Thanks, Bev. If she doesn't like it, I'm going to take it as a sign from the universe that I should finally bag romance and stick to women's fiction.

Or laundry.

Some words from my detective, for the Leather challenge.(I'm slipping, truly. No fannish references to horsehide being warmer. Or chaps.)

The wallet doesn’t look like much now, brown and scuffed and stretched at the bottom from all of the things my father used to carry in it. I imagine that I can still see the glint from his badge inside it, but I think that is just my imagination running away with me. I can tell from the distinctive leather smell that it was intended to last and was chosen(probably by my mother) for some occasion that my memory doesn’t record. He’s been gone for a while now; I can’t remember where we last had dinner or what the last gift he bought me was, although when he died so unexpectedly, I thought I’d hold onto everything that made me think of him. I have a career path like his, this leather wallet, and several guidebooks on baseball, which he tried and failed to teach me, marked with his handwriting that made every word a barely-broken line. Kind of like mine, even without the brain damage. Most days it feels like enough.

Allyson - don't freak out too much. You have a bat-fan in PA who will love your story!! If you need extra eyes let me know.

Deena - the gerund constuction wasn't necessary so your instinct was dead on.

Hmm. Leather.

The Shopaholic series on the other hand, is everything mockable about the genre. Feh.

Hee! And I love them, all the same.

I also love Jane Greene, who has become my go-to-girl for stuff when I'm tired of other stuff. I just read my first Marian Keyes and really liked it a lot. I need to update my have-reads.

Thanks, Sox!

For the leather challenge:

First Christmas

“Did you get your present?”
“Um… yeah.”
“I made them myself!”
“Really? I had no idea.”
“So, what did you think of them?”
“Why two?
“The little one’s for fun and the big one’s for more fun. ... You’re not talking. You don’t like them, do you?”
“I do! They’re really nice. I just wish you’d warned me!”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“I opened the box in front of my sister!”
“Oh. What did she say?”
“She said, ‘Why did she send you TWO floggers?’”
“I had extra leather?”
“My dad says he’s going to give you his riding crop.”
“Eww.”
“Yeah.”

Ugh. My co-author isn't happy about the vampire bat chapter, says it shows that I was punchy and tired, and there's two much Bonnie and not enough Sam.

Ugh.

SO TIRED.

it shows that I was punchy and tired

I remember a show I saw a while ago about recording the cast album of a Broadway musical. One of the stars was bound and determined not to force everyone to stay an extra day because she couldn't get the piece right in the recording studio, so she stayed late, pushing herself, and it showed. The producer finally talked her into calling it a night. The next day she and the orchestra were well rested, and she ripped off a superb version in one take.

Most everything is better with rest.

I called him a poo head and now we're not speaking.

When did I become nine?

When did I become nine?

When somebody took a jab at your baby.

Allyson, it sounds like such a cool story. I'm ready to buy it for my punkin bunnies.