The Wandering Zebra

You'd think RETURNING something was a criminal act. O.o

2011-12-06T15:21:00.000-06:00

So, last week I posted about accidentally ending up with a creepy turtle figurine that the Walmart checkout girl failed to charge me for. Since I do have a conscience (shut up, Rob), I took my receipt along this weekend when I made another pilgrimage to Wally World. But I didn't take the figurine along, since a) it was already in my fish tank, and b) I had removed the sticker from the bottom with the UPC code on it. I figured I could just grab another one from the shelf, take it to checkout, explain the situation, and pay for the identical item.

Well.

It would appear that Walmart is unaccustomed to dealing with honest customers, because you would have thought I was handing the cashier a dirty diaper and asking to return it.

Me: (after waiting patiently for an elderly woman to take approximately two and a half weeks to pay for her three items, put her change away, and putz out of the line) Hello. I bought one of these the other day (holding up the replacement creepy turtle figurine), and wasn't charged for it.

Checkout Guy: Huh?

Me: Um. I bought this? Couple days ago? But it's not on my receipt.

CG: ...

Me: So, I'd...um. Like to pay for it?

CG: Oh. *scans the creepy turtle figurine, and reaches for a bag*

Me: No, I don't want that one.

CG: What?

Me: I already have a creepy turtle figurine. I'm just trying to pay for it, since I never got charged.

CG: So...you don't want it?

Me: No.

CG: *rolls eyes, places turtle on shelf behind him, taps a few keys on the register* Is there anything else I can help you with today?

Me: Yes! I am trying to pay for that creepy turtle figurine!

CG: ...

----

I'm going to skip the rest of the conversation. It very nearly took an act of Congress just to pay for a two-dollar turtle figurine that will probably kill me in my sleep.

Thanks a lot, Walmart.

Is it even a criminal act if you're doing them a favor?

2011-12-01T11:01:00.000-06:00

I don't usually save receipts, so the universe must be taunting me by making me read this one. Because I totally stole a creepy turtle aquarium ornament from Walmart. Not intentionally, I swear! But I happened to pull this receipt out of my pocket, and for some strange reason was compelled to read it, and I realized the creepy turtle ornament isn't on it.

Just so you know what the hell I'm talking about, here is the turtle ornament in question:

That's Norman the betta fish, keeping a suspicious eye on the creepy (and slightly ill) Julian the turtle.

Even though I'm an honest sort of zebra, I figured my conscience could live with an overlooked two-dollar turtle figurine. Especially since the thing is probably possessed by some deranged lunatic hell-bent on instigating Norman to kill me in my sleep. (Hey, I said the lunatic was deranged, not smart. It's a well-known fact that deranged lunatics are somewhat lacking in reasoning skills. Shut up.)

Anyway, my point is that Walmart was probably thrilled to get rid of one of these creepy things. The cashier probably tossed it in a bag without scanning it, just to get it out of the store.

I totally did them a favor. I probably saved hundreds of lives by removing this thing so it can't bring on Walmart-pocalypse or something.

You're welcome, Walmart. You owe me one.

An Ode to the General

2011-08-09T08:00:00.002-05:00

It's An Army of Ermas Day (Yes, it's a real day - we just made it up), and it's time to ~~acknowledge~~ ~~ridicule~~ honor our ~~head lunatic~~ fearless leader, Stacey Graham. For the past year-ish, she has herded us cats as well as anyone could, all while gracefully balancing a family, book projects, and that knitted cozy for her zombie-slaying bat. So please, drop by her website to say hello and ~~berate~~ thank her for making An Army of Ermas what it is today. And if you know what it is today, can you please tell us? Because we have no idea...

And now, an Ode to Our Leader:

*clears throat*

Stacey's mob has got it goin' on
Stacey's mob has got it goin' on
Stacey's mob has got it goin' on
Stacey's mob has got it goin' on

Stacey, I think your army is so coo-oo-oo-oo-ool
(army's so cool)
We call ourselves Ermas and act like foo-oo-oo-oo-ools
(act like fools)
Do people know it's not all an act?
(not an act)
Can they tell your job is like herding ca-a-a-a-ats?
(herding cats)

You know, we may not be the sanest bunch you'll see,
But grownups couldn't make such great comedy.

Stacey's mob has got it goin' on,
We're all nuts, but you know you laugh along.
Stace, we wouldn't be
The group of loons you see;
I know blaming you is wrong, but
You're to blame for Stacey's mob.

*takes a bow*

*dodges rotten tomatoes*

*exits, Stage Left*

Messing with 419s

2011-08-08T11:39:00.003-05:00

So yesterday I received the following email:

FROM THE DESK OF MR FADI FAJARUDDIN.
MANAGER AUDIT&ACCOUNT DEPT,
BANK OF AFRICA OUGADOUGOU
BURKINA-FASO.

I am Mr. fadi fajaruddin Manager Audit/Accounting Department BANK OF AFRICA (B.O.A) Ougadougou Burkina-Faso, i would like to know if this proposal will be worth while for your acceptance.i have a Foreign Customer,Manfred Hoffman from Germany who was an Investor, Crude Oil Merchant and Federal Government Contractor, he was a victim with Concord Air Line, flight AF4590 killing 113 people crashed on 25 July 2000 near Paris leaving a closing balance of Nineteen Million Three Hundred Thousand United States Dollars ($19.3m) in one of his Private US dollar Account that was been managed by me as his Customer's Account Officer.

Base on my security report, these funds can be claimed without any hitches as no one is aware of the funds and it's closing balance except me and the customer who is (Now Deceased) therefore, I can present you as the Next of Kin and we will work out the modalities for the claiming of the funds in accordance with the law.

Now,if you are interested and really sure of your trustworthy,accountability and confidentiality on this transaction without dissapointment, contact me through my email for further details.i expect your letter.

our sharing ratio will be 50% for me and 40% for you.while 10% will be for the neccesary expenses that might occur along the line.

i expect your reply urgently.

N.B.In other for you to beleive my honesty try and go through this
(website)before you start with me.

Below is the website.

(he linked to a BBC News article about a plane crash)
sincerely
Mr fadi fajaruddin.

--------

I've received these before, but it's been a long time since I messed with one of these jackwagons. So I decided to send him a reply, from a different email address with no information that can be linked back to me, because I'm not an idiot. Here's what I sent:

"Hello. My name is Bella Cullen, and my friend Alice sent me the message which you sent to her email address, because she is unfortunately unable to help you, because she got into that fight with the air marshal on her last overseas flight, and now she's forbidden from owning a passport or having any communication with other countries. It's so stupid. I mean, you slap one stupid air marshal for ogling your cleavage, and suddenly you're on the no-fly list AND on the FBI terrorism watch list? What is this country coming to?

Anyway, sorry, I got off subject. It's just been a traumatic month, you know?

So, back to the subject of your email. Just to be clear, you want me to claim this dead guy's 19.3 million US dollars, and in return I get to keep 40%? Is that fair? I mean, I'm the one doing the claiming, shouldn't I be the one getting the 50% and you be the one paying the 10% in necessary expenses? Of course, I'm no business woman - hell, I don't even have a job. All the money I have, I inherited from my dearly departed uncle Carlisle. God, I loved that man. He was my favorite uncle. I used to love sitting on his lap when I was a little girl.

Anyway, I can't wait to get all these little details figured out, because I've had my eye on an authentic light saber that was actually used to make Star Wars IV, and my uncle left this silly clause on my inheritance saying I can only use it for "legitimate living expenses" until I turn 25, which is TWO WHOLE MONTHS away, and I just can't wait that long. Now I won't have to sell my body to get that light saber, so thank you, my darling savior.

xoxo
Bella"

I'll let you know if he takes the bait. >:)

Gadgetry

2011-02-25T12:10:00.001-06:00

Ooh, got a new phone and it has the Opera browser, so I can post to my blog from my phone. Look out, dear reader, for you will now get extra doses of my inanity. :-P

Hey, Mom?

2011-02-25T09:59:00.000-06:00

I'm trynta sleep here.

Who the heck works in bed, anyway??

Teaser Tuesday. Okay, Wednesday

2010-11-17T10:31:00.002-06:00

So what if I'm a day late? I'll do what I want. Don't judge me.

Anyway, here's a bit of my NaNo project. This scene takes place shortly after Penny shoots an intruder in her house. I posted tiny snippets of this on Facebook yesterday, but wanted to share this whole clip. I love the way Penny and Nick interact with each other in this scene.

####

Nick

Here's an example of something that is not fun in any way at all: explaining to your ex-wife, who happens to still be your business partner, that you stole something from a former client. That "not-fun" quality is multiplied by a thousand when the ex-wife and partner in question is Penny Moran.

We stood in their kitchen, trying to decide where we should go. Cullen sat quietly in a chair by the window, scratching absently at the bite wound on his neck. Poor bastard. I had no love for the twit, but I knew what he was in for. I wouldn't go through that again for all the brains in the world.

"What got stolen from your car?" Penny asked. She leaned against the counter, blond hair pulled into a sleek ponytail, legs crossed, looking too gorgeous to be fair.

"It was a file," I explained, trying to keep my eyes above her neck. "I was after this guy's financial records. Edward James. His wife was about to become his ex and wanted to make sure she got her share plus one."

"Why don't I remember this case?"

I braced myself. This was the part I'd been dreading telling her. "I was working for her...sort of...well, under the table, I guess you'd say."

She stared at me for a moment, then narrowed her eyes.

"I should shoot you," she said, in her quiet, 'I'm going to shoot you' voice.

"It wasn't a high-paying--"

"I don't give a shit, Nick! Equal partners, that's what we agreed when we decided to keep the firm open after the divorce. 'Equal partners' means we don't take 'under the table' jobs. Though I shouldn't be surprised. You always were a prick."

"Glad you still have feelings for me," I said.

"Do you think you might have run across the guy in my bedroom during your Edward James escapade?" Penny asked.

"Not sure. I'd have to see the guy in your bedroom first."

She rolled her eyes and pushed away from the counter. "So come on and take a look."

I gave her what I hoped was a rakish grin. "Are you asking me to accompany you to your bedroom?"

She glared at me and swept out of the room. Cullen didn't even look up when we left the kitchen.

We stood and stared down at the corpse for a minute or two. "Yep," I said, after what seemed an appropriate pause.

"You recognize him?"

"No, I meant 'Yep' as in 'Yep, he's dead.'"

She put her hand on the butt of her gun. "You are really tempting me today, Nicky."

I hate being called 'Nicky.' I got the feeling that was why she said it.

