Rose-Owls and Pumpkin Girls

Friday, I was wearing my trench coat, running the space heater, and shivering a lot. Saturday, I walked to the store in my trench coat, and damn near overheated. Yesterday, I wandered around without a coat for the majority of the day, and even ran the air conditioner a bit in the evening. This morning, I put on my denim jacket.

We have had the changing of the coats. Spring has officially sprung.

I find that perfume is also a good indicator of the spring, as all the women on my morning commute begin competing with the newly-blooming flowers by attempting to smother me to death with their artificially floral scents. I like perfume as much as the next girl—my ungodly-large collection of bottles of BPAL testifies to that—but there's a difference between "wearing perfume" and "committing an act of chemical warfare." When I'm breathing through my mouth and turning green, you have crossed that line.

(My latest scent from the BPAL collection, by the way: Giant Squid. The description says it's "cannabis blossom, tonka bean, tobacco, frankincense, galangal, juniper berry, lantana, spiky aloe, green and white teas, and salty sea spray." I just like being able to answer "what's that perfume you're wearing?" with "RELEASE THE KRAKEN!" Sometimes I am a simple soul.)

The cats are responding to the spring by attempting to lose their winter coats in one fell swoop, resulting in hairballs of epic proportions springing up on my bedroom rug. Seriously, I brush Alice every day, and I still scraped an entire third cat's-worth of hair off the rug Saturday morning. I dread to think what may happen when I go to Australia for two weeks, since Alice is less willing to let Mom use the feline seam-ripper (ie, "the mat-catching brush") on her flanks and hindquarters. I'm going to come home to a house consisting of nothing but hair.

Amy arrived from Wisconsin yesterday, and brought a cheese hat for my sister-in-law. The world is occasionally very strange, as my mother's insistence on prancing about San Francisco International Airport with a giant wedge of cheese on her head clearly illustrates.

Happy spring!

10. I will be on a plane for San Diego in a little over twenty-four hours, on my way to the San Diego International Comic Convention. The SDCC is one of my favorite conventions, because it is, for all the chaos, really remarkably relaxing. I go, I smile, I speak, I shop. And shop, and shop, and oh, yes, shop. I love flea markets, and the SDCC dealer's hall is like the world's best combination of "the comic book store" and "the indoor flea market." Only this flea market has an artist's alley. Life is good.

9. As part of my preparation for San Diego, I took my mother for a pedicure last night. (There's logic here, I swear. The logic is largely "I didn't want to walk home after getting my nails done.") Neither of us is much of a pedicure girl, but sometimes it's nice to just let somebody attack your heels with a pumice stone. Besides, I have super-cute shoes for the parties in San Diego—kitten-heeled green Italian leather—and they require having super-cute toenails to go with them.

8. Alice woke me up five minutes before my alarm by kneading the hell out of my hip, and then throwing herself down across me like a fuzzy blue blanket possessed of most imposing puffiness. This was far, far more pleasant than being woken by the actual alarm could possibly have been, and made hauling my carcass out of bed much easier. After the Blue Team decided to let me get up, that is. Between the two of them, I really don't get to do much that my cats don't approve of.

7. Next up in my reread of the collected works of Stephen King: The Stand. This is one of my five favorite books of all time. Just having it in my purse makes me happy. (Not as happy as IT, which is why IT is slated for rereading at the end of August/beginning of September, but surprisingly close.)

6. According to this week's new releases list, the next volume of the collected hardcover Creepy comes out tomorrow. (Ironically, I won't be able to pick it up until next week, since, well, San Diego, but just knowing that it's on the trucks makes me happy.) These books are basically my childhood in handy, easy-to-shelve form, and their very existence enhances the universe incredibly. I am a happy girl.

5. Rosemary and Rue comes out in forty-one days. Forty-one is the thirteenth smallest prime number. (The next is forty-three, with which it comprises a twin prime.) It is also the sum of the first six prime numbers (2 + 3 + 5 + 7 + 11 + 13), and the sum of three primes (11 + 13 + 17). I love forty-one for being prime, and I love Wikipedia for knowing all this crap.

4. I have a hula hoop! And when I get home tonight, I get to use my hula hoop! I get to stand in the front yard and hula like I've never hula'd before. Well, actually, just like I hula'd last night, only maybe a little bit better, because I've had more practice. I can't take my hula hoop to San Diego, so I have to get my hula in now, while I still can.

3. Rebecca has BPAL waiting for me in San Diego. Specifically, Rebecca has a fresh bottle of Bad Luck Woman Blues (basically my signature aromatherapy calm down Seanan, you can't unleash the pandemic perfume) and a bottle of the new Zombie Apocalypse scent. I am a lucky girl.

2. I have season one of Leverage on DVD. Tonight, I will sit on my couch, ink art cards, and watch con men, thieves, and grifters as they do their con man, thief, and grifter things, and my cats will purr, and the DDP will be cold, and the tomato sandwiches will be incredibly drippy and get all over the damn place, probably causing at least one incident with my art supplies, and life will be good.

...and finally...

1. I am healthy, I have a cute haircut, I have orange toenails, I have a book coming out in less than a month and a half, I have wonderful friends, I have beautiful cats, and I'm about to take off for the world's biggest comic book convention. Life doesn't suck.

How's by you?