. I had been struck with an overwhelming grief, and no one else had even winced.

My husband said: “Look. Go and get it. We’re going to return it to the river. We’re going to save its life.”

My son perked up and ran out, but he’d wedged the clam under a piece of concrete by the back steps and couldn’t get it out. We fetched the cooking tongs and pulled the poor clam free. Then they got in the car and drove it down to the river, right to the spot where he’d found it. I watched them go.

When they returned my son’s face was calm.

“Is the clam alive?” I said.

“Yes.”

“And do you feel better?”

“Much better, yes.”

I thank my husband for doing that small thing.

The Time-Traveling Dead Girl Who Is Secretly a Princess

2011-06-27T14:00:00.000-07:00

After reading this post on Openings to Avoid by Nathan Bransford and also this one by Kristen Nelson, I thought I'd take a stab at trying ALL OF THEM (in reality just "most" of them, because I couldn't bear to write a prologue), with some extra bad sauce thrown in. Just because I am bored, naughty, and all that.

Strangely enough, I sort of want to find out what happens to ol' Miranda after writing this fish-wrapper-worthy opening. Will she find the magic crystal? Why were all the dudes on horseback fighting each other? What cocktails do they serve in the land of the dead? Read on...

THE TIME-TRAVELING DEAD GIRL WHO IS SECRETLY A PRINCESS

Miranda woke up by the side of the forest pool, yawned, and stretched. She’d had such a lovely dream—something about a castle by the sea, and a heavy crown being placed on her head. Foolishness! She was but a poor farm girl, not a princess or a queen. She resumed her task of gathering herbs, which she had been occupied with before succumbing to a brief nap.

Miranda sought the herbs in the densest, darkest part of the forest, dropping the hensbane and gnarlyort into the braided basket that hung over her shoulder. It was the eve of her sixteenth birthday, and she had led a rather ordinary and boring life. Little did she know that everything she knew and loved was to change—irreparably and abruptly.

Miranda glanced into the pool of water at her feet, around the edge of which grew the healing herbs that she used to make her tinctures and potions. She saw a lovely pale face framed by red tresses, her eyes green and large. Her mouth was as pert as a rosebud, but with a sultry little quirk to it that suggested mischief.

A noise caught her attention. It was a party of elves, dwarves, and gnomes, trooping past on their way to the salt mines. Miranda smirked and shook her head at the little creatures as they scampered along, their green cloaks and jerkins blending with the colors of the forest.

“Folderol and higgledypuff,” said one of the elves. “The legions in the west are massing, but the clouds are brewing in the east as well.”

“Sure as shenanigans,” said a fat dwarf.

“But what of her ladyship?” said the elf, his small pointed ears twitching. “There’s been talk of her being sighted on a white horse at the cliff’s edge, and I say it’s not poppycock!”

“Blither and blast,” said a gnome. “Will ye stop talking when there’s work to be done?”

“Ah,” said the elf, ominously. “When the magic crystal is found, then the work won’t matter so much anymore, will it? Only a young girl can find it, they say. A young girl with magical powers and whatnot.”

Suddenly, there was a cracking sound. Miranda glanced up sharply to see a man on a white steed, gazing at her through the trees. He was joined by another, and another, until the forest was filled with men on white steeds. Miranda froze, hardly daring to breathe.

Suddenly, the steeds charged at each other, and the entire forest echoed with the sounds of clanging steel and the screams of dying men. The battle raged, with trebuchets rolling, horses dying with great gusts of blood bursting from their bellies, and explosions bursting in the trees. Men died by the cartload, their corpses piling up on the forest floor like wheat sheaves. Miranda screamed and ran hither and thither, finally crouching low next to the pool with her basket of herbs over her head.

Something exploded in the water and Miranda was sucked violently through the pool and into a bedchamber, where a handsome teenage stranger lay on a bed, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs. A calendar on the wall read “Hot Guys and Baby Animals 2011.”

“Where am I?” muttered Miranda. The voyage through the portal had disarranged her garments, and she noticed with annoyance that her basket of herbs was gone—no doubt flung into another dimension.

The handsome stranger raised his head. It was only then that she noticed his eyes were hollow and soulless.

“Why, you’re in the land of the dead,” said the man, and smiled, revealing two very white and pointed canine teeth.

Why Do We Write?

2011-06-23T15:55:00.000-07:00

"I'd rather be known as a writer than do the actual writing."--My friend Sam, a published author

"I hate writing. I love having written."—Dorothy Parker

I wonder: Is writing really all about the completion, the ensuing love? Why choose this path, when one could have been so many other things: a goat herder, an accountant, a nailer of nails, a carrier of rocks, a subway mime? Fame and satisfaction might be theirs, too, and a lot faster.

Yes, having it done and sealed up and your love assured is fine and good, but then—the hovering expectation when anything can still happen. That is better, perhaps. The moment when the world goes still and silent and the only things still moving are your hands, small and clumsy in the glare of the screen. (Or, if you've taken a proper typing course, capable and sure. I have not. I have already established that I am a fool, and type with a special blend of four swift fingers.)

Why take this path? Why, for example, did I rise at 4:00 am last Wednesday and wander to the computer screen to type a single line of text? It was a title for a story, nothing more. What mad and foolish pride would let me think that precious line too good to be lost?

My title contained a character's name. I worried that if I left him at the edge of sleep, he would wink out of existence. Perhaps it's something like wondering if I had turned left that day, instead of right, my children would never have been born. I woke in the morning and leaned over my saved document, like patting my pocket for a stone I found.

"Write it down, write it down, write it down," the voice says. It says it at the most inconvenient times: when I am weighted down with bags and wedged in like a cow in the subway. I obey, even if it means the anger of lost sleep and a scrabbling after linty, sticky pens. Sometimes the pens are wrapped around with stray hairs and their nibs poke holes in my baggie of "emergency almonds"—my purse is a cruel wasteland. But it always contains a pen.

