It began with a lamp....

It was the fault of a lamp. And my houseguests.

It went like this. I mentioned to some friends last week that I didn't like my bedroom and had moved out of it into the guest room, (or Kitty's room, when she is here) which is a lovely cozy place. One of them suggested that room was quite nice, but the lighting was horrible and suggested I get some lamps.

SO I thought today, well, I have these houseguests comeing, and will need to use this Bedroom, so I will go out and buy a lamp.

How much could that set me back? I mean, it's a lamp. WAY too much as it turned out, but it is, simply the coolest lamp EVER. (tried to take a photobooth shot of it, doesn't work. Martin Millar mentioned in his blog today that he believes himself to be the only person in the western hemisphere who does not have a working camera. Martin, don't believe it)

Martin Millar, ( www.martinmillar.com the link function just quit. Rats.) by the way, if you haven't read him, go you and do so now. It's weird, he is one of the best writers in the world, but largely unknown over here. His latest novel , The Lonely Werewolf Girl, is just out in the UK, you can order it HERE or wait till it comes out in the US, next month. Personally, I would not wait.

He's that good. I loved The Lonely Werewolf Girl, which I actually got to read first in manuscript form. Many times. (one of the perks of my job) I wish I had words to describe how he writes. It just makes me happy. You will love being with him.

My Boss wrote an introduction to a book of Martin's called "The Good Fairies of New York" You can read it HERE. He has no trouble with finding the right words. This book, by the way, has one of the single best opening scenes to any novel ever written, in my humble opinion. I won't say any more. Go and buy it. Now. You will be happy.

But I digress. So I got this lamp. And then thought, well, the lamp in the Sunroom woud look good in the Bedroom with New Lamp, so I'll get another lamp for the Sunroom too. And then I thought, well, the Sunroom could use a carpet, to go with the Second New Lamp. And I set that up, took New Lamp and Old Sunroom Lamp, up to the Bedroom and realized that they would be perfect if I moved an Old Bedroom Lamp to the Guest Room and completely re-arranged the Bedroom.

Hmmph. Then I noticed there were no curtains in the Guest Room, probebly because it was now, say, LIT. And I should get curtains for it, my Guests might not enjoy the "Who cares if people can see in" approach......

It never ended. And so on and so on.....

Merry Housekeeper and her Spooky Daughter are coming over in the morning to help me finish this MESS. (I have eight different kind of floor cleaner in my cupboard and don't know what any of them do. Or where they came from.)

Picked up another gig too today. I must be insane, this one is for Wednesday next week. Gigs four nights in a row. Never would have taken it if I hadn't been derranged from this frenzy of Everything Must Move.....

But you see, clearly...

It's not my fault. All the fault of a Lamp. And my Houseguests.

Love and Lamps,
Lorraine

Typing Stories

I don't generally comment on my day job, (Or Day and Night and All Times Between Job ) but when I woke this morning (after giving myself a black eye, more on that later) I read this from my Boss's Blog...

"As I said, it's done, and I got back to the house from the gazebo to find my assistant Lorraine still typing out from photocopies what I'd handwritten earlier in the week, an hour after she would normally have gone home, and only still typing because she wanted to know what happened next. She glared at me, and told me I had to keep writing..."


Well, thought I, lovely to get a mention, and it was (MOSTLY) true, I did stay and keep typing, hadn't actually noticed the time, because this book IS rather wonderful, and perhaps, my favorite so far, and I did want to know what happened, BUT...

As I said to my Boss when I went into work this morning, I did NOT glare at him. He says, yes, you did, you GLARED and said "You have to keep writing more!"

Yes, I said that, and yes, it's true, but what you mistook for a GLARE was the intense fiery-ness of my eyes, having just been delving deep into your story, and I was desperate to learn What Happens Next...Not a glare at all.

Oh. He said. Right. Well, you can tell that story on Your blog. Then he said "I don't know whether or not we should get cake or just go out." which I am still trying to figure out, seeing as how he does not eat cake, and had no plans to go out...

(Writers get like this when writing. Think nothing of it.)

Seriously though, I am loving transcribing this book. I am only pages behind him, and it is , well, beyond wonderful each morning to come in and sit and type out what happened in his head the night before. I feel like someone has given me a treasure, if that doesn't sound silly. It makes me happy. Very Happy.

By the way , that wasn't the FIRST thing that happened. I now have a black eye. My method of getting the Awake-way-too-early cats out of my bedroom , is to walk to the bathroom when they wake me, and then DASH back to the bedroom closing the door, which Mim is apparently onto, as she dashed right back after me, and as I tried to grab her, BAM! went my head into the door.

Sigh.

My French Lesson today said to go home tonight and *"practice your greetings on your FURNITURE and PETS. (*exact sentence from cd)

Bon Soir, Stove...

Salut, Couch

Heh-heh, Freaky Venus ( ok, so that might not be actual French..)

QUE????!!!!???? Madame Mim!!!!!

Love and Stories,
Lorraine

French Lessons ( Leçons Françaises)

Having decided that my learning of French is not coming along fast enough with my present methods (watching Underworld: Evolution in French with French subtitles, and trying to translate my letters from Spacelaw , and asking my Boss things like "How do you say " I am going insane" in French) I have aquired a Book and CD system.

