Some days, you’re the cakes.

(Word count: high. Sanity count: not so much. Plot hole count: people are taking forty cakes left and right.)

Which makes me sound like Waldo, but worse things have happened. That guy knew what cool was long before Harry Potter showed up with his poser glasses.

May 16: I will be appearing on Hour of the Wolf with . I will be reading my story from his Federations anthology, and we will be talking shit about Star Trek. Luckily, since I think we’re both pretty pro-Picard, it won’t devolve into half-asleep protests of Kirk’s awesomeness accompanied by the sound of exhausted shoulder-punches.

May 20mumble-25: I’ll be at WisCon! I have one panel scheduled, on netbooks, which is hilarious considering the battery in my Acer just choked and died. That’ll be a fun panel.

July 9-12: Readercon! I am already preparing nutritional supplements to take with me, since this hotel is sorely lacking in vegetarian foodstuffs, and I had to keep asking for cheeseburgers with no meat. (Dear waitstaff of the world: I know, and I’m sorry, but seriously, if there’s no grilled cheese option then I am at a loss.) I will be bringing Powerbars or something now that I know the culinary situation. That won’t look dorky at all! *facepalm*

1. At some point, I will have to take the plunge and start using my Twitter. I keep going to the point of logging on and then shrinking back as if from crystal meth.

2. If someone like Junot Diaz ever blurbs MY book as “Cool as fuck,” I will tattoo those words. On someone else. (I don’t like pain. Plus, when you’re cool as fuck, people do what you want!)

3. Spring is coming; the guy whose backyard backs up to my building is out in his plastic chair, barefoot, shirt open, reading the paper. I also know this as “that time of year when I keep my blinds closed all the time.”

4. The exhibit book that accompanies the Gothic fashion exhibit contains about fifteen photos of material actually in the exhibit. The exhibit had something like seventy-five pieces. There will be more about this.

5. In better gown news, Megan Mylan’s mother stopped by my Oscar dress post to give me the details on her daughter’s Oscar dress, which was designed by Megan’s grandmother, who went to the Pratt Institute as a fashion illustrator. Megan promised to wear it if she ever got nominated. Basically, it is the coolest, sweetest thing ever. For once I have used the internet for good, and not for evil!

NBC is premiering their “New York is a kingdom! Also, have some Bible!” series, Kings, in about two weeks. I lay out the buzz over at Tor.com.

It’s based loosely on the Biblical story of the life of King David. I know a little about the life of King David, because I went to Catholic school on Monday nights after my secular school day. I would know more about the life of King David, but I got kicked out of CCD so often that I hardly had time to learn anything. It was fine, since I think I mostly missed out on coloring things and gluing cotton-ball sheep together to be lambs of the Lord. It went like this a lot:

[Genevieve is eight.]

Teacher: Let’s talk about King David. I hope everyone has read the story in their Children’s Bible? Good. Now, when David killed Goliath –
G: In the King James Bible in church it says that David put Bathsheba’s husband where he would be killed so David could marry her. Isn’t that a sin?
Teacher: Well, in the Children’s Bible –
G: Also he lay with her while she was married. Isn’t that –
Teacher: OUT IN THE HALL, MISS VALENTINE.

I was a little bastard, sure, but I still call shenanigans. They had the Bibles right out there in church! Mass lasted two hours; what else was I supposed to do but read up? Why is she getting angry with me for asking questions about the text? It is RIGHT THERE.*

I do want to see how the show handles things, and I’m wondering how much of the Bible stuff will be tweaked – will it end up super-religious? Will they use allusion? Will it be Verse-of-the-Week? I have no idea, because NBC is really not promoting it. We’ll find out in two weeks! Watch this space.

* Teacher: When Mary and Joseph married, they –
G: But Leviticus says that a man shouldn’t marry a whore, and Mary was pregnant and not married, so why –
Teacher: OUT IN THE HALL.

So, I’m eligible for the Campbell.

I’m in superexcellent company, which Mary Robinette Kowal points out, so I have no expectations. I’m frankly excited just to be eligible.

In early 2007, I was working at a job I hated. I hadn’t written anything in two years – the same two years I had been at my job, which didn’t occur to me until later. (I was a genius.) I had one short story to my name; I figured it would never go anywhere, and when a friend made me submit it somewhere, I thought, “This is pointless.”

The day 29 Union Leaders Can’t Be Wrong ran in Strange Horizons, I gave notice at my job.

Things have since improved.

When I realized I was eligible this year, I called my mom to tell her. I explained what the eligibility meant, so she didn’t confuse it with a nomination, and reminded her which story it was (she only knows this one by name; everything else I have ever written is named “That Weird One”).

She said, “That’s great! Under your real name?“