I have been at my parent's place for the past week or so (save a quick trek to FL), and thus far it's been pretty uneventful.

My Dad has been in Southern Illinois working, so most of the week it's just me and my Mom, in the country outside of Indianapolis.

All we have for protection is a 7 pound Pomeranian (fine. 9 pounds, but she's got a thyroid issue), and a Shih Tzu that is afraid of everything, including but not limited to loud noises, the remote control, when people snap their gum, and squeaky toys.

What could possibly go wrong?

So last night when I woke up at 3 in the morning by my mom saying "I need your help", I naturally assumed that something was very wrong. I rolled out of bed, and realized a few things in very short order, the first of which was that the gun cabinet was all the way across the house.

The second being that I don't have the key.

Far be it for me to leave my mother in whatever situation was currently unfolding, I grabbed the knife I keep in my purse and snuck down the hallway to the outside door.
And yes, I keep a knife in my purse stop looking at me like that.

Just outside the door stood my mother, staring at one side of the fence, wielding a flashlight.

On the other side of the fence stood my 7 pound (Fine. 9. But she's fluffy.) Pomeranian, and my Emo Shih Tzu, cornering what is the biggest goddamn possum I've ever seen.

There's not much I know about possums. I know enough to know that they are nocturnal, this one was bigger than my 7 pound (Fine, 9. But she's sensitive about it) dog, and this one was pissed the fuck off. And my dog was not about to let this go. Which our purposes was not a really good thing because I have a general rule about being within about twelve feet of any wild animal that's snapping its teeth and hissing. Call me crazy.

Turns out my dog's comfort zone to angry potentially rabid nocturnal marsupials is about eleven feet and six inches closer than mine is.

A half an hour of her barking at this thing while it hisses and snaps passes. I bribed her with squeaky toys, a ride in the car (which worked on the other dog, which I will now refer to as "my favorite"), a promise that her favorite person was here, and even that it was time to eat.

Nothing.

There stood my 7 pound (9. But really, she's got a glandular issue) Pomeranian, saving the house from the Evil Possum Of Doom at 3 in the morning.

Finally, I got out the bag of treats. Shook it a little bit, and true to form she came barrelling at me as fast as her little chicken legs would carry her. I scooped her up and carried her inside, where she spent the rest of the night staring at me like "How dare you use my weakness against me". Turns out that inside that little 7 pound (Fine. 9. She's fat, ok?!) body, is a fat kid. Thank god for that, or I'd still be out in the back lawn trying to convince my retarded dog to come inside.

So that's been my vacation thus far. Instead of writing my book proposal, I've been dealing with an overweight dog and a rabid possum.

I should've gone to Vegas.

I got my ass kicked.

For any of you that have met me, you probably have been waiting for this day for a long time. You're all good friends.

I went to the Music As A Weapon tour, and rocked out to Killswitch Engage, Lacuna Coil and Disturbed. I am a huge metal freak, and I am an even bigger live music fan. To me a good heavy metal show is the closest thing you can get to talking to God. With pants on, anyway.

It was bad ass all around, but things got a little wild and I left with three broken toes, a hairline fracture of one of the small obnoxious bones in my hand, and a black eye. I honestly don't know where the shiner came from, you would really think I'd remember getting socked in the eye, but I digress.

My toes are all taped and I am walking with a limp, my fingers are taped and wrapped, and I have a black eye, so right now I just ooze sex. I know, you're probably touching yourself right now. Stop it, you'll go blind.

I was at the gas station the other day, bruised, limping and gimpy, and this guy kept staring at me. First he looked at my foot, then my hand, then finally my eye. He did this three or four times, really taking it in.

He looked a little harder at my hand, and squinted a little and looked at my eye again.

Finally he walks up to me, takes it all in one more time, pauses, and says...

"...So you're married?"

Not going to lie, it took me a second, but holy shit if I didn't fall over laughing.
Kudos to you random gas station guy, you made my day.

Yes, I know. I'm a shitty blogger.

However, I've been busy! Yet another writing gig fell through (sensing a theme here?) so I decided fuck it, I'm going to write a book.

Yea, I know. But in my defense, I chose the one thing I wrote that's a clear winner to start with. That's all I can say at this point.

Because my only marketable quality is writing, it's either this or be stuck in a job I hate that underpays me like whoa. (Sometimes I think I'd take a job at McDonalds over this, if they would match my 401k, and I was allowed to be hired back. I'm not. Long story for a different time.) They say living off of Ramen builds character, I say I have enough character, I'd much prefer cable.

However: Finding a lit agent sucks balls. Finding a publisher sucks balls. Etc. You'd think it'd be easier, considering I found out there's a group on facebook about the 50 mistakes that has, I shit you not, 36,000 people in it (That is not a typo), and there was that whole being published in popular magazines thing. But who's counting?

I guess if it was easy, everyone would do it.

I've gone through so many websites even trying to make a shortlist of agents that I kind of want to die. Chances are, they will all tell me to fuck myself. But I have no doubt at some point, I'll find the perfect one. Who will look at my proposal and realize that I'm the shit.

And before anyone tells me that writing doesn't pay, I say fuck you. It pays for some people, the key is being one of them. Somehow, when I start thinking of my day job as just a temporary thing until this book thing pans out, it doesn't seem as bad.

I know I say this a lot, but I will try to update more! Pinkie swear.