Vintage muffin tin I bought at the estate sale of Harvena Richter, the daughter of writer Conrad Richter (and herself a writer) a few years ago, and the cornbread muffins I made for Thanksgiving a few years ago. I loved the name "Muffinaire" so much plus I just love vintage kitcheny things, I had to get it. And these make "normal" sized muffins, not giant baby-head size ones like people expect these days.

Today I got another rejection e-mail (some festival in South Carolina) and wrote 18 pages on the new WIP. None of it is long hand, I'm typing from the outline and notes. 

Random idea that came up in my head while writing:

a character's 4 year old son sees slot machines for the first time on an airport layover in Las Vegas while flying to visit his grandparents. He is so taken with them that for Halloween he wants to be a slot machine. So, he and his mother make a costume out of cardboard boxes and paper and tape and aluminum foil and whatever else they can find. His mom wants to dress up as something appropriately casino-themed to go with him. While she's surfing the internet trying to find a way to make a card dealer costume that looks interesting, she finds that someone is selling a Vegas showgirl costume on eBay. 

The Vegas showgirl costume is satirical; it's a gold halter top and boy shorts decorated with coins, and then the headdress and tail are made out of fabric printed with dollar bills and green feathers. It was originally owned by a drag queen who performed in anti-casino rallies in Philadelphia and Harrisburg. Needless to say, she hits "Buy It Now!" 

Unfortunately, the little boy's costume is misstaken for a robot, and he gets so tired of trying to explain that he's a slot machine that he gives up and lets people say, "oh, what a cute robot!" as long as he gets candy.  It's okay. Mom knows he's a slot machine, and he knows he's a slot machine. 

This isn't the whole play, it's just part of it. 

I found a spider in the clothes dryer this morning when I was doing laundry. It was a brown spider about the size of a Kennedy half dollar. I thought, how am I going to get this critter out? 

Then I thought, the washer's empty, so you don't have to dry anything for a bit, just do a load of wash and leave the clothes dryer door open, maybe it'll leave on its own. 

So I said to the spider, "When you were young, and your web was somewhere outside,

You used to say, spin and let spin, (you know you did you know you did you know you did)

But when this laundry clothing washer stops a spinnin', if you don't want to fry,

Leave or get dried." 

Thank you. Don't forget to tip your bartenders and waitresses. 

I cannot stop playing this awesome little game.

You ramble around a tiny solar system, exploring and discovering crazy stuff. That's it. It's great. Still in alpha, way more fun than "finished" things I've played with.

After weeks of playing with absolutely no googlin' for spoilerz, I finally broke down and peeked at a playthrough to find out how the heck you land on that wacky disappearing moon. Turns out it's something I never use because the controls are difficult on a mac and I forget how to use stuff that seems less important. So I don't feel so badly about missing it.

Speaking of which, for the benefit of others who were horrified when that other page with the keyboard controls went down:

Outer Wilds Keyboard Controls

>> Player Controls <<

move - wasd
look - mouse
interact - e
jump - space
open/close map - m
toggle flashlight - f
toggle telescope - middle click
zoom in - left shift
zoom out - left ctrl

>> Probe Controls <<
launch probe - right click
forward snapshot - right click
reverse snapshot - q
retrieve probe - hold right click

>> Flight Controls <<
thrust horizontally - wasd
thrust up - left shift
thrust down - left ctrl
pitch/yaw - mouse
acquire target - left click
match velocity - space (target required)

>> Ship-Only Flight Controls <<
toggle landing camera - q
engage autopilot - r (target required)

Don't thank me, thank archive.org.

I was in Indianapolis exactly a month ago. The day or two before I flew there I was getting a cold, and the flight made it markedly worse. I taught with a fever and *literally* no voice. I went to an Urgent Care place and they gave me steroids so I could talk (gets the swelling down on mah cords) and some antibiotics. I was feeling better in 3-4 days, and I finished my scrip like a good girl and that was the end.
I flew to Indianapolis on Monday, but the day before I felt like maybe I was getting sick, but I couldn't have two colds so close together so I just ignored it. After my flight landed and I got to my hotel, I was running a fever and was sick again. When I woke up for class the next morning (not that I slept, really) I could barely talk again. It felt like the same exact cold.  I went to the same Urgent Care place and they gave me more steroids (a shorter course) and no antibiotics, and I could tell the steroids helped. I flew home last night (Thursday) and had a full-blown panic attack on the plane (managed to keep my shit together well enough that I don't think others noticed; thank god for Xanax), and when I crawled into bed upon arrival home, my cold blossomed into a Righteous Plague that includes hacking up green things from nose, lungs, ears, you name it. I hurt, I can't swallow, and I feel like I got hit by a train. I haven't gotten out of bed because I can't.
Matt has been trying to plan a birthday thing for me for ages, friends have been wanting to get together, and once again I've got a cold and can't leave the house. Between me canceling things because of colds or me canceling things so I can take care of Matt when he has bad days, it's amazing our friends all haven't written us off as people who can't get their shit together.
I have a ton of work to do in prep for my San Fran trip next week and I'm hoping I can muster the energy to get it done. Typing this is monumentally hard because I'm so achy and crappy. 
Remember my ITIL book? Yeah, we're shooting the video of it starting 4/20 in San Fran-- but we leave for SF on 4/16 to spend a few days there. Might have to rethink that.

