Louise stood me up for the Neil Gaiman signing last night. I got her a book signed anyway. She’s lucky I didn’t have it signed to Sucko McSuckypants. That’s Scottish, right? Feh, I owed her a signed book anyway. But that is not the point. I did run into someone from work, so I didn’t have to sit all by myself.

Speaking of spiders – Neil Gaiman’s latest book is about Anansi the African Spider God. And his sons. – lately the little buggers have been trying to trap me in my house. Many many little freakies have been building their webs above and around the doors to my house. Sometimes spanning the doorway, from shrub to shrub, in the middle of the night so I walk straight into it in the morning, resulting in a little dance in which i drop everything to swat at myself, jumping about the driveway, and brushing off dozens and dozens of invisible spiders. And shrieking. Like a girl. Here’s the thing, these spiders? They only come out at night. And they are HUGE mutherfucking spiders. I am serious. I know I am prone to exaggeration. At times. But these creepy spiders are ginormous. Ok, they are not tarantulas, but I am thinking that there were some weird mutant spiders born in my yard over the summer. Because I have never seen so many that big.

I asked my stepdad about them, and he said, “Oh, yes, well it’s getting colder, they are starting to move in.”

“Move in? Move in how? What move in?”

“Move in closer to the house, in the house, they do it every year.”

“Over my dead arachnophobic body!”

So I have to use a broom and play web demolition. I don’t like to do it, webs are pretty and look like hard work. But there ain’t no freakin’ way I am letting them slide their leggies into my house. Besides, why do they have to hang out in my doorways? Why do they have to attach themselves to my recycling bin? There are two sides of the house I never visit, why don’t they go build their communities over there? They probably have, I just haven’t looked. There is probably a whole cabana of spiders living outside my bedroom window. Well, they are all coming down. New rule, webs are only welcome 10 feet from the house, and may not touch the house, my car, or my trash receptacles. I’m arming myself with my broom when I get home. Before it gets dark, that is.

I’ve been very bad about updating my books I am reading section. As well as the books I’ve read page. I just updated that with 4 books I’ve recently finished. And added a book down below that I am about to start: The Historian. I’m also re-reading a book I love:

“Bird by Bird : Some Instructions on Writing and Life” (Anne Lamott)

I’m sure if I talk up this book one more time… well, just take my word for it. Even if you don’t write, it’s delightful.

I have one final thing to tweak with the redesign, and I cannot figure it out. It’s driving me nuts. But if you go to any category archive page, you can see the titles and underlines do not behave as other pages. Even the they all use the same styles. I really cannot figure it out. It’s driving me batty.

And with that, I will take my batty brain to bed.

I am reading the most delightful book right now, “The Shadow of the Wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Actually, I am almost finished. I went home yesterday and picked it up, to start it, thinking I would be reading it over the next week or so, it’s almost 500 pages. But I could not put it down. I kept reading until around midnight, when I was just too sleepy to keep going. The title is from the book, from one of the more enjoyable characters I’ve read in a while, Fermín Romero de Torres.

On the radio this morning, the dj’s were talking about advice for graduates. Some woman called up and said the best advice she had was to do what you love to do, do what you did naturally at about 8 or 9 years old, because that is probably your passion. So I thought about it, and these are the things I can remember doing. [I don’t have the best memory]

• watching tv, mostly sitcoms and cartoons
• eating candy
• finding money to buy more candy so I could eat it.
• reading
• playing with barbies
• building forts, both inside and outside.
• engaging in a pine cone war with the neighbors
• riding my bike
• playing a game with the neighborhood kids we called “murder!” Could only be played at night.
• playing a game with the neighborhood kids we called “babies.” Could only be played in the basement of the Murray house.
• playing elaborate games of fantasy that required a great deal of back story. And horses.
• swimming
• writing letter’s to Donny and Marie, as well as the cast of Little House on the Prarie
• interviewing people with my little tape recorder
• singing and telling stories into my little tape recorder
• convincing the youngest Murray kid to do whatever we told him to do. Run out the house naked… eat a slug…. I was really not the ringleader here. My brother was.
• listening to my mom’s records. Either with giant headphones on my head, or while dancing and singing in the living room. Depended on the album.
• avoiding my brother and his wrath
• sledding
• eating more candy
• playing in my grand parent’s bar before it opened, pouring cokes with four cherries
• not doing my math homework.
• occasionally telling some pretty wild stories. some might call them lies. I call them stories.
• Playing dress up.
• not cleaning my room
• living in a fantasy world all my own.
• contemplating my existence in the universe and the meaning of life.
• listening to music on my little radio.
• trying to look into the windows of the funeral parlor across the street from my Grandparent’s motel, to see if we could see a dead body. Answer: no.

And I probably rounded the whole thing off with more tv watching, candy eating, and book reading. Can someone please tell me, now, what I should be when I grow up?

Hey kids, I’ve been reading like mad. I have a bunch of books due back at the library, and I’m trying to keep my late fees under $10. seriously. I’ve had fines in the $100’s of dollars, before I turned stuff back in they were charging as lost. Audio book cd’s coast a fortune!

I still have one more day off. No, I’m not rubbing it in or anything. I’m just saying… I have one more day off. Earlier today I had a psychic premonition that I would want to make chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips and I was right! Good thing I bought that coco and those peanut butter chips. So I am going to go make those cookies now. Those of you who have to go back to work tomorrow, can go prepare yourself mentally. And I’ll see you tomorrow when I pretend I am going to clean up my office!

I finally finished my first book review over at Satan’s Bookclub. You wouldn’t think it would be so hard. I learned some lessons. Some hard, painful, life changing lessons.

1. There is no shame in reviewing a book while intoxicated, as long as you spell check when you are done.
2. Finish the book…. that’s right, the entire thing.
3. If you are stuck, eat some deep friend potato foodstuffs. It helps.
4. Trying to talk smack is not as easy as just talking smack.
5. Take notes as you read the next book to review.
6. Don’t read any books, articles or webpages about how to write a good book review, because they are crap.

If you’d like to be alerted when the next brilliant book review comes out, or the fabulous goings on in the bookclub itself, mosey on over to Satan’s Bookclub and sign up for the mail lists. What Jesus doesn’t know, won’t hurt him.