I’m spending the week at DisneyWorld! Romance Writers of America National Conference! I’ll be tweeting from the event, so follow me at JCGarren on twitter.

Yes… that’s the real Alyssa Milano…

I had a doozy last night if anybody wants to take a stab at it. I semi-frequently have post-apocalyptic dreams where there’s this dystopian state of dangerous government, limited freedom, and weird technology in the hands of a totalitarian regime while the rest of us are living in a junk yard of useless tech. Weirdly enough, these dreams usually begin peacefully, with family and life moving on relatively pleasantly under the circumstances, until I step outside and it looks like Terminator and me and my fellow resistance fighters are being chased. (I always have to go outside in these dreams because hiding in the peaceful house — being safe enough, free enough, happy enough if I just keep my head down — is never good enough for me. The outside world’s gone to hell, and I have to be out there doing something about it.)

But last night’s dream was different because the apocalypse hadn’t already happened – it had just started.

I was searching for a new location for ARWA to meet (go figure), but instead of calling around, me and a couple of the other members (Hi Marina! You were there. ) were going around and visiting locations (all of which in real life would in no way work, but whatevs). We were nervous because gang activity had started springing up around the city, and we had to be careful what areas of town we traveled through. We visited an empty carnival tent last and then went to my house to discuss. Next door, instead of the apartment complex that’s really there, was a rickety Victorian cottage, and the woman who owned it was renting out the basement and the attic space. Some members of the committee were interested in using one of those to meet in, but I had a bad feeling about it – ghosts or something. Besides, the rooms were cramped, dark, dusty, and required tiny stairs to get up or down into. Somebody asked if I had a problem meeting in a private residence, and I tried to explain that that wasn’t it, but I couldn’t figure out how to adequately explain my issues with this space.

Then all these people showed up on my porch with sleeping bags and backpacks of clothing. Violence was rampant on the north end of town (in the very un-Austin looking city – it looked more like Berkeley, CA, actually), and they needed a safe place to sleep. In the dream, I was connected to them through teaching (even though nobody in the group was somebody I taught in real life – in fact it was children and their parents instead of teenagers). I let them inside, and we abandoned looking for a new place to meet to take care of them.

The rest of the chapter started setting up bedrolls and making sandwiches, but me and one other person needed to leave the house to check up on some people (for me, I think it was my sister) who were in the north side of town, somewhere in the vicinity of the violence. We didn’t have a car and we didn’t even think about phones (maybe  in my dream reality they didn’t exist?), so we took off on foot down the sidewalk. In reality I have no idea who this other person was, although in the dream I knew her, a young woman with a shy, artistic temperament whose hair was usually naturally blond but sometimes black (and always up in a careless French twist – how’s that for a random detail to remember?).  We carefully navigated our way, trying to avoid the areas where we were most likely to run into gang violence. The scariest area of town was a street near the football stadium where an Asian gang had taken up patrolling, and they were vicious, killing anyone who came into the area with clubs and knives. In fact, that gang had gained so much power that we noticed other racial tensions lessening as people tried trusting each other for safety. We watched a couple of  black men in ghetto-thug attire (but one had beautiful waist-length braids) approached by two twittering, blonde Jackie-O types. The tension between the four of them was intense, but when the girls got up the nerve to turn to the men for help, the men stopped a gang of muggers who wanted to drag the ladies into an alley and beat them to death, and asked no reward for their heroism.

After the artist chick and I worked our way around several roadblocks while trying desperately to avoid the stadium, we found ourselves at a ‘Y’-shaped crossroads just south of campus. Shots were fired, and a man in a suit standing right next to me dropped, bleeding out all over the street. An ambulance came. I think the artist chick got into the ambulance with the suit guy.

I continued west, heading toward the stadium (because my destination required it), but before I reached the stadium, I ducked into this cave-like underground building where a ritual, complete with incense and chanting, was going on. It was a Norse cult (not like scary cult, just… odd), and they were mourning the death of their seer who’d been killed in the violence outside. Odin was there, standing before a throne made of rock and wood, but he was weak; I think he’d been shot, too. Someone cast runes, and they asked if I could read them, since their seer was dead. I was scared that I couldn’t do what they wanted me to, but I decided to give it a try. I had to, the city was in ruins and we needed to try to stop what was going on around us, or at least survive until things stabilized into whatever new world order was coming. I went into the circle of worshipers and knelt to see the runes…

And I woke up.

