A Geekly Paradise

Had my first taste (a small one, admittedly) of geek celebrity-hood this past weekend— was part of a panel at Blizzcon, the gamer convention for Blizzard Entertainment. Those of you who play Diablo or Warcraft or StarCraft will be well familiar with this online multi-player company; everyone else will be completely in the dark. I spent my youth rolling twelve-sided dice and plotting magic dungeons on graph paper in my friends' living rooms: these are my people. 

Dungeons & Dragons, writ large 

I went in expecting it to be like Comicon, but smaller; it is, in fact, nothing like Comicon at all, but in a good way. There's a lot less splashiness— no product placements, not a lot of costly, no flashy A-list celebrities and movie tie-in swag. There's no corporate synergy going on, because it's all about one company. The celebrities are the game artists and developers, who are for the most part uniformly Asian, uniformed in black t-shirts and jeans. The big draw are the banks of computers—three parking lots worth of them— where you can sit and play the "campaigns" with and against all of those people around you. It looks like a vast war room, but with mages and blood elves and clerics on the screens. There was pure and unadulterated geeky goodness going on at the Anaheim Convention Center.

I was invited to be part of their first voice talent panel, along with some of my World of Warcraft compadres, very esteemed voice actors all. 

I'm a pretty recent addition to WOW— I play a warrior Panda (no, not Po) named Taran Zhu in the Expansion Pack "Mist of Panderia." Here's an earful of what I do:

I'm the Panda Pandaren who comes in at about 1:00.

I think that most of the audience had a hard time reconciling that growly character with the reedy-voiced, bespectacled man on the stage, and, I have to admit, I'm always a bit surprised myself. 

That ugly ginormous brute with whom I fight? Here he is in the flesh;

Patrick Seitz, a kind and gentle man, who specializes in throat-shredding monster voices and doesn't even cough up blood afterwards!

The panel was fun. I got to sit next to the estimable Keone Young, fellow Pandaren and essential guest star on "True Blood" and "Deadwood."  

We talked, did a Q&A, and signed autographs. I picked up my autographed poster, bought a stuffed panda and made my way into the darkness of the gaming floor—once a geek, always a geek.

Adventures in Publishing: The Ecstasy and the Agony

"And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-end of my days and ways

And how should I presume?"

—T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

It is real, folks. I'm hitched. I've just signed my publishing contract with St. Martin's Press. Still Life Las Vegas in Spring 2015— book clubs forming now! Nothing thrills the soul more than thirty pages of legalese in which your name is referred to as "Author." Nothing like it. I read every paragraph and sub-paragraph, excluded territories and all. It was a real page-turner; looking forward to a sequel!

After such wonderful confirmation, is there anything that could possibly knock me from such a giddy height? Ah, enter the Knight of Mirrors, galloping in from an email attachment sent by my editor: the Author Questionnaire. Such an innocous title— the Author Questionnaire— how could it inspire so much pain? The Author Questionnaire sounds like it might be some lovely time filler, a whimsical series of questions that might grace the back of Parade Magazine, next to Marilyn Savant's Mensa quizzes.

Instead, it's a soul-flaying survey of your life. Ostensibly, the Author Questionnaire is a series of questions about you and your book that the publicity department will use to position you in an overcrowded literary marketplace. What about your life can they can use to sell you—er, me (see, I'm deflecting already) to a public who is not related to you me. Who do I know? What have I done? Who can review my book or say something glowing about me?

Oh, it's enough to make an inveterate introvert

"No, I have not yet updated my status… the winters, they are long."

burst into flame. My misanthropic tendencies have been laid bare. Is "Social Hermit who lives in Cave and Forages for Acorns" a helpful attribute? Apparently not. Moreover, the negative space surrounding my meagre answers make me keenly aware of all the things I meant to have done by now, but haven't. Conferences? Twitter Feeds? Uh…soon...

What the heck have I been doing? Important things! Here are some of my most recent crowning achievements:

• Reached level 36 on "Simpsons: Tapped Out" on my iPad (that's the HIGHEST level)

How could THIS be a waste of time? Look at the urban planning! 