"Okay, okay. Sorry. I don't recognize him. Happy now?"

"No." She turned half away from me, crossed her arms, and chewed her bottom lip while she stared down at the guy's face. Goddammit, she still looked smoking hot.

"Listen, Pen, we should get out of here. He might have friends."

"Bastard came into my house, Nick."

"I know. I'd be pissed too."

"He pointed a gun at me. In my house."

"I know, Pen. I'd be homicidal if I were in your shoes. Mostly because they're far too small for me."

"He clubbed my husband. In our house."

"Sorry. You lost me on that one."

She punched me in the chest so fast I had no time to defend myself.

"This is serious, you prick!"

"Ow! Christ, Penny, you don't know your own strength."

"Yes. Yes I do." She headed for the door. "Let's go."

"Where?" I asked, rubbing the painful dent her fist had left in my chest. If I'd still been mortal, it would have turned into a nasty bruise.

"To find Edward James and ask him just who the hell is lying dead on my bedroom floor."

"Sounds like fun. I'll make popcorn."

"Shut the hell up, Nick."

"Right."

Hm.

2010-10-20T15:18:00.000-05:00

Do you know that feeling you get, like someone's watching you but there's no one there? The hairs on the back of your neck start to stand up, gleefully ignoring your hatred of cliches, and it starts to feel like the skin across the back of your shoulders is trying to creep around and down your arms without you noticing? Then you sorta break out in a light sweat and jump at the slightest noise, or a breeze blowing across your neck?

No, I don't feel like that. I'm just asking.

Oh, the places you’ll go.

2010-10-18T06:00:00.000-05:00

I haven’t gone far in my travels yet. I’ve stayed pretty much within a couple hundred miles of home, always taking care of “one last thing” until today when I finally realized I’ve one last thing’d myself into staying up here a month after I said I was leaving. But hey – gimme a break. This shit’s a little intimidating.

Intimidating or no, however, I have to get moving. The nights are getting colder, and while I take cold pretty well, nighttime temperatures in the 30’s can cool your enthusiasm for a camping trip pretty fast.

Ha! See what I did there? “Cool your enthusiasm.” Cuz I was talking about it being cold. Aren’t I clever?

Ahem. Where was I'? Oh yeah – gotta get moving. First I will be heading south. The original plan was to head for the west coast and hit zombcon with Stacey, but I don’t relish the idea of coming back through the mountains late in the season when there will likely be snow in the upper altitudes, and my mother would scalp me if I found myself unable to come back for the holidays.

So south it is. Heading down through Missouri, stopping to visit Trish for a few days, and then off to warmer climes for a month.

I’ll be leaving Monday.

I just have one more thing to take care of…

Get yer freak on...somewhere else.

2010-10-16T05:31:00.001-05:00

'Kayso, yesterday was a total creepfest.

The day started out fine. I got up, ran a few errands, and went back to my campsite to have lunch. Some teenage kid was at the campground on his bike (it's an in-town campground), and he rode into the picnic shelter and just stood there for a minute. I didn't think much of it; there are usually a lot of people in and out of the campground throughout the day. I got engrossed in my lunch preparations, and forgot about him.

Went to town in the afternoon to get some work done. I was gone for a couple of hours. When I got back to my tent, the kid was at the campground again, just riding around. Again I didn't think much of it. Went in my tent and decided to take a nap. I'd just got comfortable when my dog threw a fit. I got up to see what her problem was, and got to a window just in time to see the kid ride his bike out of the trees behind my tent. There's a fence back there, so he had to have ridden around my tent, behind it, and back out the other side.

'Kay, that's a little weird, I thought to myself, but again wrote it off as kids screwing around.

I laid back down and went to sleep. I slept for about an hour, then got up, walked the dog, then tied her outside behind the tent because it was nice out. I went back inside and grabbed my computer to do some work. I kept hearing whistling (wolf whistles) from various places around the campground, but it was getting late in the afternoon by then and I figured it was kids out playing.

Ten minutes after I sat down, the dog went apeshit. Figuring a cat or squirrel must have run by and set her off, I went out and grabbed her, and brought her back inside the tent with me. She stayed agitated; would not settle down. She was, frankly, driving me nuts, and I snapped at her. I feel really guilty about that now.

Then I heard the whistling again, and looked up. About 50 feet in front of my tent was the information board for the campground. In front of it was the kid I'd been seeing on his bike all day. He waved one hand in the air to make sure I was watching, then he started furiously masturbating.

Now, this where I'd like to tell you I grabbed the hammer I keep near my pillow in the tent and went out to confront him, maybe making some witty comment in the process. Unfortunately, no matter how tough we think we are, such unexpected weirdness throws us all off-kilter, and I just sat there in shock for a minute.

It was starting to get dark, so I couldn't see clearly (a mercy, I'm sure), but I could very well see what he was doing. Then he pointed at me while he continued.

That's when I called 911.

I was still on the phone with the operator when another camper drove into the campground, and my little admirer stopped what he was doing and just sat on his bike waiting for them to go away so he could resume.

Displaying the lightning response time you can only get in a small town, the cop showed up maybe two minutes later. The kid saw him pull into the campground and rode off, but there's only one way out of that campground so he had to go right past the cop car. The cop stopped him and talked to him for a good half hour. By that time, I was already packing my stuff out of the tent and back into my car.

The cop finally finished with the kid and came to talk to me. Here's how that conversation went:

Cop: So what happened?

Me: Well, that kid's been lurking around the campground all day, and then a little bit ago he sat over there and masturbated after making sure I was watching.

Cop: Did he expose himself?

Me: I'm not entirely sure. It's starting to get dark, and he was 50 feet away across the drive.

Cop: So did he have his penis out?

Me: *pause* Uh, I don't know for sure, I guess. But there was no mistaking what he was doing.

Cop: He's fifteen.

Me: *silently staring at him for a minute* Uh...okay.

Cop: I've already talked to his mom. I'll go over there now and chew his butt.

Me: Thanks.

Cop: How long are you staying?

Me: *looking at my half-disassembled campsite* I'm not staying. I'm packing up and going somewhere else.

Cop: That's up to you, but I do patrol this park twice a night.

Me: *staring at him for another minute* That's nice. And the several hours in between patrols?

Cop: I'm going to go chew his butt. I'll tell him he's banned from the park for a couple of days.

Me: Gee, thanks. I'm sure he'll do exactly what he's told, just like every other teenager does.

Cop: *glaring at me* Well, it's up to you, of course. If you're not comfortable...

Me: I'm not. Thanks.

He took down my address, phone number, social security number, what I would like to name my firstborn child, and a vial of blood, then left. I finished packing up my stuff, and had just finished taking down the tent when the cop showed back up at the campsite.

"Are you missing something?" he asked, in a somewhat accusatory tone.

I thought about it, and said, "I don't think so..." Then I realized that a box I kept little stuff like toiletries and contact solution in hadn't been among the things I'd packed up. Starting to feel even more violated I said, "No, wait -- there was a plastic box..."

"Did you bury it over there?" he asked, pointing deeper into the campground.

I have to say, I totally gaped at him at this point. What the fuck would I bury my box of toiletries in the campground for?? "Um, no. It was in my tent this afternoon. I feel stupid, but I didn't even realize it was gone until you asked. I usually leave it in my car."

"So you didn't hide it over in the trees?"

"No!" I was getting pretty exasperated at this point.

"Well, some kids found it earlier today. If you want to follow me back to the station I'll get it back to you."

"Sure."

I followed him to the station, signed a form to get my stuff back, and was on my way out when he asked, "So you're leaving tonight?"

I turned around and stared at him. "Yeah. I don't need another peep show, thanks."

So I left, had a late dinner and wrote this post, then went and slept in my car.

At least I got the freaky pervert part of my trip out of the way right up front. O.o

Oh, the people you’ll meet.

2010-10-15T06:00:00.002-05:00

This week has been an eventful one, as far as meeting interesting people goes.

By “interesting” I mean, for the most part, either “batshit crazy” or “pure asshole.”

We’ll begin with “pure asshole”: the old guy at McDonald’s a few days ago. At first he seemed like a fairly normal Old Guy. He looked like pretty much any other Old Guy in this area (this area being rural Iowa): baseball cap with seed company logo, 20-year-old snap-down shirt (because buttons are too damn much work at four in the morning), shitkicker boots, and jeans with the waistband secured firmly under his armpits. Don’t want those suckers falling down and giving all these ladies the vapors, right? Amiright?

Ahem. All was quiet until a caretaker in charge of three developmentally disabled adults brought them in for ice cream. They sat in the booth right next to mine. Old Guy was at another nearby table, drinking coffee at two in the afternoon and already shooting scowling glances at the fairly vocal table next to mine.

Hey, they were getting ice cream. They were excited.

The female member of the caretaker’s group turned around in her seat to look at me as I worked on my laptop behind her. I smiled at her. “Hi,” she said, using what was most definitely her Outside Voice. “Hi,” I replied.

“Pam,” scolded the caretaker. “It’s nice to say hello, but remember to use your Inside Voice.”

Pam looked chagrined.

Old Guy scowled.

“Sorry,” said Pam in a voice about a quarter decibel lower than the one she’d used previously.

Old Guy performed a classic Midwestern passive-aggressive show of disapproval: he made a disgusted chuffing noise into his coffee cup.

“No problem,” I said in the most cheerful voice I could muster.

Old Guy turned his scowl on me. I gave him my very best clueless blonde smile (sunny and vacant are the keys to effectively pulling this off) and went back to working.

A few minutes later, the caretaker gave up on trying to get one of the men to eat his ice cream on his own, and started spooning mouthfuls to him. Old Guy was really offended by this, signifying his disgust by rolling his eyes and turning his back on their table.

I took this as my cue – nay, my duty -- to resume my conversation with Pam.

“How’s the ice cream, Pam?” I said.

“It’s great!”

“That’s good. What’s your favorite kind of ice cream?”

“Chocolate!”

“Mine too. Do you put toppings on it?”

“I like sprinkles.”

At this, the two men piped up. They liked sprinkles too. Sprinkles were a big hit with this crowd. Although, one of them admitted, peanuts would be even better.

By now, the caretaker was looking at me with an expression half bemusement and half relief (“Oh, good, someone else is entertaining them and not acting like a complete ass because I dared to take them out in public”), and Old Guy was positively fuming. I was sure that with just one more small push, we’d get to see smoke boil out of his ears.

“Hey,” I told my three new best friends. “You know what I like even better than ice cream?”

