Tag: dogs

Another anniversary

Monday night, Tom told me that he was changing channels and saw that a character from the show How I Met Your Mother hates the word “moist.” Either TV writers are stealing from our LiveJournals, or my friend and writing partner Jim is secretly freelancing. He’s the one who discovered my distaste for this word and therefore uses it often. Because that’s what friends do–right, Marika?

Remember how I rambled on about July having been the tenth anniversary of my meeting Tim and Ron, as well as Tay and Rhonda in our now-defunct online chat room? August is the month that I began talking to Jim in that same place.

read more about Jim and me, if you’d like

On writing

Tom always listens to NPR in the mornings. Today, Coventry (the real one in England, not the one I invented in Texas) was indirectly referenced twice. Campbell’s Soup currently owns Godiva Chocolates and is looking to sell (Anyone have a billion dollars?) because it doesn’t go with their health-conscious image. The chocolate company is named after Lady Godiva, one of Coventry’s more famous residents. My next Coventry novel (the one I’m trying desperately to finish–and the irony of that statement will one day be clear) references the candy manufacturer.

Coventry is also the birthplace of the late British poet Philip Larkin, who was in the news because his birthday is today. I don’t think Larkin and I would have been big friends based on his view of life as deduced from his poetry. (There’s been a lot said about Larkin personally since his death, but that doesn’t color my opinion of his work. I never expect writers to be flawless; they are human, after all.) Sad though his poetry may be, I think it’s stunning in its construction and imagery.

A couple of quotes:

“I think writing about unhappiness is probably the source of my popularity,
if I have any–after all, most people are unhappy, don’t you think?”
Philip Larkin

“It’s unthinkable not to love–you’d have a severe nervous breakdown.
Or you’d have to be Philip Larkin.”
Lawrence Durrell


Margot, who thinks a good nap in the sun is the best poetry.

I should have been in bed hours ago

I’m having a most difficult time writing these days. The spirit is willing, but the inspiration is flat. I sit and stare at the screen and nothing happens. So I just revise and revise what I’ve already written and try to think of the next thing. And the next thing never calls, never writes…

I’m sure it will work out. It has to work out. Because I’m looking at a big scary deadline and IT calls and writes all the time. I wake up in the middle of the night with the deadline looming over me. Everywhere I drive, the deadline jumps out of the shrubbery and startles me. I try to take my mind far away from what I’m working on by watching episodes of Absolutely Fabulous and I see the deadline sneering at me from Patsy Stone’s face. And when I do the other work I’m doing right now, I feel the deadline’s cold breath on the back of my neck. Or maybe that’s just better air conditioning than I have in the home office.

I hate the deadline.

On the plus side, after spending the day together with Rex at the emergency vet (cha-ching!), Tim colored my roots and I’m no longer the hideously graying beast bitch from hell. In fact, he had to use his color on me because mine vanished (I’m guessing Lazlo–since he’s been eating raw food, he’s really trimmed down, and I think he’s decided to wash that gray right out of his fur because he’s planning on looking for love). When I say HIS color, I mean the dark brown Tim uses, not his blue. I love the darker brown, so I’m happy with this color. I’d take a photo, but I don’t want to.

So here are the dogs. Their hair color is always perfection.


Sick Rex at the vet.


Guinness has developed a limp as a result of Rex going to the vet.
(That’s her “back to me” attitude toward life.)


Margot reminds Rex that the grass on the other side of the fence
is always the best kind to throw up.