"Learn French in 10 minutes a day"

The idea is that each lesson takes about 10 minutes and you do them once a day. So simple.

HA! The ten minute lesson, tonight, took me about an hour. I can now say "Je voudrais un patisserie" (I want a doughnut) Which , I suppose of some more use than "Matrice, vous bâtard de loup-garou! Vérifiez mes balles argentées!" (Die, you werewolf bastard! Check out my silver bullets!)

I also dug out my "French for Cats" book. (All the French your cats will ever need) and am teaching Freaky Venus and Madame Malena Mim how to say things like "Look, I can run senselessly from room to room" and "here comes a hairball!" and the ever popular "This is MY terriory, I like to sit in it and defend it from all evil"

Poor Spacelaw (who is coming from Italy for my Birthday shows) We will wander the streets of Stillwater, dragging poor Rubius (who is coming from Canada, one hopes, the English part) along behind us, with having such conversastions as...

Spacelaw: When do you play?

ME: I don't know. Je voudrais un patisserie. Vérifiez mes balles argentées!

Spacelaw: What is that river? Does it empty into your mighty Missisippi?

ME: I don't know. Je voudrais un patisserie. Vérifiez mes balles argentées!

Rubuis: I want a doughnut too.

Amour et leçons françaises,
Lorraine

Fey, but in a different way.....

What can I say, our little vampire was out in full force last night. Malena and I were on Skype as she was getting ready for her Malena Collection photoshoot. If it's after 6 pm, that girl never shuts up. And IF you can keep up with her ADHD way of multitasking, she's quite entertaining, even with eyelash glue in her eye.

The sweet maternal empath we all know and love slowly diminishes as the day turns to night. The lights are getting set up, the backdrops are going up. Her favorite new photographer David Betances shows up and immediately she goes from her hoser, "Fablo, How's it goin' ah?" to "Ciao DarlinGGGgg!" Gushing about the shots and the makeup and hopping about like a Mexican Jumping Bean. (It's amazing what I can pick up on over the phone, knowing her the way I do. Not to mention all the static as the mic IS in her bra!)

On this shoot, she dragged her friend Kristina she met at the Trillium Sports Medicine to model with her. (Hey, she's a blonde boxer who can bench press 230. No wonder why she gets along with our little Harpie!) Wait for the photos and you'll see what I mean. Kristina finally gets to look at her face and sighs with uncertainty and excitement, "I look like a Blonde Malena".

Malena is so thrilled with her handly work on Kristina's face. It's funny, Malena HAS a pro makeup artist, but she prefers to do it herself. "I refuse to look like a homogenized androgenous 12 year old!" she says, "And that's what mainstream modeling looks for. I'm built like a woman and if they don't like it, they don't have to look at me!" ( I agree with her 120%!)

Now we go into look at the corsets she has out...." I'm taking you into the dressing room now Dev, I've got 1/3 of the Alter Ego line out and you can't see the floor, or the bed in here! I can't do all this tonight!....Ewwwwwwwww, we'll just have to do another shooooooot." she gushing, useing her high pitched Mafioso jersey girl accent. I could almost hear David's face hit the floor.

I must say, if there was a catagory for "Most Leather clothing" in the Guinnes Book of World Records, Malena would own the title hands down. When I mention this, she quickly explains how the leather comes from a butcher plant in Pakistan where they eat the beef and then the leather is either disgaurded, or used for clothing. (It makes her feel better about wearing death, she says.) Malena loves animals and grew up on her grandpa's farm until the age of 13. Hard to imagine, huh! When I tell her how strange she is, she quickly jumps in to gross me out even further by telling me how she helped her grandpa gut a deer when she was 11. "I wanted to see all the organs and what they looked like!" she exclaims innocently. I was well past the nausea stage at this point, begging her to SHUT UP on the gorey details she so LOVES to torture me with.

Finally David is ready for her and off she goes. The innocent dork is now completely painted away. Her glance is now fierce as if the camera was something edible that she was hunting. I've assisted her on plenty of these shoots and it's hillarious. No one could be more politically INcorrect, giddy, and ostentatious on camera than Malena. She can make a sailor blush IF she is working. When she's not, she makes the best soccer moms appear vulgar, wearing Miles sweats and his "oatmeal sweater" that literally looks like it's nickname. Her local "produce dude" really did ask her if she had a TWIN sister that dressed up really sexy. Without hesistation, she said,
"Yeah, her name's Malena." and kept walking, sweats bagging around her ankles like a rapper gone homeless.

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It's the day after now (2:30 pm) and Malena sounds like a dying crow on the phone. "We took over a THOUSAND photos Dev! Wait till you see them!" she wispers in her morning voice. (Sounds like Kathleen Turner before all the cigarettes) Malena loves to dress people up and make them feel pretty. That's the reason for her clothing line.

And so my LaMie friends,

THIS is what it's like to have a nocturnal best friend weirdo named Malena. After all this, I often ask myself if there are two, three or make that, LEGIONS of Malena's in that curvy body of hers.... or is she just a good actress. For reasons of my sanity, I choose to believe the later.

Off to take a nap from the TEVES house insanity,

Lorraine

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