Sense of Adventure

Actually, that’s Joseph Reichert. I’ve known him about forty years now. That’s another story – or a volume. Maybe two.

What I was just moved to write about was my other best friend – or as I sometimes refer to him, “my best little friend.”

This would be my orange tabby cat TJ. Which, yes, is short for Thomas Jefferson.

You might think it would be Emma Dog, based on the volume of verbiage I generate about her in my posts. But that’s a sampling error. She’s a wonderful friend, don’t get me wrong. She’s also - even as we approach, in two days I think, the fourth anniversary of her coming to the Milán Pack – still something of a novelty in the house, whereas both cats have been with me over ten years. Also because she alone accompanies me on excursions and adventures outside the house, even no further than the backyard (and remember - if you can’t find adventure in your own backyard, why would you expect to be able to find it anywhere else?), she plays in more anecdotes. In addition, there’s frankly so much history between me and the cats that I hesitate to bring them in because I hardly know where to begin.

I’ll skip Teej’s bio for now – he’s worth a volume on his own – for an anecdote that may enlighten you as to why I consider him by best friend.

As a part of my daily ritual I recite a formula gleaned from the work of Napoleon Hill, specifically his Think and Grow Rich!* – still the best self-help book ever written, and pretty much the fountainhead from which most subsequent worthwhile self-help books have sprung. There have been advances on his work, as well there ought be: it originally came out, if I understand correctly, in the 1920s. (Nope - 1937, if one believes Wikipedia, as in this case, why wouldn’t I?) It still stands as well worth reading.

Anyway, since I began this ritual about six years ago, a curious thing has happened. I recite it by habit right after I finish breakfast or lunch (mostly semantics, there.) As it happens most times, and as it happened just a few moments ago (it’s currently 3:27 PM in the Mountain West. So, maybe chronology more than semantics.) And that is: if he’s in earshot and awake, sometimes even if he’s drowsing, TJ turns up.

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As I explained to Ann in the comment to my last post, I intended yesterday’s “thought of the day” as essentially a positive observation. That might seem strange. Heck, it is strange. It might be a bit more accurate to say it was half of a positive observation.

Yesterday I spent some time at my best friend Joseph’s while he was doing home improvement things on his house. He told me the story of a former associate of his who was thoroughly unscrupulous and untrustworthy. Not only did he lack compassion for the misfortune of others, he actively mocked those who showed such compassion. Once when Joe stuffed $20 in the tip jar of a broken-down looking old guy who played piano in a bar in which they drank, this associate said, “Why’d you give money to that old loser? People like that should just die and get out of the way.”

Now I think people get to say things like that if they want to. Unlike liberals and conservatives, to pick two examples utterly out of air, I don’t believe people should be beat up, locked up, or killed, for saying things I don’t like or disagree with. I realize that there are plenty of conservatives and liberals who believe that I should be beat up, locked up, and killed for saying any such thing myself. Some have said so. (Beliefs such as mine were once demonized as “abusive tolerance,” a phrase which thankfully I’ve not read in a long time.)

That said, people behaving like assholes don’t endear themselves to me. When I catch myself doing it, I don’t much like me. And the associate I’m talking about did defraud people by inducing them to provide him services on the basis of promises he never intended to keep. That to me actually is a crime. But since he was a lawyer, he also did it in ways that were hard to prove.

So a few years later, as you’ve probably guessed, or offender hit the skids himself. And felt terribly aggrieved and hard done by when, basically, the sharks raced in to grab their mouthfuls of his flesh, and his own former associates - including the people he’d screwed - refused to help him.

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Maybe we can’t rely on gratitude, but vengeful hatred never fails.

Saturday was the famed Sci-Fi [sic] Night at the NM Scorpions hockey game. It was a lovely late afternoon for a drive - welcome to the actual beginning of New Mexico spring.

I’d downloaded directions to the Santa Ana Star Center and they seemed clear enough. I got a bit of a shock, however, when I came upon the Santa Ana Star Casino far short of where the map told me I was going. In my simple naïvete, here I thought the Center would be attached to the Casino. Nope.

