grousing

We have stomach flu in our house which means everything will smell like bleach for days--I'm paranoid--and we're all waiting and waiting and waiting. . .who's going to be walloped next?

The one victim (boy3) has taken up residence in our bed with his bucket. Since there's no room, I've moved into his bed. It's cleaned up. Smells like bleach. I don't feel like a bad mother for abandoning him. I spent the day and most of last night with him. Tag, Mike's It, again.

From here I can hear the sounds of Orson Scott Card's Empire. The boys got the audiobook on the last trip to the library. It sounds horribly like the headlines gone nutz as written by an extreme conservative who is wistfully waiting for the next shoe to drop. I can't listen and not just because I'm not up for fiction about Al Queda. Terrists terrists terrists.

It's kind of fun hearing him mention D.C. locations I know well, even if most of them are sort of standard tourist locations. (sidenote: Terrorist and Tourist? ever notice how they sound kinda the same in Bush-ese?) The boys like it. It must have some story, even though all I can hear is one particular character pontificating, a lot.

Heck, I'm not in the mood to razz Scott Card or any other writer.

I ran across a random comment about my own stuff--mocking the lack of hot sex I write. Technically I didn't run across it, it was dumped in my mailbox. That'll teach me to hit the "sign up for responses in the comments" area for SBTB. I've spent more than five minutes thinking about this, which is five minutes too long, considering all the pontificating I do about Water Off a Duck's back. We're not even talking a long, "rip the writer another one" review. Bah.

The first read of a bad review is a lot like throwing up. The event isn't as hideous to an outsider, even one who's BTDT. As my kid said, you don't know how rotten I feel at this moment.

He's probably right. Memory ain't ever going to beat that particular moment's reality.

I recall enough to know about barfing and bad reviews that if I have to pick--and too bad I don't get to--I'd rather read a few unpleasant remarks about my writing than deal with stomach flu.

I'd rather have listen to Orson Scott Card's poli-talk-fest than do either of the first two. And this, even though, according to a review I read at Amazon, at some point he's going to compare Al Gore to the Unabomber.

I don't think it's fair that I might have to do all three.

I think I'll put on ear-plugs and listen to Gnarls Barkley and write some tepid sex.