BEEN A BUSY COUPLE OF WEEKS HERE

Hi, all:

Sorry that I haven't been keeping up here with the blog lately. It's been a busy couple of weeks here at the casa Bennett - all good, but BUSY.

First of all, WonderWife has a new job. She's actually working NORMAL HUMAN HOURS. From 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. In an OFFICE, with strange things like air conditioning, and hot and cold running water - and an INDOOR flush toilet. I swear, it's amazing what folks come up with nowadays! Plus a kitchen where she can actually use a real, LIVE microwave to heat her lunch. OH, and an office staff that actually likes each other, and who seem to like her as well. Not as much money, but enough to at least pay the bills and take us out to eat a couple of times a month. She's happy, so of course I'M happy.

Secondly, been trying with all my might and main to get FEATHERED LIZARDS OF THE DAWN finished, edited, SpellChecked, beta-read and ready for (drum roll) my debut as an indie author. I thought that I had a contract with a publishing house, and they certainly ACTED like they were interested. Had an editor, and there was a lot of talk back and forth for about 2 months - until there wasn't any talking at all, and they started to back off. Didn't get offered a contract. Silly ol' me, I didn't have any HOT SEXXY whatEVERS in the book. Instead, I had two pairs of GLBT folks in committed relationships who actually loved their partners. I was told that same-sex stable relationships were boring without all the sex that (presumably) goes on in the bedroom, or in the kitchen, or outside on the picnic table, and of course the four people just HAD to be having secret adulterous sex with each other's partners, and so on and so forth, plus of course going out to the clubs every night, screwing around with anonymous partners, and STILL having the energy the next day to be veterinarians. Well, gangers, that's just not realistic. Sorry, but it isn't. Most of the GLBT community settles down (and in most cases a lot longer than our heterosexual counterparts). Don't get me wrong; WonderWife and I have a very active sex life, but it doesn't include screwing around outside our marriage (yes, we are legally married, in the state of Texas, with a legal Texas marriage license, which is a tale for another time). Oh, and I was also told that my characters were too old to be interesting and that they had to be 20-something, beautiful and accomplished. I asked them how they thought that vets were actually going to be through with school and veterinary school before the age of 25, to which they answered Well, this is fantasy, so make it happen. I didn't, and they decided that I wasn't an author that they were interested in either working with or publishing. C'est la vie.

Thirdly, my brother-in-law recently died, and we've been dealing with THAT as well. I liked Les, what little I knew about him, and what little time we spent with him, and I'll miss my bridge partner. My wonderful mother-in-law is having a hard time dealing with his death. Parents aren't supposed to outlive their children.

Finally, the heat here in Texas has caused a nasty flare-up in my stupid chronic disease, and I haven't been able to work up anything except a hard sweat. You KNOW you're in trouble when you've got the A/C set on 84 degrees, and the A/C runs continuously without cycling. We bought a couple of window units, and I usually turn the central unit off at 1:00 PM and don't restart it until WonderWife gets home at around 6:00 PMish. With the window units, we at least have puddles of somewhat cool air. I am really, REALLY tired of this drought, which has dragged on now for almost 2 years, ever since Hurricane Ike blew through here. I guess that we're going to have to get another hurricane through here to end the drought and bring down the temps.

We DID get out last Friday to eat dinner and go to a movie, though. Imagine that: we actually went to a MOVIE. The popcorn was AWFUL, but the movie was well worth the price of admission. I'll unreservedly recommend it to anybody that wants to listen. COWBOYS AND ALIENS, go see it. It's well worth the price of admission. I'll warn you now, you'll be completely confused until the last about 20 minutes of the show, when everything comes together and it all makes logical sense. Go see it! I mean, Harrison Ford AND Daniel Craig (who is wasted as James Bond, in my humble opinion)? In the same movie? AND it's a Western adventure, with killer aliens? GO!

Oh, and one other thing: If any of y'all out there are interested in beta-reading my effort, please let me know. I really need folks that are going to read the book and tear it apart if it warrants it. I SO don't want to be one of these folks that isn't interested in anything other than the "hip hip hoorays" that they get from their friends and family members.

Y'all have an interesting weekend, now. Y'hear?