At least the map was clear enough to give me confidence. On I drove. And on.

Later fellow attendee Jane Lindskold told me she’d called to ask for directions. She asked specifically what the Center was near. There came a pause, and then the reply, “It’s not really near anything.”

No, it’s not. It is, in fact, way out in the weeds.

Still it was hard to miss, rising out of the desert pretty much by itself. I got there with my box of books right before the doors were to open and joined my fellow writers at our table on the concourse. Two tables, actually, as well as another table for Bubonicon staffed by con chair Kristen Dorland and her sister-in-law (whose name I never manage to get; sorry.) I got slotted in between Walter Jon Williams and Gerald Weinberg. Out on the ends were Jane and Robert E. Vardeman.

The Center is relatively new, and a very nice, clean facility. Things started out fairly slow. Over the course of the evening, though, we got a fair amount of interest. A lot of kids came by to check us out, always a good thing - we need that rising generation of readers to keep us from having to get actual jobs.

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As every schoolchild knows, an invaluable resource for any homeowner is having a Crazy Tree Guy.

A Crazy Tree Guy is … wait. Is it possible there’s some part of that you don’t understand? He’s a crazy guy who works on trees!

More to the point, a Crazy Tree Guy is very knowledgeable about trees, possibly from residing in them, and does good work for cheap. He’s also in his way reliable: the Crazy Tree Guy won’t necessarily appear at the time appointed, or even on the day, but he will show up and do the work. Compare that to, say, the cable company…

Yesterday my Crazy Tree Guy reappeared on my doorstep. He’s a tall, skinny, middle-aged white guy who shaves his head and face, although I seem to recall seeing him with white stubble. He’s not a bad-looking guy, though in twenty years I can see him being the very image of Popeye the Sailor Man. He moves in an oddly stiff and abrupt way, a bit like a lizard.

He mentioned that after I hired him to trim the huge dead limbs off the big Siberian elms in my front yard, he had promised to come back this spring and clean the trees up for me. Actually he did the trees two years ago in August, and promised to come back last Spring. But what the hey: Crazy Tree Guys aren’t bound by your boring whitebread calendar!

Of course, as a self-employed (which in the eyes of the Corporate State means unemployed) full-time professional writer I don’t intend to fling handfuls of poo at Crazy Tree Guys, or anyone, for being unorthodox and free-walkers.

Anyway, I’d noticed the elms were sending up big bushy shoots from the roots and crowding the sidewalks, and had about determined to go out myself and do battle with them, possibly with the cool Ontario Knife Co. machete a friend gave me years ago. Or just my kukri. But, ah, one salient trait of Crazy Tree Guys is that they work cheap enough that I, not yet rolling in the dough, can afford them. So I told him sure. He then, in his inscrutable Crazy Tree Guy fashion, wandered off.

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So today I dropped a cool $124 and change on supplies at Costco. Eggs, facial tissue, olive oil … that sort of thing. I impulse bought a door mat for $19. Okay, so I’ve needed one for a couple years now. But it’s not a necessity.

On the one hand I suppose I need to be cautious, what with price inflation just starting to blow up. If I were smart I’d probably split for two tons of toilet paper. There’s something that’s going to continue to be in demand. Of course, a year from now that door mat’ll probably be worth a million dollars. Then again, a decent scavenged wood screw will go for more than my current net worth.

… Anyway, the mat’s going right back, it turns out. It’s huge. It’s not so much a welcome mat as a porch carpet. Ah, well. Shoulda read the specs closer.

Meanwhile … to actually talk about the nominal subject of this post … I saw what struck me as a leading contender for Worst Dog Toy Ever: the Plush-Toy Skunk.

Um. Leaving aside the cliché in the room, skunks are redoubtable predators who can quite savagely rip on a dog with powerful claws as well as teeth.

And now, not leaving aside the obvious … hello: they’re skunks?

Do you really want to accustom your dog to the idea it’s a good idea to play with them? What’s next? Cuddles the Rattlesnake? Mr. Sparky the Chewable Electric Cord?

It’s like giving your kid a Bath-Buddy Toaster.

