Humorous Sci-fi Goes Audio -and- the Winter of Our Self-Burglarization

Well, it's been a 24 hours of firsts for me. The first, er, first was summoning up the courage to not only read my work aloud but share a snippet of the first chapter of The Purloined Number with real and actual people. Normally, this is a performance only experienced by my two cats. And of them, only Alice is really ever very interested. 

So, yup, if anyone was ever curious about what I sound like, this is pretty much it.

The second first for me was this morning, when Old Man Winter decided that all the snow-shoveling wasn't enough to ensure I got a good ab workout. Nope, he thought that for funsies he should call on his buddy the SnowMiser to seal all of my car doors shut.

It was somewhere before any tears escaped to freeze on my cheeks that I realized I could, however, get my trunk open. And the trunk does have fold-down seats. 

So, into the trunk I went, sliding into the back seat, kicking the back door open, and then climbing into the front and giving that a good kick, too. It was like Ocean's 11, only more Thorson's One, so kind of low budget.

I must say, there's a certain surreality about climbing into your own trunk. I feel like I have a better appreciation for characters in mafia flicks now.

So that's the news for today. Me, I'm off to have a cup of tea, which I plan to use mainly to drive circulation back into two of my fingertips. I'd like to keep them, if I can. They balance out the hand so nicely.

Hope you all are hanging in there okay during this winter of our discontent. --Jenn

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PS-- OHHH! I almost totally forgot! I wanted to mention here some very cool news. I now know the title for the third and final There Goes the Galaxy book in the series! It will be called Tryfling Matters.

I had been driving to work, not really even thinking about the title, when it just popped into my head. The aliens in my book's universe call our planet Tryfe and the people here, Tryflings. Plus, much of the action this time around centers on Tryfe.

Gotta love the human mind. Always on the job!

Our Lady of Gravity and Perpetual Contusion

It'll be a new trend in women's businesswear! Flared trousers with salt and blood stains at the knee and down the calf, and suede knee-boots with matching salt residue trim just at the toe. Eye-makeup will coordinate with ice-scraper-shaped bruising and contusions at the temple.

I think, if I play it right, it will be all the rage for the 2011 winter fashion season.

The event that spawned such design brilliance, however, some might say lacks the glamor and grace of the collection's obvious runway possibilities.

Black ice and a top layer of rain on what I thought were well-salted concrete steps sent me-- in the high-heeled boots I'd considered particularly fetching only moments before-- bouncing and jouncing down each stair, individually, like a fleshy stone skipping off a particularly unyielding lake.

Bump! Clump! Flump! Glump! Pomp! Schlump!

The heels which I never wear much because I am under normal circumstances too tall to not look like some giantess barging in uninvited on the year's hottest dwarf cocktail party were handy in one respect. Because they go up to the knee, they protected nobly considering they were not chainmail... or made by the aforementioned dwarves.

Getting up, I Dorothy Hamilled myself over to the car, and realized I had not yet made the full fashion statement I really needed for Success. So I clocked myself in the face with my own ice scraper on a particularly defiant chunk of windshield ice.

The things we do for high fashion, right ladies?

Tomorrow, I believe I will try something new. Before I leave the house, I will ensconce myself entirely in bubble wrap.

True couture innovation never ends.