moi?

Overdoing and Underdoing.

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So I’ve been doing the Livestrong calorie/fitness counter and it’s been fine so far. I get a little hungry but nothing that makes me want to yell at my kid or whatever.

But yesterday got a little nuts. We made a run to the Staples, the boy and I, for various supplies (note to my agent if you’re reading this: yes, we bought a new phone), walking a mile and a half to get there.

After lunch, my wife came home from work early and we went to the local park. We hiked to the beach, then hiked back, over an hour and a half, which is a long way considering our various problems with our legs. We hopped over to the bus stop, all sweaty and exhausted, to wait for our ride home.

Except the driver picked us up, took us one stop, and told us he was taking a 30-minute break. We could take another bus if we wanted at this next stop, but since we weren’t going downtown that was worth fuck-all to us. We had no choice but to wait until 9pm for the bus or walk all the way home.

Let’s just say that I arrived home and realized my calorie intake was a negative number for the day. Not just below my goal: below zero.

“Oh my god,” I said to my wife. “I can eat anything I want.”

Mmm, grilled cheese sandwich with mayo and hot peppers. (840 calories)

Anyway, today will be a recovery day.

In unrelated news to my physical health but closely related to my mental health, I’m going to start an internet fast on Sat the 10th of September.

That’s right. I’ll be logging off and staying off.

I will check my emails once a day. I won’t be blogging, or reading my LJ friends list, or posting earworms on Facebook, or goofing around on Twitter. I’ll check email and allow my dropbox files to do their thing, then I’ll turn off my modem.

It’ll be a useful way to re-examine my internet habits (the way I used to when I did actual food-type fasts) and hopefully up my productivity. It’d be nice to have a little extra family time, too.

Anyway, I’m going offline to run some errands. Don’t forget there’s a Twenty Palaces spoiler thread to check out.

This is how you can tell I’m cool

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Yesterday I was making the rounds signing copies of my books and, as I was walking to my first B&N, I pushed up my slipping glasses and heard a tink!

And my glasses fell off my face in two pieces. The metal bridge finally succumbed to fatigue and snapped apart.

How can you tell I’m cool?

So cool, Brewster.

Hell yeah.

By the way, none of the B&Ns in town had copies of Circle of Enemies in stock. Hurricane Irene delayed them, I’m told. Can I tell you how happy I am that the biggest bookstore chain in the country won’t stock my books in a great many of their stores until at least a week after it’s come out?

This is how happy I am:

So cool, Brewster.

Anyway, my wife “fixed” them by wrapping a wire around the nose bridge and hot-melt gluing it in place. That’s better than tape, I guess? I think she’s mad at me.

Quick Friday post

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1. I have promised a thread for spoilery discussions of the Twenty Palaces books. I have not forgotten this promise.

2. Today is the day I travel around Seattle (by bus!) signing book stock in stores. Fun! Okay, not. Actually, it’ll be a good time to do some reading and thinking about item 3.

3. My agent got back to me with some notes about A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark. They seem very straightforward but will require a bit of fixing to address. Must turn on brain.

4. My agent has also shamed me into replacing my phone. Let us not speak of this further.

5. The Livestrong calorie counter is making me rethink my devotion to kielbasa and peanut butter.

6. Booster Gold is a terrific character.

7. My email inbox has been exploding for weeks. I’m not sure what to do about it, but I have to do something.

8. Last night was date night for my wife and me. Unfortunately, our sitter never showed (don’t know why) so we ended up cooking some quick, sorta-crappy food and then rushing out to Elliott Bay Marina to see “Cirque du Sail” a couple who travel around the world on their sailboat, with their kids, and pay their way by doing acrobatic shows in the rigging for donations. Last night was the final Seattle show but they’ll be in San Francisco in a few days. They’re very good. Check it out if you can.

9. One the way to the Marina last night, my wife turned to me and said “Thanks for coming to see this thing with me.” I said: “Hey, it’s Date Night! We just had bad food and now we’re going to see some unlikely entertainment. The only difference is that we’re dragging the boy behind us in a little red wagon.” Date night, everybody.

