Post-Holiday

Oh, thank god.  The holidays are over.  And my Christmas dinosaur can go back to the window where it scares my neighbors.

Well…nothing can scare my neighbors.  Even toddlers spend the weekend in the parking lot using My Little Ponies for target practice.

I actually feel very safe in my neighborhood.  It’s all about context.  If I’m coming home from work or the grocery store, I do not feel safe.  However, if Soviet paratroopers invade, I feel very safe.  “Take that you Russkie bastards!” I’ll scream as I hand over my wallet to the kids in 217.

Despite the occasional parking lot shenanigans, though, I live in a “soundproofed” building that blocks just about every signal.  The Wi-Fi won’t reach from the kitchen to the living room unless you perch on the couch like a porn star and fly the laptop around like a toy Millennium Falcon.  That’s the bad.  The good is that I only hear the neighbors when their fights spill out into the hallway and the boyfriend is repeatedly slamming the girlfriend against my door.  And that only happens on Saturday nights and, as I’ve now discovered, on Christmas Eve.  Merry *slam* Christmas *slam* You *slam* Ungrateful *slam* Whore! *slam*

The doors are bullet-proof ghetto doors, so no damage is ever done.  I do sort of sit here rocking back and forth crying, though.

In a previous life, I might have intervened.  But, these days, I just drink vodka.  Because, really…I give up.  Fuck everyone.

For much of the weekend, though, things have been quiet.  Everyone’s tired from the holidays, I suppose.  I’ve spent the last two days unwashed, drinking, and coding a goddamned book in preparation for going through the Library of Congress.  They can only accept text files, and you have to put in all these annoying codes to let them know chapter breaks and so on.  It’s like Steampunk Internet stuff.  Incredibly complicated procedures for simple tasks.

Every day I wonder why I got into publishing.  There’s no clear reason, really.  Occasionally, I make up reasons.  But after you spend the better part of a year getting a book from Word document to page, it’s mind numbing.  I secretly envy the self published idiots, who send off their unedited, poorly laid out piece of shit talking cat adventure story to iUniverse and get it published without question.  Then they have to guilt their friends into buying copies and they strut around pretending that they’re authors and being indignant that nobody will give their horrid crap a mention in the New York Times.

Those self published fuckos are our enemy, by the way.  And I don’t mean publishers – I mean you.  The public.  The annual half a million self published titles blindly churned out have overwhelmed the market and are squeezing out small presses and good writers.  So, if you enjoy reading books, don’t get used to it.  Before long, it’ll be nothing but talking cat sex sci-fi adventures in 20 point font with typos that a grade schooler would have caught.  The iUniverse/PublishAmerica/whatever company specialty.

But maybe I’m bitter because I’m doing books the old fashioned way.  Good book, good author, proper care to editing and layout.  All that hard work which means, when the smallest thing goes wrong, I jam a screwdriver into my eye and get in the shower fully clothed and scream.  It’s happened a few times.  But I’m better now.  I think.  We’ll see…maybe not.  Oh god!

Where was I?  Oh yes!  Thank god the holidays are over.  New Year’s is fun.  Plus, I took a week off so I can just lie on the floor and listen to women get abused in the hallway.  Or maybe I’ll drive west until the gas runs out and get a cheap hotel room and lie on the floor and listen to women get abused in the adjacent rooms.