‘Writing’ Category

  1. …sync up with their lips, that’s what i think

    August 19, 2003 :: 10:19 pm

    My latest dream: being at Lisa’s house for Thanksgiving dinner, along with a whole bunch of random people including my parents. I did not have any shoes, and I needed some to go roller skating after dinner, so Lisa dug around in her closet and asked me what size I wore. I told her, and she pulled out a pair of low-cut red leather roller skates. They fit. I asked her why she had a pair of skates that weren’t her size, and she said that she found them out by the dumpster. I put on the skates but I couldn’t get my footing so I had to crawl on my stomach across the house to the dining table so I could eat.

    Women’s Expo is this Saturday and Sunday. There’s a tilted mirror above the stage — woot!!! It’ll be just like being on a cooking show. We aren’t allowed to give samples, but we plan to make the ratatouille and send the aroma of sizzling garlic and tomatoes throughout the showroom floor. We’re on at lunchtime, so with any luck, this will translate into sales!!

    Random thoughts: IKEA. Baby wiener dogs, approximately $100 per pound. The angels want to wear my red shoes. Gothic weasel stomp. Carnation Instant Bitch. The Ben Stiller Show is really damn funny. Strapping Leslie into a lawnchair on the roof of the Mini Cooper. Tofu and brown rice. Hey! Are you talking to me? Or are you just practicing for one of those performances you do? HA!

    Category Books, Dreams, Writing | Tags: | No Comments

  2. i feel leaky, oh so leaky

    August 10, 2003 :: 9:10 pm

    The Very Unpleasant Surgery is over, and everything is fine. Actually I won’t really know if it’s fine until I go back in for tests, but it went quickly and with few side effects. It only took about 15 minutes and was, as I expected, Very Unpleasant. Doc came with me and stood next to me and held my hand the whole time, which helped to make me much less scared. How can you not love a guy who will voluntarily stay by your side to comfort you while strangers are painfully poking around in your nether regions?

    I sat up after it was over and felt ok for a few minutes, but then nearly passed out. It was weird — the doctor was talking with us and I felt my face suddenly get very hot and I started seeing little red dots everywhere. I laid back down for a few minutes, and then we went home. I was in considerable pain for the rest of the day, but I felt pretty good the next morning. There are a few lasting unpleasant side effects, the worst of which is about six weeks of enforced celibacy.

    House updates: Acquired a new futon sofa (new to us; thanks Roosh!); got a new slipcover for falling-apart white sofa; a couple thousand dollars worth of dead tree removal and new tree replanting are coming up; installed a new fluorescent light in the garage to replace the one whose ballast died about eighteen months ago (you think we’re procrastinators?); we still haven’t called the electrician to fix our electricity which has been on the fritz for about 2 months (no, we’re not procrastinators!).

    The Visions Expo is coming up in less than two weeks. We still have NO IDEA what we’re going to do for it. The cream cheese mints are becoming a standard and a crowd favorite. I guess that we need to pick 2 or 3 things to make, and then suck it up and go shopping. The publisher is reimbursing us for expenses with our own books, which doesn’t seem to bode well. At least they are helping out in some way, though.

    And, last but not least, I made some really great tilapia tonight for dinner. It was oven-baked, batter-dipped, and veeeery crispy. Even Doc liked it, and he usually doesn’t care for fish unless it’s in fried stick format. I think it’s one for the next book.

    Category Books, Food, Health, House, Writing | Tags: | No Comments

  3. quick updates only

    August 5, 2003 :: 9:45 pm

    Update 1: My surgery has been moved to Friday. I won’t have to take 3 days off work; just one, which is both good and bad. Kinda ruins my weekend though.

    Update 2: Cooper Smith, who used to be an intern in my office and now has his own PR firm , has been getting us wonderful leads on our book… and we haven’t even formally hired him yet. He’s one of the sweetest guys in the world. Through his contacts, we have been asked to teach two two-hour cooking classes at Market Street, which apparently is like a Central Market/Whole Foods type gourmet market. It’s not open yet, but we’re doing one in Colleyville and one in McKinney in February.

    Update 3: I think we can wait on buying a new A/C unit until next summer. The freon charge ought to last us the year (we hope). I’m damn glad we got it recharged, though, because our July elec-fucking-tricity bill was almost $300 due to the unit running constantly.

    Update 4: I moved offices at work. I now have a smaller office, with a metal wall, many more drawers, and in a much quieter area surrounded by designers. Now, it’s all about finding cool magnets.

    Update 5: I think our tree is dying. Doc says we didn’t kill it, and he’s probably right; the inspection report when we bought the house indicated that we’d probably need to have the tree removed soon. But I still feel bad. There’s probably something I could have done — fertilizer, more water, trimming… something. Hell, I don’t know enough about trees to even know what I could have done differently.

    Category Books, Health, House, Work, Writing | Tags: | No Comments

  4. Happy Birthday Kimberly!

    July 2, 2003 :: 10:15 pm

    Darn it, I keep forgetting to bring photos home from work. Hillsman came to our signing at Barnes and Noble on June 14th, and took about 75 digital photographs. I have not even looked through them thoroughly yet. And then I scanned in photos that go with the fork story below, that I sent to Scott’s mom and dad. I wanted to add one to the blog entry, but I can’t seem to remember to put all that stuff on a CD before I leave for the day.