Among the other somewhat bizarre and variegated wildlife we’ve got in my neighborhood, there indeed are skunks. How do I know? Well - and you’re not going to believe this, I know - I’ve smelled them. Especially in the Spring.

Love. It’s in the air, baby.

Well, our New Mexico weather is following its usual pattern. As seems to be the case most places, the seasons change quite definitely on or about the first of the month - not three weeks later, as per the bureaucratic (or fascist) calendar. And you can start sensing the onslaught of the seasonal change - not just by temperature and length of days, but the color and quality of light, the feel of the air, the smells - a week or two before.

Sure enough it’s begun to feel springlike here of late. The temperature’s trended up. Unfortunately that’s also meant we’ve started with the winds that makes Spring my second-favorite season as opposed to first. Yesterday, despite the fact it got above 60, the winds were savage, making it unpleasant to venture outside during the day. (Also, despite the warmth down here in the valley, the mountains were dusted with snow clear to the bases; a good deal remains today.)

Today I went to meet with a friend to walk by the Rio Grande Nature Center. When I woke up it was cloudy. When I left the house it looked as if it was clearing up and definitely wouldn’t rain. When I met my friend at the RGNC parking lot ten minutes it was solidly clouded over and seemed to threaten imminent rain. Ten minutes later when we left the pond it was clear overhead and getting bright.

So it remained for most of what would turn into a 9.31 mile walk. I’ve intended for a time to work up to 10,000 steps a day, as measured by my trusty Omron HJ-112 pedometer. While it appears the Japanese originally picked that as an auspicious number for steps in a day because of a cultural battiness for the number 10,000, it turns out actually to be a pretty near-optimal number of steps to take. Go figure.

So today I took 16,457. No, seriously. And that’s just counting between the time I parked my car and the time I climbed (gratefully, I’ll add) back in.

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So I got back late from writers’ group (fun and productive!) and am trying to wind down. Per my habit I’m sitting on the floor writing and spending quality time with Emma as she chews her rawhide bone.

Something at Steve Stirling’s must’ve smelled real interesting, because a couple minutes ago she left off her chewing to sniff most intently at my left hand and forearm. And, aside from Steve’s, they haven’t been anywhere unusual.

Anyway, as Emma sniffed the left side of her face got all wrinkly like a Shar Pei’s. Usually it’s her forehead that rumples up, not her muzzle. And it just struck me funny. Looked cute and silly.

I’m told purebred Shar Pei tend to have respiratory problems becaus, I suppose, their nasal passages are convoluted. Fortunately Em’s got a pretty much Lab nose, and it doesn’t seem to give her trouble. But sometimes the Shar Pei comes out in surprising ways.

Okay, it’s late, I’m easily amused. What can I say?

Sorry I’ve been a bit out of touch. Lot going on. Much of it is writing, which is a great good thing. But I’ll try to post a bit more. Not that anyone’s really just hanging on by the fingernails waiting for me to update my blog.

Thanks to everybody who turned out for the signing. I told you a good time would be had by all. And what do you know …?

I just had a big old boatload of fun Saturday at Page One. And as I said, I’m not even in the book. Although as it turned out I was called on to sign copies of various earlier Wild Cards books. And even one or two copies of Inside Straight, for people who apparently wanted to get as many WC authors’ autographs as possible.

We had a good turnout. I’d have to say at least a hundred people and probably more. We got a number of folks from ASFS, including the lovely and irrepressible Pat Rogers, Kevin Hewett, Craig Chrissinger, and Dawn Barela. Various WC authors not in the book appeared as well (so those who wanted as many signatures as possible kinda hit the jackpot), including Laura Mixon, Sage Walker, Gail Gerstner-Miller, Walter Jon Williams, and of course me, as well as Royce (Chip) Wideman and Parris, non-writers who contributed characters to the pantheon. To my pleased surprised a goodly contingent of non-Wild Cards NM authors also came out and supported us, including Pati Nagle and her husband Chris Crohn, Laura’s husband Steve Gould (whose movie Jumper comes out next week!), Robert Vardeman, Steve and Jan Stirling, and Jane Lindskold and her husband Jim Moore, Joan Spicci, and Ty and Jayné Franck. (Anyone I overlooked, please forgive me.)