Do we write for adulation? Do we write to see our names on the wall? When I'm gone, there will be more than baggage and tag sale treasures to turn out of my house. I have saved the lives of characters. I have loved words. What else could I have done? I could, instead, step out into the wide world and be nothing, nothing at all. I could close this screen and step away, and I could be happy. I would go to the park. I would speak with people.

But no. We occasionally choose disaster and heartbreak. We invite joy. We want to live all the lives we could have had. We are greedy hoarders, revelers, egomaniacs, bearers of sadness, fools for long and fine moments when even the house seems to tremble and await what we'll bring. We wake in the night.

ARC of Ally Condie's CROSSED, Plus 5 More to Give Away!

2011-06-20T13:05:00.000-07:00

I have fresh ARCs! I have acquired them through stealth and at great peril to life and limb. Despite the fact that I carried them over snowy mountain passes, past slavering wolfhounds, etc., I am giving them all away. Why? Because I did a bad, bad thing in a former life (when I was but a lowly beetle) and I am still trying to fix my karma. Your reading pleasure may prevent me from returning to my next life once again in the form of a beetle. My name is still bandied about in the beetle kingdom with much bad talk, and I am not keen to return.

Post a comment here if you want these titles (and feel free to mention a title that you particularly want). Make sure to include your Twitter handle or another way to contact you. I will randomly select one or two winners, and will send the books out. It's that easy!

You've got to be a follower of The Party Pony blog to qualify. Those who Tweet and share the word will get Super Bonus Points, and their names will be put in the random drawing more than once; other bribes are not accepted (even dirty martinis sent by parcel post). Make sure to alert me @feralpony so you can claim your bonus points, you greedy, greedy thing.

If you amuse me in the comments, your name may be placed in the Random Name Kitty 3x, or even 4x! Your odds will be better to win this book derby than that horsie with the wings!

Winners will be selected sometime on Wednesday morning (6/22) after the sun rises. Good luck! Fare thee well, my friends!

(P.S. If you win, it's nice to blog about the books you read and share the love!)

Crossed
By Ally Condie (Nov 2011)

Audition
By Stasia Ward Kehoe (Oct 2011)

Fox & Phoenix
By Beth Bernobich (Oct 2011)

The Space Between
By Brenna Yovanoff (Nov 2011)

The Future of Us
By Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler (Nov 2011)

Legend
By Marie Lu (Nov 2011)

Query: MY HOUSE

2011-06-17T09:19:00.000-07:00

Binxie Durbin

Weichert, Realtors

Larchmont, NY

Dear Ms. Durbin,

"They haven't done a thing to keep it up."

"What a disgrace! No curb appeal."

"That old dump should have been razed back in the 1890s."

That's what the neighbors mutter about 42 Terrace Lane. But what they don't know is that the house hides a secret. Behind the crumbling plaster, musty shag carpets, and hideous 1970s wood paneling, 42 Terrace Lane is bursting with potential. Yes, she has crickets in the basement and a poltergeist in the wainscoting, but when a new owner sinks approximately half a million dollars into her, she's going to be gorgeous.

A little down on her luck, 42 Terrace Lane is determined to make something of herself. They won't dare call her a "filthy eyesore" anymore. This time, she's going to have shiny granite countertops, not Nu-Econo-Brik. This time, she's going to have a porch that doesn't sag, and a back deck with a brand-new Weber gas grill, and there are going to be really good dinner parties with fine china in her dining room, damn it. If she can just get there before a potential owner's spike heel punches through the rotting wood on the stairs, she's golden.

My Victorian dystopian for adults and several children, MY HOUSE, is complete at 2,467 square feet. It’s like a cross between THE JONES’S HOUSE, MO 'N' JACK'S SPORTS BAR, and FOLSOM PRISON. Please let me know if you care to see any portion of it; I'd be happy to provide access to the front porch or foyer. I am open to suggestions for revision, including tearing off the back half of the house so that a little sunlight might get into the damp corners of the living room.

MY HOUSE is my second dwelling; MY FIRST HOUSE was sold to a nice couple from New Rochelle in 2008. I have other works on the property, including MY GARAGE and MY ROTTING STORAGE SHED WHICH PROBABLY CONTAINS SOME ANIMAL FAECES, which may also interest you.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

8 Fabulous Father's Day Gifts for the Man Who Spawned You

2011-06-14T18:12:00.000-07:00

This Sunday is Father’s Day! Looking for a great gift for Dad, Father, Pater, Pa, Daddy-Wiggums, or That Man Who Spawned 'n' Spurned Me? I’ve rounded up some top choices that will make Dad cry and beat you quicklike, before retiring to the "teeth optional" dive bar on the corner for the remainder of the evening.

At "I am a stuffed animal" you can order a stuffed version of your daddy! It's better than the taxidermized version, because it has no feet, only stumps. Daddy can snuggle it while he watches football, which he invariably does. Then daddy can molest it, which he invariably does. (Note how they captured the model's thuggish cruelty hidden beneath the friendly smile? And the fat eyebrows that sit on his brow like malignant caterpillars? That is artistry, baby!)

Many people who come and go? Shouldn't father sort of come and...stay? What's with the father who "goes"? Isn't he known as a shithead and a deadbeat dad? You'd do better to break this stupid faux wooden plaque over his goddamn head!

The World's Largest Gummy Bear! When daddy eats it his insides will gum up and he will start to have a crazyass acid trip and he will eat his socks and wind up curled in the corner like a small bean, weeping. Why are they all STARING AT ME? They glisten.

This T-shirt is actually pretty awesome. But if you give it to your dad, you will have to include the infant in the gift package or else he won't get the joke, think the shirt is too small, and beat the living fuck out of you.

Jerky of the Month Club, jerky jerkface daddy who never showed up for my ballet recitals! I hope your blood pressure shoots up to salty heights of meaty badness.

This Is What the World's Best Dad Looks Like. He has BOOBS. Awesome.

Damn, this daddy must be hot because he is spawning children faster than we can make amorphous pawprints from them! Are Jordan and Caleb the total black sheep of the family, or what? Did we run out of K names?! What about Kaleb and Kordon?