OK, time for bed.

(cross-posted to xtingu.livejournal.com)

 This morning I was in a hurry and couldn't find two matching sneakers. I could find one worn-out lime & gray New Balance running sneaker, and one brand newish barely ever worn giant white blocky New Balance walking sneaker, which I think my mother gave me, because even she wouldn't wear this Jerry Seinfeld circa 1996 shit. 

I was determined to get Vince to the train so I wouldn't spend the next two hours driving to and from Center City, and so I could go to the gym and have a productive morning. So, guess what I wore. 

I thought to myself, I give no fucks. And take no quarter. YAARR, I'M THE PYRATE QUEENE OF PLANET FITNESS.

Snapped the photo, sent it to Dr. Fig, because in that tightly wound New York poli sci world in which she lives, she needs this. 

So, as I'm walking out to the gym floor, I see a guy on another elliptical machine, African American, about my height, maybe a little younger than me or the same age, wiry and skinny, with a full beard, dreadlocks, and a bandanna on his head. 

The guy was chugging along, but instead of holding the elliptical machine handles, he was paddling. He was paddling with an invisible canoe oar, alternating sides of his invisible boat, with a pretty good rate of speed. I'd say whoever should prepare to be boarded didn't stand a chance. 

I really wanted to encourage him, but I didn't want him to think I was making fun of him. Because when I listen to This Way To The Egress on the elliptical, it's really hard for me to resist doing jazz hands. 

He kept it up for a pretty good while, too. 

YAR. 

So, it was Easter. And I have a 4 year old, the only kid in our extended family. So of course we plan an Easter egg hunt for her enjoyment. All told about 2 dozen hard-boiled eggs were colored and about a dozen plastic eggs were filled with treats.

After the kid went to sleep, and before my brother Thomas and I got too far into our evening drinking (he was working on a case of Millerlite, I was working through a bottle and a half of pinot grigio), we decided to put out the eggs. Thomas put out the eggs - all 30+ of them, making a nice looping path around my backyard.

I live in the part of suburbia that has sprawling parklike backyards, btw.

Come morning, the family gathered to watch my kid hunt Easter eggs. And she found one. Then two or three. But they were few and far between. At which point it dawned on us that perhaps leaving the eggs out overnight was not the wisest idea. She did find all the plastic eggs, which almost all still had treats inside. But only 5 of the 24 hardboiled eggs made it through the night.

Ah, wildlife. Don't know if it was squirrels or foxes or groundhogs or what, but I imagine they are fat and happy critters now. Love my home.

Easy Rider Yelp Reviews. 

BILLY: They say it's Non-Stop Pizza! We gotta get that, cause man, we gotta go! I mean, are you in or what? All I wanna know is, the Non-Stop Pizza... Where's it from, man? 

CAPT. AMERICA: If the pizza is non-stop...

(Pause)

(Pause)

(Pause)

(pause) 

...did it ever start? 

GEORGE: it's not so much the pizza itself but what the pizza represents. 

RAFELSON: So did you guys actually try the pizza? 

BILLY: No, man, we just saw the sign. 

CAPT. AMERICA: We blew it. 

Riffing: check out NASA administrator Charles Bowden looking the Balrog straight in the eye and bellowing "you... shall... not... pass!"

Warning: Barbie wants to take your child's brain into the cloud. Brr brr brr brr brr!

Plumbing: I replaced a tub spout today. Super easy, but I'm proud of myself anyway. Except this one is super noisy when you fill the tub, so I've ordered a nice Delta faucet with a pull-down diverter. The kind that automatically switches off the diverter when you stop the water. Which means no galactic conflict in the bathroom.

Reading: The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women. I bought it cuz Shari Lipkin's Valentines is in it. I dig that story.

The book is very uneven, some of the first stories in the book are poorly edited. Too many of them are lazy as science fiction. But others, like Alice Sola Kim's "The Other Graces," are excellent.

And truth be told, like most people I care more about an internally consistent story than I do about adhering to the tenets of "hard SF," although I admire that as a challenging creative constraint.

Wearing: I recently ordered three pairs of dockers online and they fit. Roberta approves of the way they fit. For a guy like me, that's a major fashion breakthrough.

I'm also wearing a super warm, super fuzzy flannel shirt. It doesn't match the pants, but it's a Saturday morning.

Planning: this weekend I'm gonna be a dead sexy man. I'm gonna be so dead sexy, I'm gonna install a shower diverter. Boom chickawaba.

Next week at P'unk Avenue we are celebrating our tenth anniversary. Holy crap. I've been there for most of that. Holy crap.

I am fortunate to work with friends and to look forward to work almost every day.