    Arushi and I moved the QFC pages to a new server. We finally broke down and bought commercial hosting services. My iDisk, while free, was too damned slow to use. It served pages to users at an OK speed, but uploading files was absolutely painful. So now editing, uploading, and downloading are much much MUCH easier, plus we can use FTP, plus we both have access to work on the pages, PLUS we have new custom email accounts! This all makes me happy.

    Unfortunately, our hosting service does not use Mac OS X Servers, but maybe we can eventually find one that does, at a comparably reasonable price. At least they offer a Linux option, so we don’t have to use Windows servers.

    Neko is eating something unidentifiable under the computer desk. It sounds like styrofoam. Aha, it IS styrofoam. Somehow she got ahold of a packing peanut. I don’t think I’ve had packing peanuts in my office… I wonder where she dug it up from.

    I’m also happy that it is a short week at work. On Friday we are probably going to hang out with Brittney and hopefully Kim as well. Dinner in air-conditioned comfort, watch fireworks somewhere, then maybe have some drinks to celebrate Kim’s 12-year medical anniversary, which is Saturday. I’m not positive exactly what the date signifies, if it’s the day she was diagnosed with the brain tumor, or maybe the day that she was given the all-clear by her doctors. At any rate, it is definitely an occasion to celebrate.

    Category Books, Cats, Friends, Holiday, Writing | Tags: | No Comments

  5. tiredly

    June 25, 2003 :: 9:23 pm

    We did the demo at Gilda’s Club last night. I’m too tired to write about it right now, but it went really well. We had 17 people show up, they were all very nice and seemed to enjoy the presentation, and I was much more comfortable this time around. I’ll write more later.

    Category Books, Writing | Tags: | No Comments

  6. old friends get in touch with the great pretender

    June 10, 2003 :: 10:16 pm

     

    Stacey, Katy, Bonnie, Mrs. Rufener, Arushi, and some girl whose name I think was Kristen — circa 1984

    What a wild couple of days! I heard from Sarah, which is not entirely unusual, but then the next day I got an e-mail from STACEY of all people! I have not heard from Stacey in probably six or seven years. I hate falling out of touch with people with whom I have so much in common. Stacey is a cat-loving sci-fi nerd. Sound familiar? :) AND she has a new baby! Oh my gosh, more of my friends are procreating!! Nicole had her baby last week, two months early (both she and the baby are doing OK). Oh, and then, Kim e-mailed me out of the blue wanting to get together for dinner last Friday. Luckily, I was available. Her job eats up so much of her time — we have been trying to get together since before Xmas last year. All these old friends popping out of the woodwork — I love it!!

    Stacey was kind enough to send along the above photo, proving that little nerds do indeed grow up to be big nerds. We were at some geeky smart kid competition in sixth grade. It’s weird to see myself at the same height as the rest of my friends, albeit with quite the chubby little face and tummy. I’m not sure what I’m wearing or why in the world my hair was like that. Ah, I think that at age 11 I just didn’t care.

    Yesterday Doc and I went by the Barnes & Noble/SMU Bookstore, and they have plastered the entire front window with our books. They’ve put almost 50 copies on the window displays, and TWO photographs of us. Plus, another display inside the store with another photograph. And I thought it was weird to see my name on something on the bookshelves — it’s nothing compared to seeing myself poster-sized in the front window. Hey, at least it’s a good picture (thanks to a brilliant photographer and the magic of Photoshop).

    I’m beginning to freak out about all this now, especially the signing this coming weekend where I have to get up in front of a crowd of strangers and talk. Amazon.com has, on our book’s page, a section with the header “People who bought titles by Katy Scott also bought…” I think that was the most shocking thing I’ve seen so far, in the sense that it had some impact on the reality/disjointed-reality of my whole perception of this book thing. SLAM! Part of it hit home tonight. I have achieved a really big goal in my life, and now I don’t know what to do. Part of me feels guilty about it, for reasons I can’t quite explain yet. Part of me feels like it’s really cool, and that I should be proud. Part of me wants to crawl back under the rock.

    I guess mostly it feels like a really big change in my life, and I don’t want to become something or someone that I am not. But maybe that’s stupid… maybe I already AM what I have been mistakenly perceiving myself not to be. I don’t know. A little voice keeps telling me, “How can you call yourself an author when you know damn well that a big part of this was pure unadulterated luck? You are pretending, and people are going to find out.”

    Tell me: how can I sound happy and excited AND paranoid and freaked out in the same weblog entry? Oh hell, I go to those extremes within the same hour, sometimes.

    Category Books, Friends, Writing | Tags: | No Comments

  7. drooling at thoughts of sour foods

    May 28, 2003 :: 10:08 pm

    I’m sad that this blog is suffering… I’m not updating it like I want to, but like I said last week, my time is just like NONEXISTANT anymore. I guess that I was logging a lot of hours playing Dungeon Siege, but it really was a nice diversion. I finished the game yesterday.