What was coolest, though, as others in the group also noted, was how many faces we didn’t know. This wasn’t all just the Usual Suspects turning out, grateful as we all are to them for doing so. We got a lot of new people not just to attend, but to buy books. And that’s no bad thing.

The audience seemed to enjoy the presentation in advance of the signing proper. I did. When it was over a lengthy line formed for autographs. I had intended to come and listen to the opening show, then maybe take off. Instead I had such a great time hanging out and talking with people I never could tear myself away.

I also noticed that after the signing finally ended, and most of the regular public drifted away, the area Page One had set up in front of the signing tables with twenty or twenty-five chairs was mostly occupied by various NM SF writers talking to each other, reminding me once again what an incestuous community we are. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

As we packed up Caroline Spector asked the gentleman from Page One who’d run things - profuse apologies; I’ve spaced on his name - how many books sold. He said about seventy-five, plus some put on hold by people who weren’t able to make the signing. While that left a lot of copies out of the 200 they had on hand, he seemed thrilled. That’s pretty good sales for New Mexico. And it’s not as if those’re the only copies that’re going to get sold.

The Wild (Cards) Bunch and select others adjourned to a nearby Garduño’s Restaurant, where super-agent Kay McCauley threw us a swell reception. There, thanks to the kind offices of Melinda, I actually got to meet our editor from Tor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden. I also met a couple of Parris’ very nice friends from Ireland, Paul and Sally. Paul, as he puts it, swordfights for a living - being a notable re-enactor and movie stunt guy.

Laura got concerned because one of her adolescent daughters wasn’t answering her cell phone. Eventually the strayed lamb was heard from. I told Steve I didn’t reckon they’d have much trouble from young men wanting to date their daughters. All they need do, I said, was point to Steve and say: yes, Dad wrote a novel that got turned into a movie starring Samuel L. Jackson. I mean, Samuel L. Jackson. That ought to cut down on the nonsense.

Of course, it also means the daughters will never actually have a date until they move to a different continent and change their names. But what’s that to parental peace of mind?

Many thanks are due to Page One, PNH, and Kay, all of whom did wonderfully well by us. Also Craig, who gave us a nice review in the previous Sunday’s Albuquerque Journal.

Parris said the whole get-together was “a lot like having the band back together.” John Miller said it was the best signing he’s ever participated in.

I tend to agree with both sentiments.

I can’t tell … and if you want some clues, go here.

Click there now and check it out. Seriously. I’ll still be here when you get back.

Y’all know, probably (and if you don’t, hang around a spell and it’ll all become abundantly clear) that I’m more than somewhat slightly skeptical and cynical about conventional Big House publishing and publishers.

That said, Tor Books so far are doing a bang-up job promoting our spanky-brand-new Wild Cards offering, Inside Straight. They’re actually putting some effort into it. And the just-launched American Hero site is a wonderful step.

I’m basically in love with the site. Along with a very fine-looking logo we have brilliant headshots of all the contestant aces (I love Toadie’s big ol’ eye just staring at you) taken from the big group pictures done by artist Mike S. Miller. Farther down, past the first of what will be a continuing series of “confessionals” by the contestants, and a description of the reality-television series which drives the plot for much of the book, we see the group portraits themselves, along with rosters. Fortunately you can click on the group shots for larger versions, which is a good thing, because they’re freakin’ gorgeous.

They’re also, according to the characters’ creators - I’m not one, incidentally - pretty accurate, allowing for a wisp of artistic license. Frankly, from what I’ve read, they’re far, far closer to the characters as described than most illustrations I’ve seen. Indeed, I wish I’d had these pix to refer to when I was writing my sequences for the (ahem!) next volume, Busted Flush. Since some of the characters pictured play prominent roles in my contributions.

Ah, well. I’ll have ‘em for Book Three. Provided I’m in the volume … which, I have to say at the risk of tempting Fate, is fairly likely … they’ll be great to draw upon.

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