They were dying to know what could be better than ice cream. I’ve never had such a rapt audience. Even Old Guy turned half the way back toward us, and I could tell he was positioning the better of his two hearing aids in order to not miss a word.

“Singing songs,” I said.

Old Guy didn’t wait around for our second chorus of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” Shame. I thought Ralph really nailed the harmony the second time around.

Tune in tomorrow, when I have a Close Encounter of the Creepy Kind.

Blue Earth, a cautionary tale.

2010-09-26T19:17:00.001-05:00

Once upon a time in southwest Minnesota there was a little village called Blue Earth. The people of Blue Earth were generally happy; skipping in the sunshine, picking wildflowers, and being irritatingly cheerful. Once a year, on the first of May when the sun was shining and the air was warm, they would hold a May Day celebration around the statue of their god, Arugula.

He looked down on his subjects with a knowing,
"I just farted" smile.

Arugula was a green-skinned god who usually went around wearing nothing more than a garment made of leaves (which was short enough to almost show off his Brussels sprouts) and a smile. He liked to watch butterflies flitting from flower to flower, squirrels chasing each other through the trees, and grass swaying in the breeze. He was, let’s face it, a fairly dull god. No bolts of lightning to fry those who displeased him; no cryptic orders for his followers delivered through burning shrubbery; not even images of his face showing up on breakfast pastries.

Snoresville.

But the villagers:

had erected the statue in his honor and added a gift shop from which they sold Arugula keychains, postcards, and commemorative statuettes.

One year, the high priestess of Blue Earth’s Arugulans

decided that the statue looked sort of creepy, and wouldn’t it be fun to liven up the May Day celebration by bringing it to life? (The high priestess had always despised the statue because it closely resembled the high priest of the next town, and that guy was just a jerk.)

She would do this by calling the god into the statue and trapping him there using various arcane rituals, powerful herbs, and lots of cheese sauce.

A thousand gallons of cheese sauce.

It took awhile to collect the cheese sauce, is what I’m saying.

Anyway, after some mumbo jumbo and plenty of good-natured ribbing by her irritatingly cheerful fellow townspeople, the high priestess managed to trap the god in the statue. All that remained was to add the cheese sauce to complete the binding and allow the statue to come to life. Unfortunately, the high priestess got the recipe wrong and added a thousand and one gallons of cheese sauce, figuring one can never have too much cheese sauce.

She was wrong.

The statue came to life, all right, but their formerly benevolent and relatively dim god became half-crazed with cheese overdose. Plus, he was a little disoriented from being trapped in a freaking statue.

Arugula went on a rampage, stomping through town, dripping cheese everywhere he went, and generally being a menace. The high priestess, feeling guilty for her mistake which had led to mass destruction and chaos, fled for her life and left the people to fend for themselves.

On the opposite side of town from where the statue had stood (before having a god forcibly injected into it) lived a small boy named Aaron. Aaron was blond, precocious, and too smart for his britches, if you know what I mean. The adults in the village usually felt uncomfortable around Aaron because he could, for instance, name all 50 presidents, in order by time served or alphabetically.

You know, things no normal American knows.

Aaron watched as his family and neighbors prepared to flee the village. He listened as they told wild tales about the statue of Arugula coming to life and rampaging through their sleepy little burg. Through his open window, he could smell the faint odor of cheese sauce wafting on the light breeze.

Aaron slipped past his parents, who didn’t notice him because they were too busy panicking and arguing over how many suitcases to pack. His father insisted that his mother always packed far too much for short journeys. His mother retorted that it was better to be prepared, and anyway this looked to be a long journey. His father told her it was unattractive for a woman to retort. Aaron closed the front door behind him so he wouldn’t have to hear the rest of the argument.

He went around to the back of the house, to the little garden shed. Inside, he found the long metal forks he and his parents used to roast hot dogs and marshmallows on their occasional camping trips. Then he went to the garden and started picking broccoli and cauliflower, both vegetables tasting so much better with a little cheese sauce. He went back inside and told his parents his plan.

They stopped arguing.

They looked at him.

They looked at each other.

They agreed that his plan was insane, and therefore brilliant. Gathering up the few neighbors that remained, and picking up other villagers as they went, they headed for the center of town, where the statue was amusing himself by playing hopscotch on the remains of City Hall.

Aaron speared a piece of broccoli on one of the forks, snuck up behind the statue, and dipped the broccoli in the cheese sauce running down the statue’s leg. He popped the morsel in his mouth, chewed for a moment, and declared it delicious.

The other villagers watched him in various states of uneasy, disturbed disgust. The children, especially, were revolted by Aaron’s deed. Eating vegetables? Gross! Not even to save their lives, is what the children decided. But no one could deny that this tiny little bit of cheese wiped off the statue’s leg had slowed it down a bit. Aaron speared another piece of broccoli, wiped up a bit more cheese, and popped it in his mouth.

Arugula frowned slightly, and tried to look over his shoulder to see the small boy standing behind his left heel, but the statue was too tall and steel and concrete are notoriously inflexible.

Aaron beamed at the villagers. He pointed out that his plan was working, and if they all would dip vegetables in the cheese sauce and eat it, all of the cheese would soon be gone and the god would no longer be trapped.

He smiled smugly at his own ingenuity.

That was when the statue took a half-step back and squished the small, infuriatingly brilliant boy.

Some time later, the fire department managed to wash the arcane bits off the statue and clean up the mess, but that’s not the moral of the story.

The moral of the story is this: Never, ever build large, super creepy statues of a giant green vegetable mascot in your town. And if you simply must do this, keep the cheese sauce far away.

BIC Bands and a giveaway.

2010-09-17T07:40:00.000-05:00

Hey, all -

Zebra's Big Adventure is still on hold. Stayed at Bug's longer than I intended, and now I'm at my mom's because we're going to the Renaissance Festival tomorrow. Stay tuned next week when I go back to Blue Earth to finally finish my write-up there. ;)

I did have to make a quick post, though, to tell you about a really cool project and giveaway. A runner developed a cool headband called a BIC band (BIC stands for Because I Can..."We run because we can, for those who can't so that one day they will.") It's a cool headband that stays on your head without riding up in back. And the lady who makes them is really creative - check out that link above and click on her photos page. These things are beautiful. And she's giving the proceeds to support The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

And Running Diva Mom is having a giveaway, so you can win your very own BIC band. You don't have to be a runner to appreciate these headbands. Heck, buy a couple just because the money's going to a good cause. Or enter the giveaway and win your very own. :)

Because I believe in overkill.

2010-09-14T13:45:00.001-05:00

As you know if you've been paying attention, I'm visiting Bug right now. Yes, I'm still here. Long story. Anyway, she told me I could earn my keep if I posted a review of her book, Dustin Time, on Amazon. I did, but I believe that anything worth doing is worth doing to death, so I'm also posting it here. That should earn me at least another dinner. ;)

So, here goes: "June Kramin has encouraged me to do what few authors of romance -- paranormal or not -- have done: Make me read an entire romance novel. Her characters are vivid and real, without the syrupy quality present in so many novels of this genre. The dialog is sharp, and you can almost hear the characters speaking it. Time travel, especially with as many time jumps as are present in this novel, can be confusing, but Kramin handles it with such skill that you're never jolted out of the story by the twists. The story, characters, and overall writing grabbed me, and I read the entire novel in one sitting. Definitely a recommended read."

As mentioned in my review, I'm not much of a romance reader. Just not my thing -- give me a thriller or horror novel any day. You can toss a romantic scene or two in there, but the overall story better be good. Well, June managed that. The story is great, the characters are realistic and make you give a damn about them, and while you never forget that the story is about the relationship between these two characters, June doesn't knock you over the head with the OMGLOVESTORYSQUEE!!!11! aspect of it, like some romance novels *cough* Harlequin *cough* would.

So, if you're reading this, please check out Dustin Time. It's a great read. :)

Blue Earth.

2010-09-10T06:00:00.002-05:00

Mine is the only, lonely tent in a sea of RVs.

You see, the Blue Earth campground is noted on RV sites because it’s pretty (for a fairground camp site) and because the first two nights are free. It’s not a very big campground, and there aren’t electric hookups at every site in it, but the RVs flock to it anyway. Right now there are a half dozen RVs here.

And me in my tent.

See that lonely tent? That's me.

I’ve been getting some funny looks from the RVers, most of which are older couples. I’m guessing they’re wondering what a 30-something woman is doing out camping in the middle of the week, with just her little dog for company, and sitting in the shelter with her computer most of the day. (I sit in the shelter because there are like 20 electric outlets in here, preventing me from having to sit outside in my lawn chair and get rained on, which would ruin my computer and then I wouldn’t be able to work, but more importantly I wouldn’t be able to write about my adventures for you three readers to follow, and that would be tragic.)

Totally gonna build a roaring fire in this sucker and see how many beer drinkers it attracts.

I put up with her because she's farkin' cute.

From the shelter, I can see my tent. It would be a very short walk, but I drive because a) my computer bag is *heavy* (imagine that in a very whiny voice), and b) I bring my dog with me and, while she’s extremely well-behaved in the car, in the tent, and in houses, she’s a pain in the ass on the leash. It’s easier to drive everything over. Which has led to more funny looks from the RVers. Not the driving, but the fact that every time I return to my tent, I’m in a different sweatshirt.

See, I’m scatterbrained. It’s warm in my tent because the wind can’t get in there, so all I wear in there is a tshirt. When I leave the tent, I’m still warm, so the outside temperature doesn’t phase me. When I sit in the shade of the shelter, with the breeze blowing constantly on me, I get cold. So I go to my car and pull out a sweatshirt.

When I return to my tent, I get warm and take my sweatshirt off. Common sense should tell me that when I leave again, I should take the sweatshirt with me because I will likely get cold again when I sit at the shelter. But no, the common sense part of my brain is on vacation, having seen a feather floating in the breeze, which reminded it of that one scene from Forrest Gump, which reminded it that it hadn’t watched that movie in awhile, and Tom Hanks was so good in it, and remember that Tom Hanks movie where he was in the airport for like a year? What was the name of that? Oh, yeah – the Terminal, and that was a great movie too, plus it had Stanley Tucci in it, and I just love him, wasn’t he in a movie version of a Shakespeare play? Yeah – Midnight in the Garden of – No! that was Kevin Spacey, stupid, totally different thing – it was A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he played Puck, and he was great because Stanley Tucci is always great. Hey, it’s kinda cold, shouldn’t we get a sweatshirt?