    The whole book thing is just steamrolling along. It’s scary and surreal. It’s my whole life right now. PR for this thing could be a full time job.

    We are having a signing at the Barnes & Noble SMU Bookstore (Mockingbird at 75 in Dallas) on Saturday, June 14th, from 2-4 p.m. Come out! Come see us! Come be a warm body in the crowd! Please!!! We need everyone there that we can get! We’re going to be doing a short cooking demo, and then signing books.

    On the 24th of June we are doing a complete 4-course meal in 30 minutes for Gilda’s Club of North Texas, a cancer support group. We’re doing a healthy meal and then raffling off copies of the book.

    Mom is being our PR woman for South Texas. She’s carrying copies of the book with her wherever she goes, talking to owners of all the shops she goes into, trying to get them to carry the book… and generally doing an incredible job of getting the word out. Oh, she’s also remerchandising the bookstores that she goes into… moving the books into more prominent locations, putting them on the new releases table or endcaps, turning them face forward instead of spine forward. Sneaky! Thanks, Mom!!

    I made a tasty pork stir-fry last night. I cheated and used a frozen vegetable mixture (carrots, broccoli, onions, water chestnuts) instead of fresh, and I used bottled ginger-garlic stir-fry sauce. It was soooo good! I sliced a pork cutlet and browned it on med-high heat, then added quartered mushrooms, and browned them a little. Then a handful of the frozen veggies, 1/2 cup of chicken broth and a couple tablespoons of Tiger Sauce. Let cook until the liquid evaporates, then add a little stir fry sauce, and heat until bubbly. I served it over freshly cooked sticky rice and garnished with slices of pickled ginger.

    The secret ingredient, however, is Sour Salt. It’s sold in the kosher foods section of the grocery store, and is just a bottle of powdered citric acid. I love citric acid. I put it on everything now. It’s making my mouth water right now just thinking about it.

    Category Books, Food, Writing | Tags: | No Comments

  8. dammit, i need more TIME

    May 22, 2003 :: 10:06 pm

    Good lord. There are just not enough hours in the day. It seems like before I know it, it’s midnight and I have to get to bed (katy on less than 7 hours of sleep is extra crabby), and it feels like I haven’t accomplished nearly enough. I work at a computer 8 hours a day, come home, work on my computer for another 3 hours, squeeze in dinner, maybe a little tv for unwinding and relaxation, quality time with Doc somewhere in there, and oh, all the OTHER non-digital creative stuff I am compelled to do… Could I just have about 3 more hours, please?? That’s all I ask, 3 hours per day. That way when it’s 11 p.m., I have 12 p.m., 13 p.m., and 14 p.m. left to go before it’s midnight.

    Little Neko, who we estimate is maybe four months old, appears to have gone into heat today. I think that’s a little young, but who knows. Maybe she’s just small for her age. We thought that she was just being cute and kittenish, rubbing herself maniacally all over the carpet. But she wouldn’t stop for anything, and then she started crouching with her butt in the air and her tail to one side. Hmmmm…. kind of suspicious. I picked her up and she desperately wanted to be held and petted and scratched, but still kept trying to poke her butt in the air. VERY suspicious, because she is normally the squirmiest little fuzzy creature you can imagine. An extensive internet search revealed that this is typical cat-in-estrus behaviour. I am amazed how difficult it was to find any site that had straightforward information on how a cat in heat behaves.

    So we get to schedule a little surgery tomorrow, I think. Poor baby. Snip snip.

    Book news: We have a book signing at the Barnes and Noble at Mockingbird and 75, on June 14th from 2 p.m. – 4 p.m. If you are reading this, come out!! We need you to be there, even if you’ve already bought a copy of the book!! We are going to do a little cooking demo and then sign books. (Assuming anyone comes to it at all.) Also, we are trying to set up a signing at a place called Book People in Austin. Borders at Preston and Royal wants to do a signing as well. Arushi and I know the PR guy, Jonathan Briggs, from high school.

    Category Books, Cats, My Boring Life, Writing | Tags: | No Comments

  9. holy shit, i’m a writer

    May 8, 2003 :: 8:52 pm

    I have copies of my book in hand!! It’s even more cool than I expected! I got my box of author’s copies last Friday and it STILL doesn’t feel real. Crap, when the hell is it going to sink in?? I look at the book, flip through it, read a few recipes and tips, and think “Wow, this is such a great book! Everyone who sees it is going to fall in love with it and wonder how they lived without it!” Not that I’m biased, of course. But — I am very proud of it. If I get hit by a bus tomorrow and die, at least I have this to show for my life. :)

    Oh, and I have awesome business cards, too, courtesy of Brittney Wallace. I helped her understand the mechanisms behind web sites and to get hers started, and she designed the cards for me.

    Speaking of Brittney, we came up with a new phrase today: “My ‘tude is in the shitter.” I think it should go on bumper stickers. It probably means something totally different in like British slang or something. Oh, there’s a Scottish phrase that I don’t quite get: “a pile of pants.” Apparently it means something bad. I don’t understand the idiom though. Can anyone explain it to me?

    Category Books, Friends, Writing | Tags: | No Comments

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