The little hearts on the base of this figurine do nothing to eliminate the fact that you have given your father an image of himself as a wild and predatory animal, sitting on the shitter. Is that how you see your father? When he is done manhandling his beer, laptop, football, cell phone, crown, paper, and woolly balls, he will take a switch to you.

You might also like: All The Beautiful Ways To Say I Love You

The Insects Are Going to Sit On Us

2011-06-10T19:41:00.000-07:00

My husband heard on NPR the other day that there are 200 million insects for every human on the planet.

"Just suppose," says he, "That they all got wise, and that they decided to gang up on us. It would be 200 million to one!"

I thought about this, and said, "Yes, even 200 million butterflies would win against one frail human. They could all flap their wings in unison. What about 200 million blackflies or mosquitoes? What if they decided to fight us? They would win!"

"Who said anything about fighting?" said my husband. "All they'd have to do is sit on us."

You see now why I have an anxiety disorder.

I thought, "What a great idea for a new book!" so I wrote one immediately.

My new book THE INSECTS SAT ON US is a YA Paranormal Romance, in which our heroine Brittanee meets Jordan, a football player, but their romance is ruined when they are both sat upon by aphids, earwigs, and termites. It is complete at 32,345 words, which is as far as I got before I was sat upon by a cloud of moths, who ruined my typing skills. I am sending it to you, agent, who are now likely being sat upon by locusts and boll weevils. I don't expect a response, but if you should reach out to some editors you know before they, too, are sat upon by mites and beetles, this book may yet stop the plague which is now upon us.

THE INSECTS SAT ON US is like a cross between ARE YOU THERE, GOD? IT'S ME MARGARET and THE BIBLE. And maybe with a bit of LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE and TWILIGHT and some Kafka and Dante thrown into the mix. It would be best to accept this book because I think now that the insects have become my friends, and will sit on those who spurn me. They will sit with alacrity! They will sit with their antennae fierce and erect! Do not cross them.

Respectfully and now totally controlled by insects, who are cooking my supper and braiding my hair,
The Party Pony

Willful Blindness

2011-06-06T17:58:00.000-07:00

A week or two ago I was riding home on the train from work, and I'd had enough of the sting of my contact lenses, which were burning my dry and computer-dazzled eyes. So I plucked them out and threw them on the floor. (The lenses, not my eyes, silly readers...although I would have delighted in shouting "Out, vile jelly!" and causing the commuters to make hideous typos on their Blackberrys.)

Without my lenses to guide me home, I might as well have been legally blind. I walked off the train in a sort of daze, moving along with the stream of commuters. Surely, I would have been left for dead in the days before corrective eyewear, always stumbling to catch up with my sure-footed tribe, glaring through a water droplet on the edge of a plucked blossom, shouting "Hey, fellas! I can't see you. Is that you, Og?" Eventually they would have tipped me into a watering hole or failed to mention an approaching mammoth.

So I walked home blind through the dappled leaves, my face open to the world because I could not construct a symmetrical response to whomever or whatever was looking at me. My expression was as bland and naked as my hands, and my hands swept through the air. The pink house on the side street, a blur, looked like that Cezanne painting we had to turn upside-down in art class so very long ago, to look for the shapes and contours only. "Forget what you are seeing, for an instant," said the art teacher. "That is not a house. Look for the spaces between the houses; look for the colors, and the light."

Something glimmered on the edge of the sidewalk: A lost credit card? A candy wrapper? Whatever it was I could not tell. It flickered blue and metallic, like a strange fish swimming away before me through the hotness of green and the light all falling down.

The world seemed softer when I was blind. It seemed to cradle me, and I was a small thing moving safe and warm through it. And I remembered that as a child—as a teen, really—I hadn't wanted to wear my glasses at all, and sometimes hid them in my coat pocket upon arrival at school. I would mark the colors my friends were wearing in the morning, and spot them that way throughout the day. Sometimes I would make a pinhole lens of flesh by curling my forefinger tight next to my thumb, and sight the world through that. (More often than not I would be felled in gym class by the rubbery thump of a dodgeball to the side of the head, and wish I were not so vain.)

Now, on this walk home through a suburban spring, I heard birds, whispers, my own breath. I saw human shapes, walking, a distance away. Someone was coming up behind me, swinging a bag. Did I know him or her? I turned and framed a quick smile so I would not insult. A stranger, the person may have smiled back; I'll never know. Did it matter? I could assume love from the universe.

Trees seemed to be lit from within by their blossoms; honeysuckle, red rhododendron, pink azalea (dying when viewed closely, but still alive to the half-blind). And the patches of light, dancing on the green trees. Shadows of trees on the sides of houses, houses as big as barns. I looked and was amazed. I saw nothing. I saw everything. The world cast its gaze on me as I stumbled home unseeing and alive.

I Have ARCs. I'm Giving Them Away.

2011-05-31T08:43:00.000-07:00

I have in my possession a vasty pile of ARCs that have come my way through various secret channels. Individuals have ~~threatened me~~ suggested that I should share the ARCs through a bloggy giveaway. And so I shall!

Here are the details.

You must answer a question related to one of the books I am giving away. For this giveaway, that question shall be: "If you were in the circus, what would your role be?" Post your silly, lyrical, or offensive reply in the comments. If there is an ARC title (listed below) that you desperately want, feel free to let me know.

I will package up all your replies and send them in a sack by eagle to Prague, where a wizened watchmaker I know from my days as an international spy/assasin will choose the winners and send them back to my via fast mail ship, sewn into the belly of a salted haddock. (Damn, that wasn't written right; ships don't fit inside haddocks! I meant to say "send them back, sewn into the belly of a salted haddock, via fast mail ship.")

One or more winners may be chosen. The exact number of winners is completely arbitrary and depend on how much postage I have at my disposal. If you win, I will contact you and you will send me your mailing address. Yes, you will! (Make sure I know how to contact you via your blog or an email address.)

If you spread the word via Tweets and such, you will get SUPER BONUS POINTS. Make sure to let me know so you can greedily claim your points.