At this point, the common sense part of my brain kicks the conscious part of my brain and tells it to go get a sweatshirt. So, having left my previous one in the tent, I go get another one from my car.

And now you know far too much about how my brain works.

And this post has only been like ten percent about Blue Earth, which is silly because the posts TITLE is “Blue Earth” and now I have to write yet ANOTHER post, this time describing Blue Earth. Sigh.

Unfortunately, the detailed write-up of Blue Earth will have to wait until next week. That is because I am interrupting my journey (already) to visit my good friend Bug. Say "Hi," Bug. ;) Probably there will be a blog post about my visit. So she'd better behave. Because I totally have my camera with me, and I'm not afraid to use it.

On the road…finally.

2010-09-09T07:51:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I’ve been camping for the past week…in my mother’s back yard. Had to get stuff organized and arranged and whatnot, so I didn’t actually get on the road until yesterday. Yesterday I finally packed up the car and hit the road. Here’s the car, fully packed:

As you can see, Fred the jade plant is nestled (he prefers the word 'crammed') on the floor right behind the passenger seat. Yes, I'm taking my plant camping with me. What about it?

I am now sitting in Blue Earth, Minnesota, population…*mumblemutterlookituplater*. The campground is actually part of the county fairgrounds, and camping here is FREE for the first 48 hours. W00t! There are only a few electric hookups, which you can’t really complain about since it’s free, so I camped next door to a friendly-looking RV who’s only using one outlet on their pole. I got my tent set up:

and loaded my essentials in it:

then got the dog all settled with her dinner.

I also remembered to bring her favorite toy:

so she’s a happy dog.

Got a couple of pictures of the wooded area behind my camping area:

and settled in to write this post and chill for a bit before bed.

Last night it rained NON STOP. It is still raining. I'm supposed to visit Bug this weekend - I'll probably have to lay the tent out at her place to dry it out because it's supposed to rain tomorrow too. Story of my life. *sigh* I camped next to that electrical outlet for nothing. *makes note to buy a really long heavy-duty extension cord*

So I had to come find McDonald's to use their free internet and steal their electricity (but I don't think they mind since they watched me plug in). Hopefully it will clear up enough later to take some pictures around town. If you don't hear from me again, it's because the rain finally managed to make my tent float away. Send help.

I'm a winner! I'm a WINNER!

2010-09-03T10:26:00.000-05:00

I've been reminded by TWO people this week -- the very strange Haggis and the possibly stranger Bug -- that I am a strange person. They reminded me by giving me this award:

So, yes, they're calling me a weirdo, but I don't care because I WON something! I KNEW I was a winner! And with great power comes great responsibility, so here's what I have to do to keep this award:

The ‘Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits’ award is given to only the strangest of folk, and as the recipient of such you are deemed very strange indeed.

This award is based on the release of Cate Gardner’s short story collection, Strange Men in Pinstriped Suits. The book is available for pre-order and at a discount of $1.99 off of the cover price. To help celebrate this release, Cate and Strange Publications have a contest with two prize packages to choose from.

Congratulations.

Now you must go forth and celebrate the strangeness of friends (and strangers – strangers are always allowed) by nominating blogs run by strange folk. *Beware, some people don’t like you to refer to them as strange…Try to avoid them if possible.

Some rules:

1. Add the logo of the award to your blog post.
2. Add a link to the person who awarded it to you (don’t mess with strange people).
3. Nominate seven other blogs telling us why you think the recipient is strange enough to deserve the award.
4. Leave a message for those nominated on their blogs.
5. And, if you email catephoenix(at)gmail(dot)com and tell her you’ve received the award for your strangeness, she’ll enter you in the biggest kick-ass Strange Men competition ever. Details over at strangemeninpinstripesuits.com (click on the award link on the home page)

So, now to come up with a list of seven. Unfortunately, pretty much every one of my friends' blogs have already received the award. Tough cookies - you're getting it again. You're just that strange. :-P

1. Lisa Dovichi, also known as Dork Girl. Her strangeness can not really be put into words, so I'll do a haiku instead. Yes, I'm aware that haiku is made of words. Uh...what part of "strange" did you not understand?? Haiku:

Hippopotamus
In pink starred bloomers
Tell me that's not strange.

2. Stacey Graham's Zombie Dating Guide blog. She wrote a dating guide. For zombies. Do I really need to say more?

3. Ray Wong, known affectionately to his friends as RaWo. I don't know if he actually likes the nickname, but we didn't give him a choice. His blog is full of writerly goodness. I'm not sure how strange the blog itself is, but the man is plenty strange. Believe me. Chicago will never be the same.

4. Ina Sordidworld. This, in case you didn't guess, is not her real name. Her real name is Smokey McPotts. But don't tell her I told you, or she'll have to kill me.

5. Adam Slade, who has been nominated for this award FOUR times this week. This is now five. But I'm linking to his Gumshoe Casefiles blog instead of his regular one, because I'm contrary that way. And because his Gumshoe Casefiles are a fun read, and plenty of strange things happen in them. ;)

6. This prolly is against the rules 'cuz it's not a single person's blog, but I don't care. Contrary, remember? So I'm giving this to An Army of Ermas. It's a whole gaggle of women (including Yours Truly, which prolly makes this a double rule-break, but I'm a rebel so whatever) who write humorous essays loosely based on the style of Erma Bombeck. We are all plenty strange, I can assure you.

7. Because I have run out of friends' blogs who haven't already been nominated several times, I'm giving my seventh award to Hyperbole and a Half. I don't know Allie Brosh, the author of this hilarious blog, but she cracks me right the hell up every time she posts, and she's possibly the strangest person on this list. If you haven't heard of HaaH, 1) Where the hell have you been?? and 2) Go read it NOW. You will not be disappointed.

Chaos, a Slideshow

2010-09-02T06:00:00.001-05:00

Yes, I realize it's been 48 whole hours since I last posted. Sue me - I've had a lot going on. Pipe down, Dork Girl, I'm talking to you.

Anyway, yesterday was pure chaos. First, I went to the driver's license station with my motel receipt as proof for residency so I could get a SD license. Their computers were down. A half hour later, they finally got them going again, only to tell me they don't take plastic, so I had to go get cash and wait in line again. Gah!

That finally out of the way, I headed back to the house to finish packing and cleaning. Two trips to Goodwill later, I finally had all of the usable crap out of the way. Here's how my car looked on the way to Goodwill:

Packed backseat

Packed trunk.

That out of the way, I proceeded to stuff garbage bags with unusable crap. Then I packed more garbage bags. Then a couple of large plastic totes. Let's just say I had a lot of crap to get rid of. O.o

By 8 last night I was getting sick of all that throwing away and cleaning nonsense, so I paused to set up my tent in my mom's backyard. This was fairly simple, since I was living right next door to her and only had to walk a few feet to find a suitable spot. Then I went back to cleaning out the old house.

It is shocking how much crap you can collect in a year and a half. I threw away a ton of junk I haven't looked at once since moving here and forgot I even had. I was trying to streamline the household crap so I could store what wouldn't fit in my car in my mom's shed. I got it down to a carload of stuff I need to take with me (a large plastic tote and one medium-sized suitcase for clothes, a plastic tote of kitchen odds & ends, a box full of books, a huge carrying case for CD's that is now holding my entire DVD collection, my tent, and my bedding) and a few items I can't take along (a "moon chair" and footrest, a trunk full of now-empty DVD cases, a large tote of odds & ends, a box of books I don't read as often, and my microwave).

I'll post pictures of my car as it looks when packed for my trip after I get everything organized and figure out where I'm going to put everything for easy access.

Here's a crappy picture of my tent (I just took it and it's dark now):

It's a huge tent - a Coleman intended to hold 8 people. But I figured since I'm going to be living in the thing, rather than just taking a weekend trip with it, I'd better spring for the extra space and lots of ventilation.

Did a lot more running today, too, but I won't bore you with those details. It's getting late, and I need to get some writing done tomorrow or I'll be camping in my mom's backyard forever. So until I blog again, good night, Dear Readers. All three of you.

Day 0 of the Epic Zebra Quest

2010-08-31T06:00:00.000-05:00

(Author's note: By the time you read this, it will be tomorrow for me. But today for you. So when you're reading this today, and I say it's today, just know I actually wrote this yesterday. Which is really today as I'm writing. Got that? Good.)

Right now I'm watching the Family Guy send-up of Star Wars, drinking beer and eating Gardettos. The only drawback is that I'm doing these things in a fairly seedy motel (You have to have a receipt from a motel or campground in order to establish residency when you don't have a physical address. It's complicated). It's raining, and promises to develop into quite the thunderstorm later tonight.

Life is good. ;)

I thought y'all might be interested in the process involved in tackling the lifestyle on which I'm about to embark. Cuz it's a pain in the butt, frankly.

First, I went to the mail forwarding company, which will forward my mail and serve as my physical address while I'm on the road. This is also the address used by the DMV and for my driver's license. So I had a ton of forms to fill out - spent about an hour at the mail forwarding office. Then to DMV to get license plates. THEN I had to get a motel room for the night. That is because, in order to establish residency in the eyes of the state of SD, you have to stay in the state at least one night before applying for your driver's license. I guess this is to prove you really, really mean it and are really, for sure, no kidding, going to give up your real house and become a gypsy. Or something.

So now I'm watching FG do SW, etc., etc. Tomorrow I get my license, then go back to my house and finish cleaning it out, then tomorrow night I spend my first night in a campground. I'm still nervous, but more excited than nervous. As my good friend Trish said earlier, this is my time for total freedom, and I'm ready for it to start.

Why this blog is called the “Wandering Zebra”

2010-08-30T06:53:00.000-05:00

I've lived in this place, and I know all the faces;

each one is different but they're always the same.

They mean me no harm, but it's time that I face it:

they'll never allow me to change.

But I never dreamed home would end up where I don't belong...

I'm movin' on

At last I can see life has been patiently waiting for me,

and I know there's no guarantees, but I'm not alone.

There comes a time in everyone's life

when all you can see are the years passing by

And I have made up my mind that those days are gone.

I'm moving on.

-"I'm Moving On," by Rascal Flatts

I created this blog months ago, when I got a little spark of an idea for a project I wanted to pursue. Then, as often happens in these cases, life got in the way, and I didn’t think I’d be able to pursue that project after all, so I used this space for other things, most notably my c25k journey.

Well, the original plan is back in motion, and it’s time to write about a different kind of journey. This zebra is literally taking this show on the road.

You see, I get a bit twitchy when I stay in one place too long. I’m one of those people who always wants to see what’s over that next hill. So I’m gonna go see.