• Received the prestigious Parent Ambassador Plaque at my son's 

elementary school, for OCD Library Reshelving above and beyond duty

• Completed the Friday NYT crossword puzzle in 14:10 minutes

• Gold Founders Circle Membership at Arclight Cinemas (hey, a free popcorn upgrade 

EVERY TIME and a complimentary birthday ticket!)

• Can recite half of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Animated by Christopher Scott. Read by the author himself. 
I know, it's an abridged version, don't get all hatin'...

• World Record for shortest recorded time attending a social function, in and out: 
23.5 minutes, INCLUDING drive time (Guinness confirmation pending)

• Three punches away from a free frozen yogurt at at Menchies 

• Have I mentioned that level 36 is the highest level in "Simpsons: Tapped Out"?

I await the Pulitzer Committee's call.

Bibidi-bobidi-boo

I will keep this short, and it is oh, so sweet:

I'm living in some kind of Disney fairy tale right now, where dreams do come true.
My book, Still Life Las Vegas, has been picked up for publication.
It happened so quickly I'm still slightly delirious. Deliciously delirious. My most excellent agent Christopher Schelling sent my manuscript out after Labor Day and, after a brief flurry of activity, I met my Prince Charming, embodied by one Sara Goodman from St. Martin's Press. She made an offer, we accepted, and, voilà, I've crossed a threshold.

My book's going to be published! St. Martin's Press!

If this is a dream, please, do not wake me. Ever.

Morning Most Excellent and Fair

There was, oddly, no sleeping last night. I'd doze for a couple of hours, then gradually find myself awake again. In and out, in and out. It wasn't the heat, it wasn't caffeine, it wasn't a snoring husband (for a change). It felt like the sleeplessness that comes the night before the first day of a big shoot, or a new job. It was only upon awakening that I realized what was keeping me in a state of perpetual anticipation: Today was The Day.

My book, Still Life Las Vegas, is being sent out into the world. At last. 

Let me backtrack three months:

We had temporary custody of two boys, schoolmates of Ben, whose lives had been uprooted precipitously with the sudden (and continued) incarceration of their mother. For seven weeks we had been witnesses and agents of their dismantled lives. Every day we took up the tools of destruction: giving away a dog, packing up an evicted household, prison visits, custody hearings, DCFS visits, selling and disposing of their worldly possessions. All the while trying to give them some semblance of stability during their last days of school. Weeks of anxiety and grief visited upon these small boys. The devastation was complete; we had done the best we could to make the fall as gentle as possible, but given the height, it was impossible for it not to injure, and scar.

Our day-to-day lives got put on hold. Existing in constant crisis sweeps most of your to-do's out the window. I had the welcome respite of voiceover jobs, but there was very little meditation, almost no exercise, and creative writing? Except for the notes of the day, my output was almost non-existent. My last act on that front had been the day before the boys came into our house, when I submitted my manuscript to an agent whose name I came across on a gay news website. He had just married the author Augusten Burroughs, and on a whim, I cold-queried him. Then the maelstrom flew in, and I completely forgot about it. 

We moved the boys to their new foster home the Saturday after school ended. The next day, Benj and I traveled to Santa Fe for a long-planned visit with my sister and her family. It was a hard transition. We were both a little shell-shocked. The first night in the tranquil house I found it impossible to sleep, partly kept up by the pervasive heat and my flailing, teeth-grinding son next to me in bed, but mostly because of an all-encompassing desire for flight. I needed to get up, get going, Do Something. Living on survival mode, remaining in constant vigilance  for almost two months, I was so on edge that even the sound of the tinkling koi pond outside my room kept shifting into the murmur of boys' voices, threatening war.

"I'd be thrilled to take you on as a client and be given the chance to sell this."

My cellphone had spotty service up in the pristine mountains where my sister lives; the wifi, practically nonexistent—the price you pay for paradise, I guess. My phone finally kicked in during preparation for breakfast the next morning. And there it was, in my email inbox, a letter from that same agent I had queried weeks before:

"I'd be thrilled to take you on as a client and be given the chance to sell this."

He liked my book. A lot. He had some notes, none of them dire, and he had questions, but he definitely wanted to represent me. I had to read the email in parts; I was in such a frazzled state I didn't want to contaminate the letter. Never before had there been such a clear demarcation between phases of my life. Here, here, this has ended, and now, here you are, your new direction. Come along. Finding an agent is only one early part in a long, unsure journey, but it came at exactly the time I needed it most.