You've gotta be a follower of "The Party Pony" blog to qualify. Otherwise, how are you going to know about future giveaways like this? There may be many such giveaways, because I have a black market flow of ARCs from my friends in the underworld. Just imagine your bookshelves: brimming, overflowing with treasures, toppling over and crushing your pet cats.

All of today's ARCs are YA/Middle Grade. Here is the list:

Circus Galacticus, By Deva Fagan (Pub date: November 14, 2011)

Wereworld: Rise of the Wolf, By Curtis Jobling (Pub date: September 20, 2011)

The Inquisitor's Apprentice, By Chris Moriarty (Pub date: 10/2011)

Skary Childrin and the Carousel of Sorrow, By Katy Towell (Pub date: August 23, 2011)

Wisdom's Kiss, By Catherine Gilbert Murdock (Pub date: 9/2011)

The Undrowned Child, By Michelle Lovric (Pub date: 8/2011)

Writing Is Like a River Trip

2011-05-26T11:56:00.000-07:00

My blogger friend, the ever-inventive and imaginative and wildly funny Greenwoman, has come up with a new challenge. It's called Writing Is Not Like a Box of Chocolates: A Meme.

These are her rules:
"Take the phrase “Writing is like . . .” and finish it. Post it on your blog. Tag three others to do the same. That is all. See how easy that is?"

I know that Greenwoman expects me to say that writing is like dancing with goats wearing spangly pants, or like battling a woodchuck who keeps taunting me with a blank sheet of paper and rude hand gestures, or like wandering into a drainage ditch wearing my best Lilly Pulitzer frock—but finding a crop of diamonds and a chilled martini shaker at the bottom of the ditch.

There, now I've said all those things to please her, because she deserves it. But I'm going to write something else. Something "not silly" and "not funny." (Hold onto your party hats!) I'm used to being funny, so writing something "not funny" feels like I just tossed my pants into the hog pen and am standing here looking wan and dumb, and the scarecrow is giving me the leery eye. (Maybe this happens on Greenwoman's farm?)

Sometimes I don't gotta be funny. Here you go.

Writing is like paddling a canoe through a tract of waterways as vast as the world. Your boat moves through glades and narrow channels, whisking down rapids. You move north, ever north, through a landscape that you made and lost once in a dream.

At times, the river widens and spills you out onto a great body of water, and you are a small thing under a hollow and terrible bowl of sky. The distant shore cannot be seen, although you shade your eyes with your hand. You pull forward all the same. There is the outlet, there is the way home. The river closes around you once again, and the current takes you.

Sometimes you hear laughter and voices over the hedges that line the banks. One morning a dragonfly settles on the gunwale, and stirs its blue wings. You are lost, quite fully lost, and you know it. You can let the canoe drift in lazy, spinning circles, or you can paddle fierce and hard for the far shore.

Either way, you’ll get there. You will be carried. You will carry yourself, when the drought comes and dries up the riverbeds.

You emerge into a bright patch of sunlight and hear the buzz and fall of summer heat. Sometimes your boat slips down dim alleyways of water lined by stately trees. Sometimes it rains on the big lakes, and you pray you’ll make it home alive.

You might look over the edge of your boat one day and see a gift on the bottom of the shallow river, shot through with light. A bag of stones. A letter from a loved one. A ribbon, a coin, a flash of fish scales in the murk, falling down and down. Trivial, lovely.

You pull up your treasure. Your boat drifts, and the dusk falls. Your hands are dripping with discovery. You wonder: Who put this there? Who left this gift? Then you remember: You yourself dropped that bag of memory into the dark waters. You hid it there. Everything beautiful is waiting to be found.

________

Now I'm tagging three people who shall take this meme and run with it. They are:

Mary Frame
Because her excellent and helpful blog posts about the craft of writing lead me to believe her answer to this will be thoughtful and thought-provoking. (No pressure, Mary--if you want to say that writing is like a jar of pickles and not explain why, you go right ahead.)

Kalen O'Donnell
Because he's crazy! And he threatened me for my ARCs! So now I have him dart-gunned, bagged, and tagged. (By the way, his threats have paid out, and ARCs will be given away next week. Stay tuned.)

Tracey Hansen
Because she will do what I should have done and write something lewd, rude, and soaked in wine! I hope. Yes, please?

My Big Fatass BEA Bookbags

2011-05-25T12:43:00.000-07:00

Visited BEA 2011 yesterday for work purposes and found the place was lousy with literary agents. I passed one who has my full manuscript, another who holds a partial, another with a query. But could I speak to them? Nay! I did not want to be the wanna-be author going stalky-stalky in the fluorescence of the (horrible) Javits Center, leaping like a sweaty wildcat upon the unwary agent, two huge bags of ARCS and schwag swinging like fatass saddlebags from my shoulders:

"Um, um, um you read my BOOK yet? You got my book! You read it? HAVE YOU READ IT FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE? D'ya like it?! Can I use that table, over there, for my author signing?"

No, that would not be me, but the whole thing was tough. Everyone has nametags! And the agents' tags have a RED strip at the bottom of their badge, so you can spot them and get that little salivary stalking instinct. Also, the place is even lousier with authors than it is with agents, and they are published. People wait in line to get their signatures. This breeds jealousy, and jealousy hurts.

However, I am gulping down my jealousy to link to some new titles I received ARCs for and of which I heard much buzz/praise. I didn't get copies of everything I saw, because I couldn't carry any more with me. I found myself longing for an eReader, because the fatass bookbags I have mentioned knocked over some old and infirm people as I trudged to the subway after the event.

When She Woke, By Hillary Jordan (Algonquin Books)

(Note: This is the only book I have actually started reading of my new batch, and therefore it's at the top of my list.) I read Mudbound and loved it. So when I heard this new book was out, I darted right over to the Algonquin booth and pleaded for a copy. From page one, this book is intense and terrifying. A cross between The Hunger Games, The Handmaid's Tale, and The Scarlet Letter, When She Woke opens with protagonist Hannah Payne awakening to find her skin, from head to toe, dyed a vivid red through a process called "chroming." She is a felon, convicted of murdering her unborn child, in a futuristic world where church and state are dangerously blurred. For thirty days, her imprisonment will be televised. Then she'll be released into the world, where an even more painful imprisonment will begin. I'll probably be up all night tonight reading this.

