November 20, 2007

Hi team!

I’m afraid it’s a short, photo-less blog entry tonight, BECAUSE I had to write a blog for HarperTeen’s new MySpace page, where lots of other brilliant authors have posted and will be posting!

Check it out! Or, actually, wait until Thursday to check it out, because that’s when my spiffy blog should be posted. I know! I got Thanksgiving! Snap! Who’s going to be around to post it is beyond me, but hopefully oodles of teens who are blissed out on turkey and hiding from their relatives will find the site and my blog while they’re zipping around the internet. And then maybe they’ll be like, dude, what totally way fascinating things this author has to say — I’m going to ask my parents for books by Tui for Christmas!

Orrrrrrr something. Of course, I was given a 200-word limit (ha ha! you may notice I go a leeeetle over that) and it didn’t seem like photos of monkeys or me on a water buffalo was quite what they were looking for, so I don’t know how totally way fascinating it actually is. It’s weird to write a blog entry that’s all writer-y instead of all me-y. I felt like I had to Impart some Wisdom, and it couldn’t be “hey guys, guess what I just noticed? Chuck is totally awesome! Y’all should like, watch it, and stuff!” (which is true, by the way)

But I did discover something fascinating as I was “doing research” for my blog entry (which may or may not be code for “surfing the internet looking for stuff to talk about”). Apparently Mary Shelley (author of Frankenstein, like you need me to tell you that) also wrote a post-apocalyptic book! WHAAAT? Why hasn’t anyone told me about this before? It’s called The Last Man and I MUST HAVE IT NOW. Wikipedia refers to it as one of the earliest books in the post-apocalyptic genre. 1826! I’ll say! Good heavens. I read the first paragraph on Amazon and it looks a little dense, so this might be another ill-advised dive into a classic, but DUDE, it’s about the apocalypse! So I’ll at least give it twice as much of a chance as Crime and Punishment got, and I finished that godforsaken book.

And, of course, I am tremendously excited about the new movie I Am Legend, starring Will Smith and a completely empty New York City (say, that sounds familiar!) (seriously, movie people, after Children of Men and this…Avatars is just the next logical step! Call me!). (I mean, you know, when you’re all speaking to each other again.)

Apparently this movie is based on a book, too, so we can add I Am Legend by Richard Matheson to my reading list (although, goodness, the description on Amazon makes it sound a lot more like 28 Days Later than Earth Abides or Children of Men, which is what the trailer makes it look like. Hmmm.). Fascinating. And awesome. Because the stack of half-read books beside my bed is clearly not tall enough yet.

And where did all of those books come from? Cleaning the house! Yup, we’re hosting Thanksgiving this year (eee whee eeeeeee!), so there’s been a massive house cleaning (which is GREAT because goodness knows that didn’t happen for the three months leading up to the wedding!), so I’ve turned up all the books I started and then lost somewhere in the house (can I tell you how exciting it is to have a house big enough to lose things in?) or decided not to bring on the honeymoon (sorry, Quicksilver, you 500-pound tome, but I’ll try to read you here!).

So now the house is very shiny and our fridge is very full and Sunshine is very confused (“is ANY of that food for me? why is the luggage coming out of the closet? why is the dreaded Swiffer taking over the world? WHY IS THE LUGGAGE GOING BACK INTO THE CLOSET??”, etc.) and I am very excited about using all of our sparkly and wonderful wedding presents (hooray for china and centerpiece bowls and place mats and runners and creamers and platters and vases and sheets and comforters and roasting pans and knives and napkin rings and garlic presses and Battlestar Galactica DVDs!) (hey, if anyone can work that last one into Thanksgiving weekend, it’s us). I’m also excited about trying to make crème brulee and tom kha gai soup for our extremely tolerant families. Hooray! Wish me luck! Or maybe wish them luck.

And happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

Quote of the Day: “One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.”
— A.A. Milne