Kerry Allen

I had a bunch of REQUESTED MATERIAL to take to the post office. I wanted to do it Monday morning, but there was a line around the block (last-minute tax filers), so I put it off until Wednesday.

On Wednesday, it was nice and quiet at the post office. The first thing I noticed upon entering was the lack of the number dispenser. Oh, we’re now to be trusted to wait in a single-file line until it’s our turn to go to the clerk? Don’t be silly. Apparently one of yesterday’s disgruntled patrons picked it up and heaved it over the counter to express his displeasure, so the number dispenser is out of commission for a while.

I overheard this story because the sole clerk at the counter shared it with the customer she was with when I entered. She was still chatting 10 minutes later. No transactions taking place, just yakking.

After I’d been standing there for 20 minutes, surreptitiously trying to make the clerk’s head explode with my as-yet undiscovered telekinetic death ray, another clerk came to the counter and waved me forward. I’ve been through this before, knew what I was doing, had an efficient system in place that should have gotten me out of there in a mere 2 minutes. I put my envelopes in stacks on the counter. The 3-chapter requests have to go Priority Mail because of weight. First Class is fine for the 50-page requests. And may I please have a book of Forever stamps, please and thank you.

“Do you want to send this overnight?”

No, thanks. Priority Mail for these, First Class for these. And stamps. Please. He got through the Priority Mail stack without further incident. Then:

“Do you want to send this overnight?”

No. As I’ve already explained, I want this and everything else remaining in this pile sent First Class. Thanks.

“How about Priority Mail?”

For every single envelope left on the counter, we had to do the whole offer-of-every-option-other-than-the-one-I-specifically-requested-from-the-beginning rigamarole. I was with that guy for another 20 minutes, by which time my own head was in danger of exploding. Paid the man. Took my receipt. Thanked him for his tremendously thorough help. Stalked out to my car.

Where I realized that although I had been charged for stamps, I had not been handed them.

Needless to say, it was a wise decision not to put the number dispenser back out on the floor because on my second trip inside, I had given up on the death ray and was ready for batting practice.

I bypassed the line entirely. I entered through the exit area. The brave soul who voiced a protest shut up right quick when I gave him the crazy eye. I thrust my receipt toward the clerk, smiled (hey, I tried, even if it was more of a rictus-of-death thing at that point). Pardon me, sir, but you seem to have forgotten to give me my stamps.

“Well, you had so much stuff, I’m not surprised something got forgot.”

Bit my tongue. Got my stamps. Apparently teleported to my car through some sort of blood-red haze, since I don’t remember walking. Contemplated crashing my car through the glass wall in search of fleshy speed bumps. Decided against it because I just washed my car for the first time in a year and the tires are so shiny and clean.

Went home and investigated the feasibility of a digital scale and print-your-own postage in an attempt to avoid a future conviction for multiple murder if I ever have to go back to that place.

Remember, postage goes up a penny on May 12! Visit your local post office and show your support today!

You are The Moon

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Forget the interpretation (I cut it off, actually—The Moon is creative and crazy, huge surprise), I just love Tarot cards. I have a set, not that I ever had the patience to get good at using them, but I like to take them out of their velvet pouch and hold them once in a while. I know they’re just wood pulp and ink… but on the other hand, they feel like more. (cue woo-woo music) They have that backside-of-leather texture it ought to take decades to develop. They feel used. (I pretend they were given to me during the winter solstice by a wizened Gypsy woman who no longer had need of them, as she had foreseen her own death, and the cards guided her to me—apparently because they were tired of revealing the secrets of the universe and just wanted to be taken out and fondled once in a while. So much more exotic than factory fresh and shrink-wrapped, yes?)

HOTM will be delayed due to mandatory overtime at the day job consuming my soul.

I have time for a short rant, though.