Bedbugs, By Ben H. Winters (Quirk Books 9/6/11)
From the author of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. Everyone is terrified of bedbugs, so writing an "understated horror" novel about this topic is a stroke of brilliance. When I brought out the book and showed it to a few friends, they shuddered. One almost screamed, and said she stays up at night searching for bedbugs. In the book, a "perfect couple" in search of a dream brownstone in Brooklyn Heights find something more sinister: The bedbug problem from hell! My skin crawls at the prospect, although bedbugs are not one of my major phobias. They soon will be.

Why We Broke Up, By Daniel Handler (Little, Brown 1/12)

Follows the story of how Min and Ed "met at a party, saw a movie, followed an old woman, shared a hotel room, and broke each other's hearts." The book came with a postcard on which readers can write in "We broke up because..." and mail it in to the publisher. At the show, there were many such postcards tacked on a board with amusing and heartbreaking reasons for the end of romance. My favorite: "Because he was an ass."

And here are several more than sounded incredibly good but I don't have time to write about in detail. Someone has written about them on Amazon already. You can read it all there. And even order the books should you so desire. Enjoy!

The Language of Flowers, By Vanessa Diffenbaugh (8/23/11)

Victoria has spent her childhood in the foster care system; her only connection to the world is through the world of flowers and their meanings.

Wildwood, by Colin Meloy (8/30/11)

Someone called this "The American Chronicles of Narnia." An adventure into the Impassable Wilderness, a tangled and magical forest in the middle of Portland.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone, by Laini Taylor (9/27/11)
A YA "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" with a mysterious and unique blue-haired MC.

Carrier of the Mark, by Leigh Fallon (10/11)
Megan moves to Ireland, meets hot boy, discovers she has power over one of the four elements.

Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick, by Joe Schreiber (10/11)
Average high school guy spends a wild prom night with geeky Lithuanian exchange student—who is really an international assassin!

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, by Michelle Hodkin (9/11)
Mara wakes up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there. Then she starts to see things, and people start dying. Editor cites an incredible "big surprise twist" ending.

Down the Mysterly River, by Bill Willingham (9/13/11)
A boy and three animals in a very bad forest.

All Food Is Poison and Anything You Eat May Kill You

2011-05-23T19:01:00.000-07:00

People with panic and anxiety disorder are very suggestible, and they are especially suggestible to their own stupidity. The story of the last month, below, reveals my extremely scientific approach to food intolerance and how it may affect the brain. Please note: If you read this and decide that you, too, are intolerant to all the things I have listed, then we should have a martini together. Contact me. (Except that martinis are derived from wheat, and are now a terrible poison to me. I will be drinking a tea made out of organic quinoa shavings, while you enjoy your delicious martini.)

About one month ago, I decided I was intolerant to Gluten. Gluten can cause all sorts of bad things, I’d read, and I wanted no part of it. It has been reported to cause indigestion, osteoporosis, rashes, and depression. I cut all Gluten out of my life. By the second day off Gluten, I decided I was cured of every anxious thought I have ever had. I ran about through the wet grass in the night, and hurled a tennis ball at the moon.

“Yah! I am cured!” I said to the moon.

A few days later I started feeling dizzy and anxious again, so I decided I had an intestinal parasite. I researched all kinds of parasites, and found out that some can bore into one’s brain! They really can. They can invade every major organ in the body. I researched some online cures that promised to expunge parasites from the body.

But what if it wasn’t a parasite? What if it was just my own idiocy? Then I would have paid $47 for a revolting “colon cleanse” that would just cleanse the nutrients from my body and make me even more dizzy and ill.

I held off, but still brooded heavily about the parasites.

Another week or two went by. By Thursday 5/19, I decided that I didn’t drink enough water. Water, by God, now that was the solution! If I could gurgle down about 10 glasses a day of water, I would be instantly healed and would wake up with my hair in a braid and a song on my lips. As I woke, I would sing a song that would begin with the words: “Another glorious day to celebrate my life!” I made a chart and started to check off how many glasses of water I imbibed per day. On the first day, I drank 10 glasses of clean, pure water.

I woke up feeling just as rotten as ever. “Perhaps,” I thought, “I was right about the parasites.” I also pondered a bit about brain tumors and incurable mental illness. Or maybe I had lactose intolerance? Maybe I was allergic to coffee. Maybe there was some kind of oil in the coffee bean that was sick-making, and caused incurable mental illness. Why, look at the proliferation of coffee shops, and all the poor sad addicts standing in line.

On Friday 5/20, I gave up coffee.

On Saturday 5/21, I was fully convinced that my troubles were all due to a mysterious malady called Fructose Malabsorption. If you have this problem, you can’t eat most fruits, high fructose corn syrup, asparagus, artichokes, onions, leeks, wheat, and brown rice. Basically, everything that is good for you. Fructose Malabsorption can make one extremely anxious and depressed, and can even make one’s eyeballs ache. Plus, it causes bad poop incidents and a bloated tummy that looks like you just swallowed a dodgeball. All these terrible things have happened to me. Therefore, I had "Fructmal."

I started drinking coffee again. What did it matter? Apples were poison.

By Sunday 5/22, I had discarded the Fructose Malabsorption theory altogether. It would be a bore to never eat an apple again! How would I explain this weird food intolerance at Appletini parties?

Instead, I now determined that my trouble was corn and dairy. Corn, the evil of America! No pretty corn-fed maidens, sipping frothy glasses of milk, would tempt me again. I packed up the industrial-sized bag of Costco tortilla chips and, on Monday 5/23, thrust them at our nanny on my way to work.

“Take them, take the awful things from my sight!” I begged.