10. Time to get out of here and start signing. Have a great holiday weekend, Holiday Weekend People.

“That’s the end?”

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That was my wife and son’s reaction when I read the final line of The Hobbit to them last night. (It was this edition, so we had to stop often to admire the artwork–although I can’t say I was fond of the way the elves were portrayed.)

As family reading time goes, this was a long one, or maybe it just seemed long because I was the only one reading it. Usually we trade chapters between the three of us, but there was no way I was going to ask my dyslexic wife to read all those dwarf names over and over. That would have been hell for her. And since my son is not enthusiastic about reading aloud at the best of times, I gladly took on the task myself.

The only problem: we were watching DVD previews of… something last week (not a good sign, eh?) and the LOTR blue ray was one of them my son was startled to hear Elijah Wood say the name “Gandalf.”

“Didn’t you know?” I said. “The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are set in the same world. They’re connected.”

“Oh. Let’s read those next.”

And my heart sank. I’m happy that he’s (finally) warming up to fantasy, but there’s no way I can ask my wife to read LOTR aloud, so all the books would be on me and me alone.

Not only that, but much of Fellowship… is freaking dire. I’m sorry; I know there are people out there who lurve the books so much they read them every year or whatever, but too much of the early travel stuff is just tedious. And Bilbo’s birthday party takes forever to get to.

I’m tempted to break the family rule and skip the books in favor of the movies.

Interview with me

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Here’s an interview with me at The Quillery, for those who like to read this sort of thing. There’s also a chance to win all three books in a giveaway.

An auspicious day

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Today is supposed to be a Pokemon league day, but the boy woke up in the middle of the night with a bad cough, and I don’t take him when he’s all coughing on people. At this point, though, he seems fine, so we’ll be heading out.

In other super-fun news, I’ve started tracking my calories with Livestrong as of today. Reading Scott Lynch’s recent post on the topic, I accepted that there’s really no more excuses for putting it off. The writers who’d taken control of their fitness/eating all seem to be quite a bit younger than me–and that will make things harder–but it’s not like I’m going to turn 30 again.

If nothing else, I expect recording everything I eat will be an opportunity to re-examine my food habits. I used to use fasts for this, but my wife hates fasting, so what the hell.

Quick note: I’m not looking for advice regarding weight and weight loss.

Another take on Conan

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Chris Sims liked Conan more than I did.

Also, over the weekend, I posted a link to what appears to be the French cover for Child of Fire. (I know it’s plural; no big)

Today I’ll be writing and taking my son swimming.

Day camp for daddies

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Per my son’s long-standing request, he is in day camp this week. It’s spendy but not too too spendy, and his best buddy is there, so we’re letting him hang out all day with other kids.

Which means that this stay-at-home parent and writer has an opportunity for some extra work time.

It’s also an opportunity to follow interesting blog posts into the comments, or to open lots of interesting articles from links on Twitter, or visiting Facebook for some unknown reason, or reading webcomics, or… The list is nearly endless. Plus I have dinner to make, laundry to fold, and composting to do.

I’ve often said the Internet is a temporal gas: it expands to fill the free time you have. Therefore I’m turning off my internet and starting work (jeez, it’s already past 11 am! I meant to post this an hour ago.)

Going offline

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I have an avalanche of emails to go through and lots of online stuff to manage, but I’m going offline for most of today to do some writing. If I owe you an email or a twitter response, I’ll try to get to it later this afternoon.

Time to take some Tylenol and go.

DATE NIGHT!

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My wife and I strolled through Ballard, visited the fish ladder at the locks (where we saw quite a few salmon–the run is still going strong), then had dinner. Pulled pork pizza with butternut squash, apples, pancetta, and garlic ftw. Thank you, Ballard Firehouse.

And Pikachu help me but my legs hurt, I’m covered with dried sweat and I can barely keep my eyes open. Bed! Tomorrow is for writing.