Freakin' Amateurs

I am such a dumb-ass. Yesterday I was at the neighbour's for one of those kitchen parties (you know, with the utensils that cost more than a trip around the fecking world). My neighbour, who is sweet, introduced me to everyone as a "published author" and I modestly explained that my real last name is Atwood, which made them look at me like a bug, and then I said, "no, no, I'm a self-published author and everyone looked relieved because they weren't in the presence of greatness after all.

The sales lady asked me if I had my book edited and I said, well, yes, I have writer friends who edited it for me to which she replied, "I have a friend who self-published a book," and she proceeded to tell me that the book wasn't all that interesting and was absolutely full of spelling errors.

"Huh," I said, because I didn't know what else to say. I'll tell you what I was thinking, though. I was thinking, smugly, that my book is almost typo-free. I was thinking that her friend must be a fecking AMATEUR to put out a book with so many typos. I was feeling all, uppity about my typo-free self.

I will concede that there may be the odd mistake here or there, because nobody's perfect, but I am confident there are very few spelling mistakes in Green Eggs & Weezie, thanks to the eagle eyes of a whole bunch of my editing buddies.

So I looked at her, and smiled graciously, and thought how freakin' fantastic I am compared to her poor spelling-challenged friend.

Pride always goeth before a fall, yes it does.

Last night I was pleased to discover Amazon.com had released the paperback version of my book.  I was all, like, hooting and happy, going over the amazingly professional blurb that I had written for the back cover and then used as a promo to sell the darned thing. This is what I wrote:

Down-to-earth, darkly humorous and wise, Cathy Olliffe-Webster’s debut novel, Green Eggs & Weezie, casts a wry eye over what can happen when even the best marriages go bad. Through the beguilingly earthy Weezie Polk we learn that it’s not a good idea to whack a cheating husband with a Dr. Seuss book; that Anthony Bandero has nothing to do with a Brazilian wax; and that it’s never a good idea to pee your pants in jail.

Anthony Bandero.

ANTHONY BANDERO? Who the feck is Anthony Bandero????

My blood ran cold. I had meant to write ANTONIO BANDERAS, you know, the famous Latin heart-throb and all-round stud-muffin actor, and yet, in a moment of absolute idiocy, I had spelled his name COMPLETELY WRONG, thought it looked just fine in editing and then, not only put it on the promo, but also had illustrator Steven Novak put it on the back cover!

Yep, uppity me, typo-free since never.

A to Z Honesty - N is for Ass

I am such an ass sometimes. OK, since this is an honesty thing, I'm an ass a LOT of times. But yesterday I was particularly assy.

There are 1,735 blogs signed up for this A to Z Blogging Challenge. That's crazy good, yes? But deciding to visit as many of those blogs as possible in just one month? Why that's CRAZY. Still, I've been trying. When someone throws a gauntlet at me and whacks me in the face with it, I pick it up and whack 'em back. The rest of my life is lived as a lazy slug but at gauntlet throwing I am an Olympian. (What the feck is a gauntlet anyway?)

So yesterday I was A to Z-ing at a rapid rate because it was the first day I'd had in ages to spend some quality time with my gauntlet, and after a couple hours of visiting other people's blogs and trying to make quasi-intelligent comments, I came across Graphophobia, the earnest blog of a timid writer named Kevin B. Hiatt whose post about goals struck me as inspirational. Thus I was blatting in his comment box with my usual peppiness, writing this:

I need to do ALL of those things. Except the video games, because I never play them anyway, but I need to get BACK to my diet and BACK to exercising and BACK to writing.

And then, because I was all hepped up on peppiness, enthusiasm and stupidity, I finished the comment with this:

You go, girl! Thanks for the inspiration!!!!!

In case you're wondering, Kevin is not a girl. My apologies to you, Kevin. As I've said, I am an ASS. I should just go to other people's blogs and write "ASS was here."

Speaking of A to Z, I have a couple observations to make.

1. I had no idea there were so many blogs out there completely dedicated to rodents. Gerbil blogs. Guinea pig blogs. Hamster blogs. What the feck, people? Entire blogs about a being that only lives for two years and spends that entire time scurrying around wheels, eating freeze dried grass pellets, pooping and biting the fingers of small children? My own blog is so much better - writing about asses. (I hear ya.)

2. When you follow a gerbil blog? The gerbil blog does not follow you back. Maybe it's because it's in its cage. Or one of those plastic balls. Hard to hit the follow button, also, when your arm is a quarter of an inch long. Or maybe gerbils are just snooty. Or they don't want to read about asses.

Great, now my fingers stink

Uck. I accidentally touched goo from Dave's salmon sandwich when I was cleaning up the kitchen just now. I had purposely avoided touching any crumbs on the counter but didn't discover until my fingers were in the goo that he had made the sammich on top of the dishwasher. Touched the goo, smelled my fingers, went "blech," scrubbed fingers with Palmolive. Smelling my fingers just now and they still have a lingering fish smell. May have to go wash fingers again. Once a guy from work brought smoked trout and sauerkraut to work and heated it up in the microwave. The whole building smelled like gack. The boss came in from lunch and said, "Who the fuck died in here?" So the legend goes. I didn't actually hear him because I was at my desk, retching.

The key word in that paragraph? Dishwasher! It's, like, the best thing that has ever happened. In. My. Entire. Life. Some day I'm going to do an entire post about the dishwasher, complete with erotic photos of its loveliness. Maybe even a centrefold with a staple in it's silverware rack.

Lost three and a half pounds at Weight Watchers this week. That's 14 and a half pounds in four weeks. Nobody has really noticed any changes yet but I know, for a fact, that my ass is getting smaller. My underwear actually go around it now, not hovering nervously waiting at the top, worried about stretching over the whole thing. My ass is like a planet, but not Saturn, because it doesn't have any rings, unless you want to count my underwear, which sort of ring it. So yes, it's exactly like Saturn.

Tomorrow I have a hair appointment. Did I mention my hair? I hate it right now. What's left of it. About half of it broke off. I seriously have hardly any hair. I look like I've been through chemotherapy. I have to do a comb-over or one side is balder than the other. My once thick locks are now stringy and thin and fried to a crisp. It's the blonding that killed it. Bleached it off in chunks, it did. Made it all brittle. Then I went to bed a couple times with a ponytail and it snapped off where the ponytail holder was. So now I have a dilemma. Do I get it all cut off and start over? Do I cut off to chin length and wait a couple months for the balding areas to catch up to the rest? Do I keep it blonde and risk killing hair in order to avoid skunk head? Or do I go back to brown and do root touch-ups every week? Will seriously consider any advice on this very important topic ...