“But, we just bought those,” she said.

“And look, I have eaten half the bag,” I cried. “It is no wonder the corn has made me quite ill and mad.”

I glared at the cheese in our fridge with suspicion. No doubt it had been made from mad cows and goats, and eating it would pickle my brain matter. I would eat no cheese. I gave up coffee again. I had some weak tea without sugar and milk. I felt very bitter.

By now there was very little left on the "safe list" that I could eat. I ate a few nuts and a banana for breakfast, and became worried about the Fructose thing all over again. “Suppose I was right, and this banana is not on the ‘safe” list, and it makes me sicker than ever!” I fretted about this on the way to work.

By 11:00 I was so weak and shaky from not eating a proper breakfast that I had a panic attack, and immediately nibbled at the corner of a small Xanax. I felt much better.

If you can cure me of this stupidity, I will send you a package of cookies. They will not contain any wheat, corn, dairy, nuts, fruit juices, or sugar, and will taste like little turds coated in sawdust.

After the Rapture: What Was Taken and What Was Left Behind?

2011-05-21T18:26:00.000-07:00

The rapture done come and gone, and some things were snatched by God. Others were left behind on this dreadful ball of doom we call Earth. Now we have to live with this nonsense until October, when even these pancakes (below) and their ilk will be destroyed.

These hideous and misshapen pancakes were deemed unfit for the Lord, and were left behind to sink into a fiery crevasse.

Jonathan Snartzhugh, part-time laborer, was Raptured right off his ladder, leaving only a lone chicken nugget which fell out of his surprised maw onto the pavement below.

The shopping cart known as "Big Red" was belched forth from its grave during the Judgment, and carried straight up to the arms of God, who immediately filled it with nutritious organic vegetables and overpriced products from Whole Foods.

Schtincky Teddy was instantly raptured and rose unto Heaven. Mousie, left behind, tried to grab at the ascending ankles of the fragrant teddy bear, but was, alas, too slow.

A good Christian bunny rabbit, about to be caught in a nefarious heathen trap, was raptured right before succumbing to the lure of the bad carrot of Atheistic Irresponsibility. Note: The child in the background was raptured after he fulfilled his "time out" for naughty behavior.

"No." —God

Evil Grubby Baby, aka "The Trumpet of God," decides who shall rise and who shall perish: My Little Pony "Star Shine" version, or The Party Pony?

Star Shine is cast down! Burn, Star Shine, for you are a plastic thing from the bowels of Hasbro, and will not be raptured. You have bulbous eyes. I once loved to comb your hair with the Pretty Purple Comb, but your vanity and licentiousness have doomed you. Your stubby purple wings will fly you only to the Hot Place.

8 Helpful Etiquette Tips for Judgment Day

2011-05-16T17:16:00.000-07:00

So, like, Judgment Day is coming on May 21, and it's going to be frigging awesome for 2 percent of the world's population, who will be "raptured" up to God's bosom immediately—even in the middle of eating their soup or tying their shoes!

The rest will suffer lots of awful torments, but you are not among them, because if you are reading this you are clearly one of the saved. Why else would you have clicked on any link that contained "etiquette tips" for Judgment Day? The sinners are going to be far too busy lobbing turds at the ascending ankles of the saved to worry too much about color coordination and chewing with their mouths closed. They don't need "etiquette tips" while they dance under the lash of a vengeful God.

We rock, saved people! Woot.

I'm not sure the exclamation point is really necessary. After all, we are talking about the end of the world. A simple period would carry sufficiently ominous weight. Is the proper spelling of judgement with an "e" or without? My style guide suggests the "e" is not required and is more commonly used in Britain. This is something I can wonder about until Saturday, when I don't gotta wonder about it no more. Cause I'll be in heaven, and maybe only four or five proofreaders will have made it there, too. But heaven is pretty big and I probably won't run into them.

"It's getting real close. It's really getting pretty awesome, when you think about it," said Harold Camping, the California evangelist who ran some numbers in the Bible that, dude, "blew his mind."

Camping predicted the end of the world in 1994, but he had eaten so many 'shrooms then that he got that dates wrong. This time he has them right, because he studied the Bible a little more fervently.

"I thought I was back in Cincinnati '87 at that awesome Dead show, when I ate the acid and saw a Dodge Dart turn into a jackrabbit. I ate this one burger at that show, and it became like real alarmingly conscious in my stomach. But no, I was reading the f'ing Bible and it was saying some weird shit! What?" said Camping.

Camping plans to watch television during Judgment Day. Sure, that's what I'd do on the day the world starts to come to an end, too. Watch television. “The whole world will be weeping,” he said. “I think I will have my eyes glued to the TV.”

Camping, how can you have your eyes glued to the idiot box while you're ascending into heaven? Is it one of those little portable televisions?

But what if some of the saved ones are the very ones responsible for quality television programming, and in their absence we get automatic re-runs of Saved by the Bell and some of the Scooby-Doo cartoons that featured the execrable "Scrappy Doo"? I don't want to be watching that shit while my home sinks into a yawning chasm.

Anyway, there are some important etiquette tips to keep in mind while being raptured. Manners matter!

1. Practice your "O Face" quietly and in the privacy of your own home, until it is super convincing. God knows when you're faking it! Unless you're really good at faking it.

2. "How do you do, Lord?" is preferable to "Heya! Have we met? Where are the canapés?"

3. Right before the moment of rapture, it's probably not a good idea to say: "Hold on. I just want to step out for one more quick smoke."

4. If anyone who is not saved tries to grab at the hem of your garment as you are being transported up to Heaven, well, why not let them? Aiding and abetting stowaways is a nice Christian impulse. I will wager that having these stowaways in Heaven will make it a more amusing place. They might start up a comedy improvisation troupe. I think we could make a good movie about this called The Madcap Stowaways about a funny group of bums and drunks who make it into heaven during the rapture. I will need lots of money to make this film. Please see Tip # 5.