My ultimate goal is to visit every one of the lower 48 states, but for the short term my goal is just to travel as I wish and see as much as I can in six months. When those six months are up, I’m giving myself permission to quit if I want to at that time.

Oh, and I forgot to mention: I’ll be camping the whole way.

Yes, camping. In a tent. Go ahead – roll your eyes, call me insane, laugh maniacally at your computer screen. I’ll wait.

Done? Good.

Because I won’t be deterred. I’m stubborn that way. I make my entire income online, I don’t have a husband or kids tying me to one place, and I want to see more of the world than the 6-mile radius in which most people live their lives.

I leave on Tuesday. Packing is already under way. Chaos reigns in my house – see for yourself:

(Those of you who have been paying attention to this blog will recognize that treadmill. It looks rather innocent right now, doesn’t it? Well, it isn’t. It is an evil, slavering beast that wants to eat your feet. Trust me on this one.)

Anyway, that’s my mission statement, I guess. Feel free to leave support, adoration, and marriage proposals in the comments.

If a gas can blows up in the trunk and nobody’s left alive to see it, does it make a flash?.

2010-08-20T06:27:00.001-05:00

Photo courtesy Cavin and Flickr

“We’re out of gasoline for the mower. Can you run to town and get some?”

It seemed like a simple request, and I needed to borrow Mom’s mower, so I cheerfully agreed. Especially, and this was the important point, since she was paying. I trotted out to the garage, grabbed the first gas can I saw, stuck it in the trunk of the car, and headed to town. The trip was uneventful, and not the point of this story, so I hope you just skimmed it really quick to get to the good part.

I pulled up to the gas pump, grabbed the can out of the trunk, and filled it up. Then I went to put the cap back on and noticed something disturbing: it was missing a crucial little plastic doohickey. You see, when you fill a gas can and want to transport it without dumping flammable liquid all over the trunk of your car, you put the nozzle upside-down, put the included little plastic doohickey over the resulting hole, and cover it with the cap to keep it tightly closed.

My gas can was missing that all-important little plastic doohickey.

I considered the problem for approximately three seconds, which is about how long my patience for any problem runs on a normal day, and decided that since I hadn’t filled the gas can all the way to the top, it would probably be fine. I hefted it into the trunk and shoved it over against the left wall, wedged in between the front wall of the trunk and a pile of lawn chairs. I figured this arrangement would ensure that the can remained upright, and as long as I didn’t take any left-hand turns on two wheels or anything, I should be fine. I slammed the trunk, hopped in the car, and took off, going around the corner oh-so-slow-and-careful.

I was singing, loudly and off-key, along with “Keep Your Hands To Yourself” by the Georgia Satellites when I reached the left-hand turn that marked the halfway point between the gas station and home. I remembered to slow down carefully, and flipped the turn signal on.

This was when the treacherous, treacherous subconscious part of my brain decided, “Hey! She’s having way too much fun out there, and leaving me to run the damn show again. I swear, she wouldn’t even remember to breathe if I didn’t do it for her. Hmph. I’ll show her.” And it projected an image into the conscious part of my brain: An open can full of gas, belching gasoline fumes into a small, enclosed space. An open can that was wedged right up against the area where the left turn signal would be. Where all the little wires go. Where an ELECTRIC SPARK might be generated each time the light flashed because of my conscientious act of telling people I was turning.

Now, despite all online evidence to the contrary, I am a fairly rational person as a rule. The intellectual part of my brain said, “Haha, good one, Subconscious. How silly of me to think I could turn the car into a gigantic, cinema-worthy fireball just by the simple act of turning on a turn signal. You got me! Hahaha.”

The primitive, irrational, self-preserving part of my brain said, “Shut up, you twit! It’s GASOLINE. It’s flammable. We’re gonna die! Assume disaster positions!”

This part of my brain would not let go of the image of all those gas fumes (strangely, imaginary gas fumes turn green in the trunk of a car) and the shower of sparks I was unleashing every time that blasted signal flashed.
All of this went through my mind before I’d even finished the turn, and I breathed a little sigh of relief as the signal switched off without lighting off a bomb in the trunk. “Haha,” I even managed to say, though it was a weak “haha” at best.

“Oh, think you’re gonna get off that easy, eh?” said my subconscious. “Have you forgotten that the brake lights come on every time you step on the pedal, Genius, and you can’t just not use the brakes? Hm? Take that!”

Of course, once the thought was in my head, it would not go away. Not until I pulled up in front of my mother’s house, threw the door open as dramatically as I could, and leapt out of the car to land three feet away. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I may have even done a little “Get it off me!” dance, my primitive brain having got its wires temporarily crossed with the distaste-for-bugs part of my brain.

My mother, blissfully oblivious once again to the depths of her eldest daughter’s dementia, strolled out of the house. “You took the bad gas can. You didn’t spill any, did you?”

Did you catch that? Yes. My mother knew I had the “bad” gas can, and said nothing until I had already risked my life bringing the gas home.

Just wait until it’s time to choose her nursing home.

Lies and Banking

2010-08-19T07:00:00.002-05:00

Image courtesy alancleaver_2000 and Flickr

Why do the bank ladies make me lie to them?

You see, my checks from one of my clients are drawn on a bank that happens to have a branch nearby. I go there to cash my checks from this client because a) I can cash checks drawn on that bank without incurring a fee, and b) I don't really need a bank account except to cash checks because my trusty prepaid Visa debit card handles all of my banking-related activities.

But every time I go to cash my check at this bank, the bank ladies try to get me to join their bank. They start out with a soft sell, easing me into the idea. "Have you thought about opening an account with us?" When I say that yes, I've thought about it but decided to pass, their smiles begin to freeze on their faces. Their eyes get a little shifty, and they try to sweeten the pot: "We have a range of account options to suit anyone's needs." I start to feel a little sorry for the bank ladies at this point -- I mean, it's obvious their bank is struggling, since it's resorting to turn its tellers into sales representatives, so I smile as gently as I can while telling them my first lie: "Uh...I'm in the process of moving and don't want to set up an account until I get settled."

That's when their desperation really sets in. Their smiles get wider and more demented, showing all their teeth, and they develop minor facial tics and eye twitches. This is generally when they bring out the big guns: "We have a promotion going on -- we'll give you 30 dollars if you open both a checking and savings account with us. 30 whole dollars! Free!" They end with sunny, manic grins, rolling their eyes to direct my attention to the bank manager, who is standing a few feet away with a baseball bat and brass knuckles, glaring at them.

I smile sympathetically and lean in for a conspiratorial whisper. The bank ladies lean in too, a spark of hope shining in their eyes as they hold their breaths for my answer.

I lie to them again. "I'm not sure where I'll be living just yet, so it would be silly to set up an account here. I don't know if I'll even be in this town. I just need to cash my check. Thanks all the same."

They all let out their anticipatory breath, and their shoulders sag in defeated dejection. The one who is still holding my check hostage gives up the game and counts out my cash. She rallies enough to bid me a nice day.

I smile back at her, but in my mind I'm already choosing the lie I will tell her next time.

Evil Treadmill of Doom. DOOOM!

2010-08-18T08:24:00.000-05:00

For those of you who like my artwork (because you are either being polite or have suffered some sort of tragic eye or brain injury), I have spent a laborious three minutes and twelve seconds creating the following masterpiece. It is a portrait of my treadmill the way it looks during my last run of a workout:

As you can see, this is a creature to make even the most intrepid adventurer pause. Mostly to say "What the hell is that thing?" and "Wait - you're telling me it gets around by rolling on the tread? How is that even possible?" and probably also "I killed a hydra, escaped the huge rolling boulder, got chased by a thousand angry natives...and this is all that's left? I feel so let down."

But the adventurer is not important. I mean, he just goes around robbing old temples and graves and such, so who cares what he thinks?

Anyway, (note my oh-so-graceful way of pulling this sucker back on track) I completed Week 3, Day 1 of c25k last night. In Week 3 you have to run 90 seconds, walk 90 seconds in between, then run for 3 minutes. You do this twice. Which is actually the first piece of good news, because I started the week thinking it was supposed to be three times. So when the guy told me I was almost done, I got all excited and almost fell off the treadmill because I was trying to do a little 20-seconds-left victory dance and I got a little too overzealous with my arm swing and the treadmill took advantage of that tiny moment of weakness and pounced.

But I totally beat him back into submission, finished my run, and performed the rest of my victory dance on the nice, solid floor. My floor is a good floor. It's not treacherous like that bastard treadmill. It would never rise up, shooting fiery spikes from its back to impale my feet, then try to eat my impaled feet and spit out the twisted remains of my feety shoes.

Hm. I appear to have had enough coffee this morning...

Me, Working Out

2010-08-16T11:22:00.000-05:00

Because I refuse to actually allow anyone to watch me running, I decided to illustrate my feelings as I go through a c25k workout instead.

Here I am during the first run, carefree and feeling good about myself because hey - I'm running!

About halfway through the session, I start getting a little tired, but am still determined to finish. Note how I am beginning to look a bit zombified:

And near the end of the workout - either the last or second to last running session - I become convinced that my death is imminent. I begin to compose my last will and testament in my head:

Note that the bastard treadmill, who has been old, decrepit, and slow until this point, suddenly turns into a demon from the bowels of the underworld and actively attempts to kill me so it can steal my soul and sell it for Brimstone Cakes (tm). Also, my hair has for some reason turned into a live creature trying to eat my head.

So you see the dangers I face while working out.

Running and Vibrams and No Internet, Oh My!

2010-08-15T10:44:00.000-05:00

Ack!

Let me explain: My name is Angie, and I am an Internet junkie. My work is all online. 75% of my reading and other "play" time is online. Nearly all of my friends are people I met online, and almost all of my interactions with them are...well, you know.

So two full days of no Internet access due to "atmospheric conditions" was enough to leave me a puddled mass of twitching, gibbering madness. It was not a pretty sight.

But I did manage to drag myself out of the horror long enough to do my last two workouts for c25k, week 2. The second was on Wednesday, and the last one was yesterday (I took Thursday and Friday off instead of the weekend). Wednesday's workout is mostly lost to the murky depths of my Internet-deprived mind, but I do remember one thought from it: "Ugh." Yes, "Ugh" pretty much sums up how that workout went.

