Oh, thank god.\u00a0 The holidays are over.\u00a0 And my Christmas dinosaur can go back to the window where it scares my neighbors.<\/p>\n
Well\u2026nothing can scare my neighbors.\u00a0 Even toddlers spend the weekend in the parking lot using My Little Ponies for target practice.<\/p>\n
\nI actually feel very safe in my neighborhood.\u00a0 It\u2019s all about context.\u00a0 If I\u2019m coming home from work or the grocery store, I do not feel safe.\u00a0 However, if Soviet paratroopers invade, I feel very safe.\u00a0 \u201cTake that you Russkie bastards!\u201d I\u2019ll scream as I hand over my wallet to the kids in 217.<\/p>\n
Despite the occasional parking lot shenanigans, though, I live in a \u201csoundproofed\u201d building that blocks just about every signal.\u00a0 The Wi-Fi won\u2019t 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<\/em>.\u00a0 That\u2019s the bad.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 And that only happens on Saturday nights and, as I\u2019ve now discovered, on Christmas Eve.\u00a0 Merry *slam* Christmas *slam* You *slam* Ungrateful *slam* Whore! *slam*<\/p>\n The doors are bullet-proof ghetto doors, so no damage is ever done.\u00a0 I do sort of sit here rocking back and forth crying, though.<\/p>\n In a previous life, I might have intervened.\u00a0 But, these days, I just drink vodka.\u00a0 Because, really\u2026I give up.\u00a0 Fuck everyone.<\/p>\n For much of the weekend, though, things have been quiet.\u00a0 Everyone\u2019s tired from the holidays, I suppose.\u00a0 I\u2019ve spent the last two days unwashed, drinking, and coding a goddamned book in preparation for going through the Library of Congress.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It\u2019s like Steampunk Internet stuff.\u00a0 Incredibly complicated procedures for simple tasks.<\/p>\n Every day I wonder why I got into publishing.\u00a0 There\u2019s no clear reason, really.\u00a0 Occasionally, I make up reasons.\u00a0 But after you spend the better part of a year getting a book from Word document to page, it\u2019s mind numbing.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Then they have to guilt their friends into buying copies and they strut around pretending that they\u2019re authors and being indignant that nobody will give their horrid crap a mention in the New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n Those self published fuckos are our enemy, by the way.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t mean publishers \u2013 I mean you.\u00a0 The public.\u00a0 The annual half a million self published titles blindly churned out have overwhelmed the market and are squeezing out small presses and good writers.\u00a0 So, if you enjoy reading books, don\u2019t get used to it.\u00a0 Before long, it\u2019ll be nothing but talking cat sex sci-fi adventures in 20 point font with typos that a grade schooler would have caught.\u00a0 The iUniverse\/PublishAmerica\/whatever company specialty.<\/p>\n But maybe I\u2019m bitter because I\u2019m doing books the old fashioned way.\u00a0 Good book, good author, proper care to editing and layout.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It\u2019s happened a few times.\u00a0 But I\u2019m better now.\u00a0 I think.\u00a0 We\u2019ll see\u2026maybe not.\u00a0 Oh god!<\/p>\n Where was I?\u00a0 Oh yes!\u00a0 Thank god the holidays are over.\u00a0 New Year\u2019s is fun.\u00a0 Plus, I took a week off so I can just lie on the floor and listen to women get abused in the hallway.\u00a0 Or maybe I\u2019ll 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Oh, thank god.\u00a0 The holidays are over.\u00a0 And my Christmas dinosaur can go back to the window where it scares my neighbors. Well\u2026nothing can scare my neighbors.\u00a0 Even toddlers spend the weekend in the parking lot using My Little Ponies …<\/p>\n