Entries

Monogamous writers with eight cats about…who?

Poor Todd. Last night I’d only just started making veggie chili (listening to the CBS tv station that comes in on the radio, it took me five minutes to figure out that there was not a star reporter named “AJ” getting all the stories on a tabloid show, but that the show was called “American Journal” and they were being obnoxiously cute) when I heard the front door open and came out into the living room. Todd was wandering up the stairs to the bathroom, looking like he’d run all the way home, and he said pitifully, “I’m cold. Help.” So I came upstairs with him and helped him change into warm sweats and back downstairs I tucked him in bed while he shivered and sniffled and was just generally sweetly traigic. I finished up the chili and we watched one of the free nature videos from the library, The Secret Life of Plants, which awed both of us despite our preoccupation with chili and warmth and cold medicine.

After waking up feeling like he’d been run over with a steamroller around five, Todd called in sick to work and we had a lovely sleepy day together — well, as lovely as it could be with lots of nose-blowing and coughing going on. A day at home seems to have done the trick, and it looks like he’ll be able to go to work tomorrow.

I’ve recently discovered Laurie King’s novels, and while the books themselves are relatively well written they’re not the reason I’m hooked. It’s the subject matter, and the theory of “write what you know”, which Laurie is most emphatically (to my eyes, anyway) not practicing. Her “about the author” blurb says she lives in California with her husband and children; her mystery series character is a lesbian police inspector. I can’t help but be fascinated. The books I’ve read that focus on lesbian characters have been, without exception, by lesbian women. While I’m sure I’ve read books about straight couples by lesbian women or gay men, it’s not something I know for sure, and I find myself having an attitude about Laurie’s writing — as if I’ll be able to find chinks in her characters that will prove that she doesn’t know enough about her subject to be addressing it. Which, by the way, I haven’t. So do I have segregated rules in my head about writing that I wasn’t aware of? Do I think white people should only write about white people, black people about black people, gay accountants about gay accountants, elderly retired dentists about elderly retired dentists and so on and so forth in a ridiculous extension of political correctness? No. Or — god — if I do, I plan to change!

Dress With a Head, Revisited

Hey! I know, let’s put the stove in the kitchen!