5. Give away all your money quickly before 5/21. I recommend giving it to me. However, put it in some kind of deferred escrow account, because I don't want to be like that rich guy for whom entering Heaven is harder than a camel passing through the eye of a needle, or a baby passing through the vagina of a woman.

6. Heaven has a lot of verdant, grassy areas. Spike heels are not recommended. Please note that May 21st is before Memorial Day, not after. No white shoes at the Rapture party.

7. When God is talking, try not to take out your Blackberry. Total instant smiting. God has an unlimited family plan, and that includes Jesus and that Holy Spirit person who is always lurking about. He can smite without getting dinged by a mobile services provider, because he is Most Awesome.

8. Don't get all giddy and giggly and dance about hugging random strangers just because you got picked to be one of the chosen. That's totally gay, and God doesn't like gay stuff.

The Same 10 Questions I Always Ask Myself, Part the Eighth

2011-05-11T06:11:00.000-07:00

1. What are you wearing?
A brassiere made of gallbladders. Smudged glasses.

2. What's the nature of today's hypochondria?
The occasional ringing in my left ear is caused by a rapidly growing brain tumor that will soon cut off all sound and sense. I also think the doctor gave me the wrong prescription for my eyeglasses, and as a result I will soon go blind.

3. What was today's workout?
A punishing session of wrassling "Baby Sunshine" into his diaper while he slapped at me with snot-encrusted fingers.

4. How do you do what you do and stay so sweet?
I have wallpapered my writing den with the flesh of darling little animals, such as bunnies.

5. What's that burning smell?
That's the neighbor down the block, Crazy L, who is putting into effect her brutal Scorched Earth policy. First she put up the No Trespassing signs. Next will be the chain link fence complete with slavering dogs. Soon, she will install gun turrets on the roof to take down anyone who accidentally strolls across her property line with the "double tap" to the forehead.

I like what this does for our property values.

6. If you were an animal, what kind would you be?
A hot buttered bivalve.

7. What are you drinking, and why?
The hot, bitter mead of insatiable sorrow and jealousy.

8. In what ways hast thou offended?
Instead of going to church last week, I waited in the shrubbery outside the church and threw pickles at the churchgoers. I do this every weekend.

9. What's the next big thing?
Spam filters made out of actual SPAM, designed to catch unwary tourists and people with unfortunate surnames like "Fagina" in their rubbery, pink coils.

10. Music selection?
Elbow: "Build a rocket, boys!"

Eat Me! A Blog Award That Will Swell You Up Like a Tick

2011-05-09T14:03:00.000-07:00

I got another blog award. And it's edible! This was a gift from the Most Wonderful Cherie at Ready. Write. Go., who has continued to send me awards and bestow affection on me. Her niceness is unparalleled—maybe only paralleled by that magical bunny that came by yesterday and threw diamonds on my rotting front porch. (Is paralleled the appropriate word? Editor!) Here is the tasty award:

I think it's adorable that a deranged, profane, and usually drunk blogger who calls herself something that sounds vaguely porny like "Party Pony" would be given an award that smells like a Care Bear's vagina. Oh dear, did I just write that? Too late to delete it now. I knew I would soil this award thing sooner or later.

I am going to pass this beauty on to 15 bloggers as required. (This is starting to seem like a bigger Ponzi scheme than ever and I will surely wind up in the poky! Plus, I'm not sure I even know 15 bloggers who don't already have this award because I'm kind of a loser. But maybe I'll stalk a few new ones, who will then call me The Creepy Lady With the Sickly Sweet Pie Made Out of "My Pretty Pony's" Intestines.)

Before then, however, I have a special award for Cherie! At first, I couldn't come up with a gift for her that she didn't already have. But then! I remembered that I am the creator of the Hot Buttered Blog Award and have been hoarding it. And Cherie's blog is pretty well slathered in Hot Butter and deserves this award. Mmm. Butter. Here it is. No rules for this one. Just display and enjoy. More Hot Butter may be ladled out shortly so stay tuned.

Cherie, you are hot buttered!

Now for the sweet, sweet pie award. If you do not forward this to 15 bloggers within the hour your sheep and crops will be blighted. If you do forward it to 15 people you will be deluged by a hail of lifegiving beets, radishes, and hamburger sandwiches. Do not break the chain or I will have to murder you.

I'm giving you this award because something you once wrote or did pleased me. It may have nothing to do with how sweet you are. You may be secretly evil.

The rules:
1. Thank and link to the person who nominated me.
2. Share seven random facts about myself. This will be exhausting if you are a boring, depressed type of individual.
3. Pass the award to 15 blogging friends. This will be exhausting if you are a loser and have few friends.
4. Contact the winners to congratulate them.
5. Display the award on your blog should you desire. If you are a man and wish to maintain a certain level of dignity, you will be allowed and are in fact encouraged to say subversive things about the award.

Salt in Wound

Baked Ziti

Moonfun

Kalen

Marewolf

Nina Badzin

T.S. Welti

Aurora Smith

Jen Daiker

Jenn Johansson

t-t-tori

Nascent Niknud

C'Mere

Sydney Salter

Anna Zagar

7 Random Facts:

1. Rutabagas are amusing.
2. I don't care for ticks.
3. I stopped eating gluten two weeks ago, in the hopes that it will cure my madness. Has it worked? You be the judge.
4. Two of my boys have names that I have rarely heard elsewhere, except for those of a horse and a dog.
5. For one Halloween, I dressed as "ballet pumpkin." I was in my twenties.
6. I always wanted a pony but I never got one. Now I have this blog.
7. I once threw lentils out the sunroof of my car at a passing stranger.

Wild Shopping Cart Sighting: 5/6/11

2011-05-09T02:42:00.000-07:00

Since moving to the suburbs I have long been tracking the habits of wild shopping carts. In their quest to mate, battle for dominance in an ever-dwindling habitat, and collect the most Bud Lite cans and Chinese food takeout cartons, they are noble beasts and well worth this budding naturalist's attention.

Do not stalk them without proper training, however, as some carts can be quite fierce. Many a hopeful amateur naturalist with a camera has been savaged by a seemingly innocent cart.