It seems to me like this should be getting easier, not harder, as I go through a week. My legs and the rest of my body should be getting used to the new regimen, and a three-minute run that was torture the first day should, I would think, be at least a little less of a torture on the second day. Not so. That second workout was the hardest one I did all week. I dunno if it was what I ate, what I drank, or whatever else I did that day that made it so difficult, but I wanted to reach through my iPod and slap the hell out of the electronic podcast voice when he told me I was "doing great."

Yesterday I finished Week 3, and it did go a little better. I managed to not get to the wanting-to-kill-the-podcast-guy until the last 30 seconds of the last run, so there's that.

The Vibrams are still doing their job quite nicely. I have no foot pain while running, and my calves are finally starting to get used to them and don't hurt so much afterward. So score one for the feety shoes!

Week 3 of c25k involves alternating 90 second runs and 3 minute runs with walking stretches. I am quite concerned about the 3 minute run, since I still want to punch someone during the 90 second ones. But I'm going to at least try it before I decide whether to repeat Week 2. I already repeated Week 1, and if I keep doing that, it's going to take FOREVER to finish. I'll do it if my body forces me to, but I really really don't want to.

And that's that. I am so relieved that the Internet is behaving again. *pets internet* I missed you, preciousss, yesss I did...

Vibram Review

2010-08-11T07:00:00.004-05:00

So I've had my Vibrams for a few days now, and have spent one whole day in them, so I thought I'd give a little more detailed review.

The bottom line is, I love them. At this point, I've got them mostly broken-in, and they're like having a second skin on my feet. All those places with the "No shirt, no shoes" signs? Yeah, you can get a little giggle out of going in those places with these on, because they really do feel like having no shoes on. So you get comfort and the chance to be contrary. What more could you ask?

Now for the downside. These things are a PAIN to put on. I think it's the model I got - the KSO stands for "Keep Stuff Out"; they're closed over your foot, with a fairly small hole for your ankle. So you have to thread your foot and toes into the shoe, and try to spread your toes to get them into the right holes. There's no easy way to get your toes in the right spots with the aid of your fingers - your feet are really on their own here. Other Vibram models have an open design, with just the toes covered, and those probably would have been easier, but for me and these shoes, it's a struggle. I've taken to loading them and my feet with enough baby powder to choke a horse, and that helps a bit.

Also, my pinky toes took a while to adjust, and they have to get used to the shoes for the first few minutes every time I put them on. Add to that the fact that I broke my right pinky a few years ago so it's a little deformed (shut up about my mutant feet, Lisa!), and you have the recipe for frustration. It's getting better, but if I'm in a hurry, I still go for my trusty flip-flops. Putting on the Vibrams is a good 5-10 minute process.

However, the aggravation is totally worth it. My feet don't hurt anymore - particularly my arches. I've had plantar faciitis since I worked at the hog farms and was on my feet all day. It was like being stabbed repeatedly in the bottom of my foot, and getting up the first time in the morning was murder. But I haven't had a problem with these shoes. It's especially noticeable during my runs - the Asics had my arches SCREAMING before I'd even made it to the halfway point. I don't get even a peep out of my arches when wearing the Vibrams.

The only place I really feel it is my calves. Because of the way you walk barefoot vs. in cushy shoes, your calves get more of a workout, and have to stretch more than they're used to. Even when walking, I can feel them working, and during my runs they start to complain toward the end. But it's not excruciating, and I think it's a fair trade-off for getting rid of the arch pain.

So, all in all: Feety shoes are cool, but you have to break your feet in gently.

Teaser Tuesday: Meet Penny

2010-08-10T08:04:00.003-05:00

So, my #teasertuesday posts are going to be in no particular order since they are, after all, supposed to be teasers. ;) This is the introduction of Penny, one of my four viewpoint characters, and it takes place just after her husband comes home and tells her he got bitten by a bum. Penny's partner at her private security firm is a zombie, so she recognizes the signs. While she's in the shower, a man breaks into the house and threatens her husband, forcing him into the master bedroom, where Penny hears him call out from her shower in the master bath.

Got all that? Good. Here we go:

---------------------------------

Try explaining to your husband that the hobo who bit him in the subway was a zombie, and that he (your husband) will soon be a zombie too. Just try. Especially if your husband has big puppy-dog eyes like mine does. Double bonus points if he cries.

So you'll excuse me for needing a few minutes to gather my thoughts and figure out how the hell I was gonna break the news to him. Shower time was "me" time; it was the few minutes out of every day when I could be alone to think. When, halfway through my "me" time, with shampoo still in my hair, I heard Cullen call out from the bedroom and - more importantly - heard the note of terror in his voice...I started to get mad.

I didn't get to be a partner in a private security firm by ignoring my instincts, so I listened to them this time. Leaving the shower running, I stepped out and reached for my Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm. Now that's a girl's best friend, which is why it was never far from my side.

I heard a dull thump from the bedroom. It sounded just like what a human head sounds like when someone hits it with the butt of a pistol. I know this because I've made human heads make that sound before. Since my darling husband wasn't the whack-a-guy type, I figured the head making that sound must be his. That was when I really got pissed off. If anyone was gonna clobber my husband, it was gonna be me.

So, with all these thoughts racing through my head and the anger building to a nice rolling boil, I admit I was a bit worked up by the time the one-man goon squad opened the bathroom door. I'd like to be able to tell you I tossed off a witty one-liner while giving him a scathing glare and arching one perfect eyebrow, but my brows aren't that perfect, and there's seldom enough time to toss off a one-liner before you have to plug a guy.

Instead, while he paused for the briefest of seconds to gape at my naked and (forgive me if I sound immodest) exquisite assets, I fired two shots, one dead center and one just left of center, both in his chest. He collapsed like a...thing no longer supported, and I nudged his gun away from his hand before stepping over him into the bedroom. He was huge, one of those guys who is a walking mobster movie cliche, with thick, broad shoulders and no discernible neck.

Have I mentioned that I hate cliches?

Cullen lay on the bed, wide-eyed and staring at me. Since that was usually the way he looked at me when I was naked, I figured he'd live. After checking the bump on his head to reassure myself that he wasn't seriously hurt, I told him to pack a few things, more to keep his mind occupied than out of any real need to pack. Then, with shampoo still dripping on my shoulders, I shoved our visitor out of the way and went back to the bathroom.

I stepped back into the shower and sucked in a breath through gritted teeth. While I'd taken care of Cullen and Goon Squad, the hot water had run out. I forced myself to exhale, then inhaled again, slowly, and closed my eyes. I stood under the spray for a full minute, until the first attack of shivers passed. I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair and turned off the water.

Gritting my teeth to keep them from chattering, I wrapped a towel around myself, wiped the condensation off the mirror, and stared at my reflection.

What the hell was I supposed to do now? Cullen...bitten. By a bum. Followed home by...what? A zombie hunter?

Great. Super-fantastic.

Having forced myself to once again withstand the cold past the point of shivers, I dried off and pulled on the sweatshirt and jeans I'd laid out on the counter.

This was all Nick's fault. Maybe not directly, but somehow, some way, he had to be responsible. Not just because he was the only zombie I knew, but also because he made enemies like other people...do other common things. And since I was his parner, his enemies usually became my enemies, a situation that had likely led to poor Cullen getting the old Nutjob Nibble...or at least to him getting followed home afterward by the Amazing Neckless Man.

Nick would pay for this. I would see to it.

But I had to take care of Cullen first.

One step at a time.

I opened the bathroom door and found my usually laid-back husband standing halfway between the closet and the bed, a pile of clothes draped over one arm, still on their hangers. Our big suitcase lay open on the bed, already filled to overflowing. He stared at the dead man.

"Cull," I said, as gently as I could, "I think you've packed enough."

"Hm?" He dragged his gaze away from the intruder and blinked at me, then at the suitcase. "Oh." He looked down at Goon Squad again. "It's the strangest thing..."

"What is?" I asked, hating the little hairs on the back of my neck for standing on end, like we were in a horror novel or something.

"It's weird. You'll think I'm insane, but..." He raised his gaze again, looking at me with wide eyes. "I was looking at him, and I couldn't stop wondering what his brains would taste like."

Ugh. I rolled my eyes at him, grabbed his arm, and steered him toward the bed. "Listen, I've got something I need to tell you."

"I'm not sure I can take any more shocks tonight, Pen." His eyes were still wide, wilder than I'd ever seen them. "First a guy breaks into our house and points a gun at me, then you shoot him in our bedroom and casually go back to your shower. No!" He was gesturing wildly with both arms now, clothes sailing off his arm, hangers clattering to the floor. "First I get bitten by some homeless guy, then a guy breaks into our house, etcetera etcetera." His voice went high, near its breaking point.

I squeezed his arm, as gently as I could manage while still conveying my absolute insistence that he knock off the crazy shit right now. "Cull," I said, pushing him to sit on the bed, "that's what I need to talk to you about."

"The guy breaking in? Yeah, we should definitely discuss that."

"No. Well, yes, but after we talk about the guy who bit you."

"What about him?"

I looked into those freaked-out brown eyes and sighed inwardly. No gentle way to put this, really.

"Cullen, have you ever heard of zombies?"

Week 2, Day 1 (or, Hey! I didn’t die!)

2010-08-09T20:32:00.003-05:00

Got home from the library this afternoon and put on my feety shoes. (Would have had them on all day, but I was sleep-deprived and cranky this morning. The less said about that, the better.) Danced around the house for a couple of minutes, singing a little ditty about feety shoes and feeling all cool and stuff. Then I plugged my iPod into my decrepit speakers, fired up my decrepit treadmill, and started my first c25k Week 2 workout.

Week 2 involved running for 90 seconds, then walking for 2 minutes. After the fiasco that has been c25k for me so far, I was all but certain I wouldn’t be able to make it through 90 seconds of running, and certainly not through all 6 cycles.

Well.

I totally KILLED. My calves were screaming by the second-to-last run (your calves get a major workout in the Vibrams because you’re forced to land on the balls of your feet instead of your heels), but I forced myself to zone out, concentrate on my music, and made it through. The last 30 seconds of the last run were TORTURE. But I did it. I made it ALL THE WAY through. Go me!

And the bonus? The icing on the cake (proverbial cake, of course, because it has fewer calories than real cake)? The feeling I get about a half hour after the workout, when my breathing is finally back to normal, my heart no longer feels like it’s going to pound its way out of my rib cage, and the sweat has cooled. The euphoric, holy-crap-I-accomplished-something feeling that I always thought was a crock of shit when athletic people described it. I freaking feel like I can conquer the world for a couple of hours.

That feeling is totally worth the torture that precedes it. Which is good, because I’m going to have to seriously remind myself of that when I get to the longer running sessions. I’m already terrified for next week, when I’ll have to run for three minutes straight.