It’s renewal time, and I had decided to give RWA another year of my money and this time get involved in at least one chapter (semi-recovered from my outrage at discovering the national membership doesn’t do a lot other than provide the opportunity to join chapters, which is where all the benefit appears to lie…), but then I read the most recent issue of RWR. It wasn’t just the letter to the editor declaring modern romance heroines “sluts,” but also the article by the language police (sorry, but I prefer a more conversational tone in my reading material, even in the narrative, and if Strunk & White have to become double-jointed to bend around that style, I have some yoga exercises to limber them up) and… there was something else I can’t or don’t want to think of right now.

At any rate, there was nothing in this issue I wanted to save or even take a second look at. (OMFG! I ended a sentence with a preposition on purpose! Change it to “at which I wanted to take a second look.” On second thought, that’s clunky and pedantic, so don’t.) And (now I’m just being rebellious) I was again left wondering if it’s worth my while to remain a member of an organization where I obviously don’t fit in. (Oopsie.)

And Furthermore, I’m not judging the entire organization based upon its monthly publication, although one would assume an organization’s monthly publication would be representative of its membership. The in-the-flesh RWA encounters in which I have participated have similarly thrust me into a crowd that seems rigidly (after much consideration of an appropriate term) traditional. There’s nothing wrong with tradition itself, but expecting others to conform to your traditions is the stuff wars are made of. (Dammit, and I was trying so hard.)

Have I just not found “my people”? Would an expedition into chapter territory lead me to a tribe of sexually-liberated-heroine-writing misfits dancing naked in the moonlight around a cauldron in which The Elements of Style are being boiled to mash?

Maybe I’ll renew, ask them not to send me the magazine that makes me angry on a monthly basis (I realize I don’t have to read it, but there’s no point wasting the paper and postage to send it to me in that case, is there?), and try my luck with an online chapter. Then, if I feel this same frustration next year, I’ll know for sure it’s impossible for me to get anything from the membership and call it quits.

(For the record, my copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style is my first go-to book when a grammar or punctuation issue arises, the Chicago Manual of Style when more in-depth clarification is necessary. I appreciate these valuable reference materials, but I will never adhere to them like it’s a matter of life and death. One of the beauties of language is its flexibility.)

I’m blogging elsewhere on February 19 and having a hell of a time coming up with a topic appropriate for that venue. Somebody beat me to the idea I was toying with, which, although panic inducing because of the big red circle on my calendar mocking my empty brain, made me feel less isolated in a certain way of thinking, so it’s a good thing. Really.

Fortunately, within a couple of hours, I had another idea, not a timely issue (or even an “issue,” for that matter), so hopefully it’s not on anyone else’s mind at the moment.

HOTM will return on Friday (delayed) after the feature’s January vacation. I tweaked the format a little because he’s not a romance hero, although he will forever be the object of my undying (undead?) affection.

And finally… I love the Truth anti-smoking commercials. I find the way they point to both the health dangers of cigarettes and the manipulations of Corporate Tobacco clever enough to perhaps be influential. (What self-respecting young person wants to help a bunch of rich old suits get richer, regardless of what they’re selling?) I also like some of the Above the Influence anti-marijuana ads, the ones that point out that pot makes you stupid and uninteresting and no one but stupid and uninteresting potheads will want to be around you. (You’re such a loser, your dog doesn’t even like you anymore.) This one, though, crosses the line into ridiculous (and not in a funny-ha-ha way) and destroys their credibility.

(Link rather than the video because god forbid you should broadcast their public service announcement. It’s the one called “FIRE.”)

I’m one of the five people in America who have never smoked marijuana, and this commercial almost makes me want to fire up a joint to protest the hyperbole. What’s the message here? Marijuana causes pyromania? I’ve never known a pothead with the ambition to engage in purposeful property destruction, unless the property was a bucket of KFC.

