My mother is on Facebook now.

Pause a moment. Consider that. My mother is on Facebook. The land of faces and geeks now contains my crazy-train mom. Which is very much a 'what the fuck?' moment for me. (Also a sort of hysterically awesome one. She's Micki McGuire. Feel free to go over and say howdy. She's unlikely to tell you any embarrassing stories about me that I wouldn't happily tell you myself, but wow will she be perplexed if she starts getting friend requests from people who enjoy her book reviews.)

Yesterday in the Other Change of Hobbit, I was faced with an issue of Locus Magazine which listed -- under the DAW Books section of the 'Upcoming Releases' article -- Rosemary and Rue, by Seanan McGuire, coming to shelves in September 2009. So there I am, standing in the store where I've been buying books for most of my life, staring at my name in Locus. Fortunately, the store comes equipped with several cats on which to dry my tears. (I'm going to Borderlands tonight, where they also have cats, but the cats are genetically insufficient tear-dryers, on account of not having any fur.)

Today is January 23rd. Ravens in the Library comes out on February 22nd, and contains stories by several authors with whom I was greatly besotted in high school. That's less than a month from now, and the time between then and today is so full that it's going to be over before I have a chance to think.

The world is getting smaller by the hour. Good thing I'm not claustrophobic.

Home at last, home at last.

After an exciting evening chasing around San Francisco, visiting the freaky alien demon suede kittyfaces at Borderlands Books, and helping Kate get her glasses to fit right, I returned to the safety of the East Bay...where my mother promptly abducted me off to meet up with my baby sister, the trucker, in Brentwood. In the parking lot of an Office Max.

Did I mention that it was after nine o'clock by that point, and that I hadn't really eaten anything besides a McDonalds ice cream cone since lunch? Oh, and that my new CD finally arrived today -- at least according to the UPS website, as I hadn't yet had visual confirmation?

Yeah, it was a night.

But now I'm home, and I've confirmed the existence of the CDs. Yes! One thousand copies of Red Roses and Dead Things have joined the general clutter of my home. Actually, right now, they're increasing the specific clutter of my bedroom. Not precisely what I'd call optimal, but as it allows me to sign and number the pre-orders (to the degree that I can manage before a formal shipping party), I suppose I'll cope.

It's a damn pretty CD, too. It came out even better looking than I was hoping it would.

So that's my Friday night. Having signed and numbered the first ten CDs, I will now proceed to my bed, where I will probably dream of being crushed to death beneath a hail of disks. Because that's how this works. Good-night, world.