Best not to think about that. Just concentrate on now. Because now feels AWESOME.

Feety shoes!

2010-08-06T18:13:00.000-05:00

They're here!

And holy CRAP, they were difficult to put on the first time. O.o They're made to fit your foot like a glove, so obviously there wouldn't be a lot of extra room, but my fat little toes would not cooperate, and I struggled for several minutes to get my feet wedged into the things. But with the help of some heavy equipment and a generous dollop of lard, I managed it.

Now that they're on my feet, I never want to take them off -- and not just because I don't want to have to put them back on. They are super comfortable. My pinkie toes will have to get used to it, since they normally wedge right up against my next toe, and they're not happy with being separated, but otherwise it really is like going barefoot. Here, have a look:

I haven't taken them out on the road or run in them yet, but am planning on it when it cools off a bit later this evening. I'll let y'all know how it goes. :)

Fat girls CAN run!

2010-08-04T21:07:00.004-05:00

In fact, I think I’ll just change this blog’s title. Gimme a minute…There. I think that’s a fitting title for this blog. ;)

So, as you’ve probably guessed, tonight’s run went better than previous ones. I’m on Week 1, Day 2 for the second time (repeating the first week due to…we’ll just leave it at “issues”). Again, ran it barefoot in my house and had none of the excruciating arch, ankle, or shin pain I had when wearing my beautiful, cushy Asics. Why is it the curse of beautiful things to be painful? Why?

I have, however, decided that I can’t bear to part with them because even though they are MURDER when I’m running, they work pretty well for the little bit of walking I do during the day. And they’re snazzy.

Yes. Snazzy. That’s a fun word to say, isn’t it? Snazzy, snazzy, snazzy. If you say it enough times, really fast, it starts to sound a bit dirty. Or maybe it’s just me. It’s probably just me. Forget I mentioned it.

My Vibram FiveFingers should be arriving tomorrow or Friday. I had hoped to take a test walk on the road with them as soon as I got them, to start getting my feet used to them right away. However, the mosquitoes in my area are the worst I’ve EVER seen. They travel in huge, thick, whining swarms, and you can practically see the lawn crawling with them. Even with half a can of stinky bug spray on, you get chewed alive. And they go straight for the face – buzzing into your eyes, nose, and ears until you look like an electrocuted epileptic because you’re slapping so frantically at them. So, no pleasant walks – and, more disappointingly, no outside runs until the bug population thins out. Which probably won’t be until first frost. Sigh. That means I’m still stuck running in my house, on my decrepit old granddad of a treadmill, with the belt that slips if you try to turn it up too fast.

Oh, I haven’t mentioned that lovely little issue before? Yeah, I just found out tonight, when I realized the thing was only going at a brisk walking pace for me and tried to turn it up. Turning up this treadmill is an adventure unto itself. There is a knob on the front of it, near the floor, so you have to get down off the treadmill, drop to your knees, and stick your butt in the air while cranking the thing. But hey – I figure I’m getting a yoga workout along with my running this way. Anyway, instead of going faster, the belt just started slipping. Double sigh. If only I were made of money and could afford a gym membership. Which wouldn’t be necessary if it weren’t for the damned mosquitoes outside. Bitches.

Hm. I’ve realized I have a tendency to ramble in these blog posts. I’ve rambled enough in this one that I’m not quite sure how to end it, but I know I don’t really want to leave it at “Bitches.” So instead I’ll leave it at “humble peanut butter cavendish,” and let you figure out for yourself what the hell that means. So, here goes. You ready?

Humble peanut butter cavendish.

Hello Frustration, my old friend

2010-08-02T08:15:00.000-05:00

So, the shoes aren't helping. At first, I thought they'd be great - nice, padded, felt like walking on pillows. The problem is, my feet hate them for running. By the time I finished my second 60-second stretch this morning, my arches were SCREAMING at me to stop. By halfway through the third one, it was either quit or be forced to call for a ride home. I'm not kidding - the pain was unreal. Remember the red-hot sharpened stake made of broken glass? Yeah, it was like that, only worse.

I thought maybe arch supports would help, but I don't have this problem when I run barefoot in my house. There is just something about the way I run in shoes vs. barefoot that causes problems. And it's not just the difference in surfaces - my first run this morning was in grass; not any harder than the floor in my house.

So. I think I'm going to pack up my new shoes and send them back, pretty though they may be, and I'm going to try these (and thank you Turkey for the link).

Why all this effort to run outdoors when I have successfully run inside my house? Because a) my ancient treadmill, pilfered from my stepfather, barely moves past a walking pace. Which is fine for now, but someday when my stamina and speed improve, I'm going to have to move outdoors because I won't cough up the money for a new one. And b) while I could just run back and forth on my floor like I did the first night, that's not a terribly long course and the scenery is pretty boring.

So. Hopefully the funny-looking shoes will help. If not...well, we'll just hope they do, m'kay?

C25K, Week 1, Day 3

2010-08-01T12:33:00.001-05:00

I got through Day 3, but I still think I'm going to repeat the first week. I'm still having to force myself to finish each running segment, and my feet are still adjusting to the new shoes. I did learn why day 2 was so much harder than the first day, though: the new shoes encouraged me to run faster, so I pooped myself out way too fast. Backed off the pace a little yesterday, and didn't feel like I was going to die by the halfway point. Score one for actually using mah brain.

Been thinking about what to do on the "off" days between runs. The Holiday Inn in the town where my mom works has an indoor pool, and they charge something like 5 dollars each session, with a yearly fee (don't remember that price right at the moment though). Talked it over with Mom (who wants to do some exercising too but has really bad knees so most aerobic activities are out), and I think we're going to start going every Tuesday and Thursday on our way home. So now I'll have some sort of physical activity 5 days a week.

Hm, this entry isn't very entertaining, or even interesting. So...look! A cute little lamb!

Week 1, Day 2 of c25k

2010-07-29T16:25:00.000-05:00

Holy fark.

First, yes the shoes made a world of difference, though I still need to get some tape and put on arch strapping to help with the plantar fasciitis (which is not the fault of the running - I've had that since my factory days. Standing on concrete floors for 8 hours a day will do horrible things to your feet).

Today was far harder to finish than the first day. I really had to force myself to finish each 60-second running segment, and it was only my pure stubbornness that got me through the last two. I don't know if I pushed too hard on the first couple, or it's just because I'm fatigued, or what happened, but holy crap. I'm pretty sure I'm going to repeat Week 1 before trying to move on - I want to be able to make those 60 second runs without feeling like I'm going to keel over.

But hey - Day 2 in the bag. Go me!

*passes out*

Spiffy new shoes!

2010-07-29T10:32:00.000-05:00

w00t!! I'm so excited.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a date with an iPod and a stretch of road...

Shoes!

2010-07-28T07:54:00.000-05:00

These will be my preciousses once they arrive early next week:

Purdy...and I can't wait to actually have comfortable running shoes. :)

Tell Guido thanks, but no thanks...

2010-07-27T22:12:00.002-05:00

...but I do have some lovely turkey for him.

But that's beside the point.

Guess what? GUESS WHAT?!?

Tonight, feeling like shit for sounding like such a whiny-baby about my c25k flop so far, I decided to try an experiment. My excuse up til now has been that my shoes suck -- which they do. They are thin-soled to begin with, and have no support whatsoever, which resulted in me landing on my heels when I ran. This was the cause of my excruciating lower leg pain.

So. Tonight, after brooding about this for awhile, I got peeved and pushed all the furniture out of the way (I don't have a lot of furniture, so this consisted of moving the couch a couple feet), which gave me a decent U-shaped running course through the living room, dining room, and kitchen.

And I ran barefoot.

Running barefoot instead of with those horrible shoes allowed me to land on the balls of my feet*, which is how you're supposed to run.

AND IT WORKED!

I totally kicked Week 1, Day 1's ASS tonight. I did all eight running cycles (though I was dying to stop at #6), and my ankle does NOT hurt. SCORE!

I'm burning those farking shoes as soon as my new ones come. Oh yeah - I ordered new shoes today - Asics gel-soled runners, on Lisa's advice. Found an online store that lets me make payments, so I don't have to wait until Monday - although they prolly still won't get here until then, so I just totally wasted money on shipping, but ohwellIfreakingWANTEDthem.

*ahem*

So, anyway, to recap:

I totally rule.
C25K totally rules.
My shoes totally suck.
But my new shoes will totally rule.
Ironically, I hate rules. Go figure.
There is no Number 6.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to do some more private, spasmodic, totally embarassing victory dancing. No, there will NOT be video.

_______________

*Yes, my feet have balls. So do yours. Everyone's feet have balls. No, I'm not going to explain further -- I'm not a freakin' anatomy professor.

Gah!

2010-07-27T07:26:00.003-05:00

The more I try to do c25k, the more frustrated I feel. Of course, I still haven't been able to buy decent shoes - those will come next week when I get paid again, since I spent a considerable amount of money at the vet clinic yesterday. *gives the cat a stern look*

But I can't blame it all on the shoes. For far too long, I've been mostly inactive, except at work. Now that I no longer work farm jobs, my physical activity is practically zero. Trying to go from that to a running program is, I think, a little too ambitious on my part -- should have started with something a little easier until I was in better shape for running. Which, if I were smart, I could still do. But we've already established that I'm not that smart. So I'm going to keep on plugging. Provided I don't knock myself out - I am, shall we say, top-heavy. If I wear a tight shirt it looks like I'm smuggling two Butterball turkeys. (That line is for Lisa, who found it hilarious when I said it to her. Dork.)

Anyway, c25k is officially, for me, on hold until Monday, when I can buy runners that won't cripple me. And ankle braces, since my left ankle is a bit weak and is the first to start screaming when I do my running segments.

And once I have those items? Shut your bitchy, whiny mouth, ankle. So there.

Changing gears...

2010-07-25T20:40:00.002-05:00

In the interest of keeping this blog interesting both to me and (hopefully) to you, Dear Reader, I'm going to post snippets now and then of my fiction. Right now I'm working on a humorous zombie novel. The character in the scene below is not a zombie, but she hangs out with them. Oh, and she's obsessed with some actor...

(Click the post title to read on...)

Kevin Spacey beamed at Stella. Kevin Spacey frowned at Stella. Kevin Spacey stared mournfully at Stella.

From every inch of the wall behind Stella's vanity table, Kevin Spacey watched her with every expression his considerable talent could provide. Some Kevin Spaceys were small, as small as an inch square; others were literally bigger than life (Stella had painstakingly cut these Spaceys from movie posters she'd aquired by bribing the horny teenager at the movie theater down the street).