Now, a commercial involving LSD-induced hallucinations in which the kid has to set frost demons on fire to banish them and then comes around to find he’s burned the house down might be cool, but don’t insult the intelligence of your target audience by suggesting marijuana is going to cause the same results. My 11-year-old knows better than that. “Makes you stupid and uninteresting” is enough of a deterrent for anyone likely to be deterred. Head back in that direction before this campaign becomes as much of a joke as “Just Say No.”

“I can’t believe you’ve never seen Blade Runner! It’s a classic! You gotta see it!”

I felt uncultured. Netflix to the rescue.

There’s two wasted hours of my life I’ll never get back.

Harrison Ford is usually a likable guy. Hell, I worship Indiana Jones and Han Solo. In Blade Runner?

1. Creepy forced seduction of a vulnerable, childlike woman.

2. The only “bad guys” he killed were women, one shot in the back as she was fleeing.

3. The “bad guys” kicked the crap out of him, and his response was to run away.

I wanted Rutger Hauer to rip his head off—like in the teen slasher flicks where the “good guys” are too stupid to live, so you cheer when they get shredded.

The “bad guy” performed the one heroic act in the movie.

And then he died.

The moral issue of creating replicants for use as slaves, giving them human emotions and a four-year self-destruct sequence, was not resolved—was barely addressed, in fact. Justice was not served. The only sympathetic character didn’t survive.

It’s pretty much an itemized list of things I don’t want to see in a movie. All it was missing was Tom Cruise.

I don’t need a happy ending in a movie. Braveheart, Gladiator, and 300 are in my Top 20, and not a happy ending among them. Closet Land and The Ring don’t have especially uplifting endings, either.

(How can you kill Martin Henderson, and in such an unattractive way? Yes, he has the worst actor name ever, but do you not see how cute he is, Lilo? And he’s a kiwi. Why is everything hot in Hollywood being imported from Down Under these days?)

The common redeeming factor is some form of triumph for the hero, even in failure, even if it’s only that he never submitted to the villain.

Now I need revenge movies for the guy who told me I had to watch Blade Runner. “Dude, you gotta see City of Angels!” Except I hated that movie, and I’d have a hard time selling it as a must-see.

Got anything that would sound cool to a guy but is really a painful viewing experience?

There is one certainty regarding any formal declaration I make regarding New Year’s goals: I WON’T DO THEM. There has never been a resolution to which I have adhered. For the past few years, I have opted not to set myself up for failure by not stating any aims, ambitious or otherwise, to be accomplished during the subsequent 12 months.

This year, I’ve decided to let the New Year’s jinx do the work for me. Here’s my list for 2008.

1. I will not lose weight.

2. I will not maintain at least minimum standards of household cleanliness.

3. I will not finish my rewrites of Gabe and Jaz’s book.

4. I will not write at least the first draft of Ty and Kendall’s book.

5. I will not come up with better titles.

6. I will not submit to every agent on my list or keep an eye on the ones that haven’t been accepting new clients.

Experience tells me I’ll fail at every one of these by the third week in January without even trying. Damn, but it’s going to be a busy month…

What do you intend to accomplish (or not accomplish) in 2008? Have you ever had any success with the whole NY’s resolution system, or, like me, do you find it merely an enumerated list of failings at the end of the year?

You Are Donner

The most loveable and sweet reindeer, you’re also a total dork! Why You’re Naughty: You keep (accidentally) tripping the other reindeer while flying. Why You’re Nice: You’re always smiling, even if you’ve fallen flat on your horns.

Which of Santa’s Reindeer Are You?

I don’t know how sweet and lovable I am, but I am such a dork, I may even be two dorks.

The tripping? Not an accident. Bwahahahaha!

Now, to change gears completely, Mightygodking deserves some seriously heavy petting, at least, after his dismantlement of Mr. You Bitches Drove Nice Guys Like Me to Extinction (Because You Didn’t Screw Us When We Pretended to Be Civilized Human Beings for Two Minutes That One Time). “Yeah” to every point he makes.