I urge you to seek my forthcoming book Lesser-Known Shopping Carts of Southern Westchester for more details and some stunning color photographs.

Imagine my delight when I came upon this rare beauty, sunning herself by the local Applebees!

Gently, I drew closer, afraid of startling the creature.

Her pelt was quite glossy, although she seemed thin. Clearly, she had weathered the harsh winter safely. I wondered if perhaps spring would bring her a suitable mate. Could it be that soon there would be a bevy of little shopping carts to grace our streets, wobbling forward on rickety, moist legs? Rapture.

But Man, cruel Man, always interferes. He cannot leave nature alone. He must tame it, subdue it, break its spirit! Not long after, I spied this magnificent cart being corralled by a posse of young hooligans. They lashed at her and laughed with much sniggering and foul language. Was this free and wild cart to be used for sport—perhaps even as a diversion at children's birthday parties?

But lo, she broke loose! With the hooligan clinging desperately to her back, she galloped with abandon to free herself. I could hear her triumphant whinny as she reached the crest of the hill. The hooligan screamed in terror. They vanished.

Later I shall go down to the river's edge and look for her again. It must be days before she recovers from this insult. No doubt the hooligan's broken body is floating out to sea. His friends, sad yet wiser, will not lightly approach a shopping cart again!

What's in the Box?

2011-05-05T18:30:00.000-07:00

My husband got a box for his birthday. He wondered, "What could be in this big box?"

Whatever was inside must be very valuable! Perhaps it was a glass sculpture.

It must be very large, too!

The item came encased in much padding.

When autopsied, the padding was made of a white foamy substance. It could not be destroyed by man-made force or by nature.

Boxes within boxes were about to unleash their secret!

More wrappings! The gift must be very fragile and precious indeed. Our anticipation was high.

They were revealed. The item on the left is a little spoon used for dipping olives or cherries out of a jar. The item on the right is a garlic press. Oh, fragile beauties, only the grace of God could have prevented damage to you on your treacherous voyage to our home. Can we even touch you? Nay. You will go into a precious cabinet, and we will gaze at you from time to time. The person who so lovingly packaged you has destroyed our planet in one swift stroke, but no matter: You are safe.

Flash 55 Blog Challenge!

2011-05-04T17:38:00.000-07:00

A challenge: Flash us! Trim a blog entry to 55 words max. Say something witty, dimwitted, scatological, eschatological. Direct eyes via “comments” to the slim gams you revealed under that trench. Hide them hamhocks. You can eke out more mileage with ginormous and verbosalicious vocabulary, if it suits, but keep ‘er clean ‘n’ pithy. Yar!

(55 words)

Oh sir, your blog entry is so wee, so compact! But your photo caption is so lardy and fat. Did I mention that captions don't count in the word count? No, they don't! May I mention it again? I feel I have a lot to say here. Blah biddy blah biddy blah. So anyway, he or she who posts the best Flash 55 blog entry in this cockamamie scheme may get a special award from ME! If your picture caption is as painfully rambling as mine is, you will most certainly get extra points. My award will probably be offensive to the eyes and you'll want to tuck it into your sock drawer immediately, away from prying eyes. But hey, why not try to fly close to the sun? Just like that Greek guy with the wings made of wax and bits of gargled cat hair and denuded birds.

Here's to You, Anita Howard

2011-05-03T11:27:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I was feeling rather low. I was consorting with worms, and sticking my head into the compost bin to drown out the harsh and awful daylight.

The words "pull yourself together" could not be more apt for a person like me who struggles with panic and anxiety on a frequent basis. At its worst, fierce panic makes one feel like one is literally "falling apart." These clichés were born of truth.

I had days that were not good. Sometimes I had maniacal thoughts: that my kneecaps would just plain fall off my legs, or that my teeth would fall out into my soup. It's called "personality disintegration" or "depersonalization."

I tried many things, including fancy lights, tinctures, pills, breathing through only one nostril.

I also had what's called "derealization"--that funny sensation that the world is not real. I swam out into the world wearing fogged and hopeless goggles. I forgot how to get home, sometimes.

(The story of all this is being told in a book I'm writing called PURSUED BY BEARS. I hope it will one day have a spine, rather than a blinking cursor on a screen.)

Then one day a fellow writer named Anita Howard visited my blog from Query Tracker, and left me one of the nicest comments I have ever received. I had been keeping this blog for a long while, but hadn't even bothered to tell my neighbors about it. (It is a pity that I've told them now, because now I can't write about them as freely. Oh neighbors, I wouldn't say a thing about you, and you know that!)

Some friends had read my blog, sure, and they said awfully nice things as well. But Anita was a stranger. And she talked to me like she was an old friend. I knew right off that she was a good egg.

You probably know her. As another blogger recently said, "she knows all the cool kids." If you don't, go and visit her. I'll bet she'll say something nice to you, too. And she'll mean it. No fakies.

I wanted to say thanks, Anita. Because one never knows when that kind gesture, that thoughtful word of hope, that effort to take time out to reach out to someone will matter. It's true online and in our everyday lives. Smile at a dour person you pass on the street and say hello, and see how his or her face changes. It's magic, ain't it? (Unless they are touched in the head, in which case they may bite you with razor-sharp fangs. Best to be warned. It's not my fault if this happens.)

Here's another fat cliché: Ray of sunshine. And another: Ray of hope.

So yesterday Anita gave me this blog award--one of many that she has given to some other wonderful writers on this Bloggy Wonderland post. It sort of says that I am mad as a hatter. In fact, that's exactly what it says.

If I'm mad enough to startle when a butterfly flaps its wings in Tibet, or despair at my own lurching heart, or count and multiply the ceiling tiles in an effort to avoid staggering into a ditch of my own making, then I am also mad enough to dream, to write, to run for the far borders of my imagination.

Thanks for the reminder, Anita. Oh, and you get the Bacon Award AND the Hot Buttered! I don't suppose you want the sebaceous cyst award? Didn't think so. Damn it.