The agent and I have had a invigorating string of communications since. He's worked with me on some revisions of the book, all of them for the better. My illustrator Sungyoon Choi gracefully contributed more artwork to tie everything together, and it's ready to go. He's sending it out to publishers today. Fingers crossed, shall we?

The night after the good news in Santa Fe, we slept on the roof of the house to watch a predicted meteor shower. It was cold and cloudy, but I was awake at 2:30 in the morning when the clouds finally shredded and drifted away. What was left was night sky and a clear view of countless constellations. It was glorious. That night, I saw three shooting stars and Sagittarius, my birth sign, rearing up over the horizon. 

So I'm Getting a New Kitchen. Boo Hoo for Me.

My head, Drusilla, my heeeeeaaadd!

There is a constant pounding, pounding in my head, inescapable as guilt in an Edgar Allen Poe story. All day, this endless cacophany--I  feel like John Hurt as Caligula in "I, Claudius." But it's not impending madness which comes my way, oh no, it's something much more momentous, and, in the short term, traumatic:

Home improvement.

I made this mistake, a couple of years ago, of dismissing an idea of Doug's about getting a second dishwasher. Aparently, his Royal Highness had a problem with five straight hours of kitchen duty in exchange for one of my multi-course cooking events (this does not even include Thanksgiving, where cleanup sometimes lasts well into the sixth day of Christmas). I dismissed his request as ludicrous. "What's wrong with the dishcloth and Brillo pad I got you last year?" I demanded.

I thought he was being way too extravagent, but little did I know how far he could go. To exact his revenge he instead began lobbying for an entire new KITCHEN. Somehow, this idea passed through both houses of Congress and was signed into law before I was even aware of it happening. Theoretical! I thought we were talking theoretical!

So, here's the before:

 

And here, after a few days of banging and destruction:

Ruh roh...

Don't get me wrong, it's gonna be gorgeous. We have a designer who does amazing, beautiful work with wood, and our counters and cabinets will be a thing of beauty. The redesign will also eliminate the physical contortions we undergo every time there's more than two people prepping in the space. 

 It's just that it's gonna be six to eight weeks of construction noise, and me without a kitchen. Me. I'm the kind of person who can't feel comfortable in a place until I've found the nearest grocery store and mapped out the floorplan. I'm the one filling mini-eclairs for my son's birthday party when I could have just BOUGHT THEM. This is going to be a challenge.

I've created a  makeshift kitchen in the playroom, storing dishware and bowls amid the boxes of board games and bins of Legos. I've raided Costco for a toaster oven and a hot plate, and my friend Denis wisely gifted us an electric kettle. Here's our petite cuisine, in all its glory:

Hungry yet?

It's kind of like a cross between a camping site and a kitchen in a typical New York City apartment. Just the barest of necessities: microwave, hot plate, toaster oven, and an electric kettle. And a blender. And a coffee maker. And a SodaStream bubbler, Well, we can't live like savages, can we?

There is one problem with this setup, which I discovered when trying to cook my first dinner: you can't use more than one appliance at a time, or it blows the fuse. Surprise, surprise. That's why it took me an hour to make green beans, warm pita and microwave bowls of soup. ("This hot plate is taking so long to heat up the water...oh...") So much for multi-tasking.

And then there's the matter of the washup. We're using the shower in the small downstairs bathroom. After every meal I kneel like a Carmelite nun on the threshold of the shower and scrub dishes in the bucket, then Waterpik the hell out of them. The worst part is the liquid mess—what to do with the remaining lentil soup or watery oatmeal? They can't be disposed of  down the sink or in the shower drain, so for now... into the loo it goes. It's all so very, very appetizing. 

I know, I know, there's such a thing as restaurants and frozen meals. But cooking gives me great pleasure, invigorates and centers me. Can this situation be made better? Campers, college students and NYC apartment dwellers: suggestions? Any favorite meals made in a toaster oven? Tips on not setting off the smoke alarm with your unvented hot plate? Recipes for cooking veggies in the microwave? 
Or perhaps it's time to get on to that raw food trend...only then I'd have to plug in a dehydrator.

Suggestions?