Stella's pride and joy, tacked lovingly to a place of honor in the corner of her vanity mirror, was a playbill for 'The Iceman Cometh,' signed and personalized by Kevin Spacey. 'To Sheila. Take care. Love, Kevin,' read the inscription. Stella had paid a pretty penny for it at an online auction site.

Stella subscribed to the Kevin Spacey theory of philosophy. This was not a philosophy that Kevin Spacey actually invented, or even believed in, as far as she knew. Instead, it was a philosophy based on quotes from the famous man's body of work, culled lovingly over a decade of dedicated obsession. A few of these quotes were pasted into the mural of Kevin Spaceys covering the wall; 'Truth, like art, is in the eye of the beholder (Jim Williams, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, 1997),' read one. Another, pasted just above the edge of the mirror, read 'Remember those posters that said, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life"? Well, that's true of every day but one - the day you die. (Lester Burnham, American Beauty, 1999).'

Stella's lord and savior was Kevin Spacey, and she was a loyal and devoted supplicant.

The doorbell rang, dragging her attention away from Kevin Spacey's perfect brown eyes. With a sigh, she slipped a silk robe over her nightgown and headed for the front door.

The bell rang again when she was only halfway there. "Gimme a minute," she called, rolling her eyes at the impatience of people these days. She detoured through the living room and muted the television, cutting off Kevin Spacey's voice. She had one of his movies playing at all times, whether she was watching it or not. His voice soothed her.

Someone knocked on the front door, and Stella left the chain on when she opened it, just to irritate them further. Served them right for being so impa--

Her thought process was knocked off track when she saw the man standing on her front step. For one glorious moment, she thought Kevin Spacey, the great man himself, had stopped by her humble little house, and she felt her heart climb right up into her throat.

A moment later, she realized this was not Kevin Spacey, but a cheap knockoff with enough similarity of features to cause confusion at a quick glance. He was handsome (though not as handsome as the real thing, of course), and Stella smiled. Then she noticed that he had an odd gray pallor to his face, and she could see a line of stitches attaching his left ear to his head. A second man, also starting to go gray but still possessing a bit of color, and a normal-looking woman stood behind him on the steps.

This has to be something do do with Edward, I thought, reluctantly leaving my inner third-person narration of my day. Being in third person made me feel more like a character, which made me feel just a tiny bit closer to Kevin Spacey.

"Are you Stella Graves?" asked the gray-faced knockoff. He did have beautiful eyes, the same shade of brown as my hero.

"Yes. Has anyone ever told you you look like-"

"Yeah, yeah. The've told me."

"It's just that-"

"Yeah, I get it, I look like Kevin Spacey, but I don't see what the big deal is. Listen, my name is Nick Stone. I'm a private investigator. This is my partner, Penny, and her husband Cullen. We're here to talk to you about Edward James. Do you know him?"

The last of the serenity I'd received from my daily Kevin Spacey devotional faded away. "Yes, I know him. He's my boyfriend." I shut the door in the investigator's face, slid the chain loose, and opened the door wide. "You may as well come in, I've a feeling this is going to take a while."

#

"You're a zombie," I told the knockoff, who'd introduced himself as Nick. We'd seated ourselves around my little kitchen table and I'd served them tea.

"Wow, you guessed that all by yourself?"

"You're an angry sort of person, aren't you?"

"No," he said, at the same time as the woman - Penny - said, "Yes."

I sipped my tea, never taking my eyes off him. I knew I was staring, but I didn't care. "So...you're like a zombie Kevin Spacey?"

"I am not Kevin Spacey!"

"You look a lot like him."

"I don't look that much like him. I have more hair, for a start. It's the only bloody part of me that hasn't fallen off."

"Can we get back to Edward?" Penny asked. "What can you tell us about him?"

"Not much, really. We've only been dating for a few months. He's obsessed with zombies, though I have to say," and I glanced pointedly between Nick and the other guy, Cullen, "that I thought he was crazy until you showed up at my door."

"I don't care for that word," Nick said into his teacup.

"What would you prefer? Living dead? Reanimated?"

"'Nick' would be fine."

"That's fine for you, but not all zo-- er, not all people like you are named 'Nick,' are they?"

Again, Penny interrupted my derailing of the conversation. "Someone followed my husband home shortly after he became a zombie," she said, giving Nick a look that practically dared him to speak up. "The man who followed my husband broke into our house with the intention of killing us. He turned out to be a former employee of Edward's, named James Barstow. Do you know him?"

I shook my head. "I've heard of him, though. Edward's mentioned him once or twice. They're in the same group, call themselves the Watchers. I guess they think it sounds cool." I rolled my eyes to show them what I thought of the name. "I don't know where Ed is, though, if that's where this is leading. I haven't seen him since last weekend. I was going to break up with him." I gave Nick a sunny smile. In the right light, at the right angle, he really did look a lot like...

"Yeah, they haven't seen him at his office, either," said Nick, frowning at me. "Do you know where he might go?"

"If I knew that, I wouldn't have said I don't know where he is." I toyed with the idea of winking at him, but decided it was too much, too soon. I didn't want to scare him off. An idea occurred to me. "You can look in his office, if you want."

"We've already been there. The secretary wouldn't let us in," Penny told me. She glanced from me to Nick and back, and I could have sworn she was fighting not to smile.

"He has a home office, too," I said. "He doesn't have much in there, but you might find something useful." I glanced at Penny's husband. What was his name? Connor? Kevin?

Cullen. I took a good look at him. He was sitting at the far end of the table, with his head leaning against the wall. He was staring into space. He looked dead.

"Is he dead?" I asked.

Penny cocked an eyebrow at me, as if to say "That's a stupid question," but I just pointed at her husband.

"No, really...he doesn't look so good."

Penny put a hand on his arm and shook him gently. "Cull?"

He raised his head, looked around at each of us, then smiled and said, "The toaster has fangs."

"Sounds like his normal self," Nick said. Penny shot him a glare.

"He'll be okay," she said. "He's just...recently reanimated. I understand it takes awhile to adjust."

"I don't remember babbling about fanged kitchen appliances," Nick said.

"No, with you it was the giant pink Winnebago telling you it could fly you to the moon," Penny replied, smiling sweetly at him. She turned back to me. "Let's see that office."

2010-07-23T12:29:00.001-05:00

Testing the text blogging thing that Blogger gives you. Pretty cool. :)

Couch to 5K, Day Two...

2010-07-23T08:50:00.000-05:00

...was a wash. I need to cough up the money to buy decent shoes, or I'm going to cripple myself. I made it to about the halfway point (the same as I managed on Day 1) before the pain in my shins and left ankle became unbearable. Here's how it went:

5am, alarm goes off: "Ugh. Not happening." Slap the alarm off before I'm even fully awake.

5:30, backup alarm goes off (because I know myself too well): "Ugh. Can't reach that one to shut it off without getting out of bed. Guess I'm up."

6:00: Five minute warm-up, brisk walk. "Hey, I did it. I got out of bed. I'm doing Day 2 of a running program. Go me! Hm, my legs seem to still be pretty sore from the other day, even after my stretches. Oh well, I'm sure they'll warm up."

6:05: First running segment, 60 seconds. "Uh...wow. Every muscle in my lower leg is screaming at me to stop. Oh, well, that's to be expected when starting a new exercise program, right? I mean, I haven't run before, so of course my legs will--" The podcast I'm listening to informs me my first 60 seconds are up. I slow to a walk.

6:07 and 30 seconds: Second running segment, 60 seconds. "Holy shit, it feels like someone's ramming a pointed stick right through my left shin. I should slow my run a little, maybe, even though I'm already 'running' at a snail's pace and I think that turtle just lapped me."

6:10: Third running segment, 60 seconds. "I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die but only after I gnaw off my own leg to end the pain. I want my mommy."

6:11 and 30 seconds: Fourth running segment, 60 seconds. "Now it feels like the sharpened stick is made of broken glass and heated to a thousand degrees. But goddammit, I made it to the halfway point the first day; I'm not freaking quitting now or I'll be going backwards instead of progressing. Fuck you, leg. Fuck you sideways. With a red-hot poker made of broken glass and rage."

The walk home was...not pleasant, to say the least.

Yes, I know I'm stupid for running in bad shoes. Yes, I know I'm stupid for forcing myself to run through pain. But, dammit, I was pissed off over not being able to run for 60 stupid seconds, and I overdid it.

Sigh.

Oh, well...my schedule is Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, so I have the weekend to let my ankle recover and to find shoes that won't cause me to wind up with a broken ankle or worse.

Critters.

2010-07-22T17:03:00.000-05:00

Lisa and Jen feel left out. So here -

For Lisa:

And for Turkey:

I'm a colonel in the Erma army.

2010-07-22T16:25:00.001-05:00

Mine is the newest post over at An Army of Ermas - go check it out. Now! Please? ;)

C25K

2010-07-22T15:48:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I started a new fitness program that I read about on my friend Lisa's blog. It's called c25k, and it stands for couch to 5 kilometers. It is, as its name implies, meant to get you from couch potato to running 5 kilometers over the course of several weeks. It starts out with easy intervals of running mixed with walking -- 60 seconds of running followed by a 90-second cool down, repeated for 20 minutes.

Sounds fairly simple, right?

It kicked my ass. I made it halfway through the first day's program before my legs gave out and I had to walk the rest of the way. Bleh. I've decided, though, to just be happy I got out there and did it, and I'm determined to force myself to finish the program -- three times a week, repeating weeks as necessary until I'm ready to tackle the tougher ones.

Part of the reason for this blog was to hold myself accountable, so I'll be posting here after each workout to record my progress and how each workout affects my body.

So, thanks for reading, and please feel free to post encouragement and butt-kicking as needed to keep me on track. ;)

Frankly, I'd rather be somewhere else.

2010-07-22T08:54:00.000-05:00

Writing about myself is not one of my talents. Silly spoof news? No problem. Goofy blog from the perspective of a plant? Easy-peasy. Personal stuff about myself? Uh...drawing a blank here.

I'm starting this anyway, for several reasons. One, I need a place to post under my own byline and link to clips so I can use the site as my professional one. Second, I'd like to be able to put up clips of my fiction, and my other sites don't really facilitate that. And third, I just started a new fitness program and need a place to post my goals and progress, so I can more easily hold myself accountable.

There's my explanation of the new blog. Welcome, and I hope you'll stick around. ;)