I have a few internet stops that help start the day off on the right foot. My favorite two are…

Nathan Fillion’s Twitterfeed

Is Nathan Fillion the BEST person to follow on Twitter? I think so. Today, the topic du jour is Double Rainbows (you don’t need to watch the whole thing, just enough to get the idea… there is no “punch line” at the end or anything. Then watch:

(Warning: This video is not as cool if you haven’t seen the original Double Rainbow video I linked to above.)

Slush Pile Hell

What will we wacky writers think of next to insert into our query letters? Even if you don’t write, this is dang funny.

And here’s a one off I found from SPH’s twitterfeed, but it’s worth a look. Ever wonder which famous writer your style most emulates? Find out with I Write Like. With various pages of my manuscript, I got Dan Brown twice, Harry Harrison once (Soylent Green was based on one of his books), and  a writer who shall not be named a fourth time  (wildly popular, but not my favorite author…um…). (But for various blog entries, I got David Foster Wallace (2xs), Jack London, Margaret Atwood, Arthur C. Clarke, H.P. Lovecraft, and… Dan Brown. Twice (including this very post).)

(Update! With the addition of the list of authors my blog looks like, the writer analyzer has changed the post to be more indicative of H.P. Lovecraft’s style.) (And with the addition of that update, it has reassigned me to Harry Harrison.) (OK, back to David Foster Wallace… I really need to quit doing this and send out query letters.) (Yup, we’re consistent with DFW; query letter time.)

On a personal note, I finished edits for Angel of Air and Earth and sent my first query yesterday! Double  rainbow all the way across the sky!!

I have decided to add swimming to my weekly exercise schedule that I’m trying to enforce. Now, exercise has never been my thing, but I know I need to for my health and it allows me to eat more Torchy’s Tacos without needing to resize the wardrobe, so I’m trying. Adding swimming, though, is an iffy thing. On the one hand…

1. I love swimming. It is one of the few exercises that doesn’t feel like exercising, and…
2. … it’s really good for you to boot.
3. We have a neighborhood swimming pool that’s both free and within easy walking distance.
4. Walking to the pool passes by the firehouse.  Scott, if you’re reading this: this entirely has to do with my appreciation for the work these selfless men and women do for our society. Go firemen. Everybody else who’s reading this: seriously, is firefighting not el mas guapo profession in the world? Is there like a headshot included with the job ap? I have never seen an ugly firefighter. Go firemen.

On the other hand…

1. I have to put on a swimsuit. I don’t have a terrible figure or anything, but until I’m actually in the water, I always feel so dang conspicuous in a swimsuit… walking 5 blocks in a swimsuit is far for me.
2. I have to walk to an alternate location to work out.  Yeah five blocks is close. But I have a history of only being successful with workout programs I can do from my house and/or backyard (made easier by our array of kettlebells, a pull up bar, rings, a pilates ball, and a yoga mat — my husband takes his workout seriously).

So… this was a risky maneuver. There’re two perfectly valid excuses for not working out, on top of the general whininess the topic typically induces. Risky indeed.

But this morning, I actually got my act together. I put on a swimsuit. I snagged a kitchen timer. I wrapped myself in a sarape my mother brought back from Hawaii in an attempt to feel less conspicuous (it almost worked). I got to the pool, and there was only one other person using the lap lane. I set my timer and got into the water.

Once I start working out, success can pretty much be declared, because, for me, inertia works both ways.

Five minutes into laps, the lifeguards pulled everyone out of the pool. Apparently the chlorine machine wasn’t pumping right and we weren’t properly chemicaled. Maintenance was coming… some time… probably today. I consoled myself by playing on the swingset until actual children wanted to use it, then I walked home.

Exercise fail.

But in the five minutes I had actually managed to get the breathing up (yes, I push myself really hard… and I’m a complete wuss) and by the time I got into the house, I was hungry. It being lunchtime, and in a snit over the universe subverting my honest effort at doing a good thing, I decided to eat. I go to the fridge and pull out random stuff to throw into an omelet (and that word totally looks spelled wrong, though my spell check assures me it isn’t). This is a common meal in our house; grab leftovers, cheese, and any assorted jarred vegetable type substances, heat in fry pan, add eggs. I accomplished parts one and two, then opened the fridge for eggs.

We didn’t have any.

Now, we ALWAYS have eggs. Buy them like 3 dozen at a time. My husband consumes them in spectacular quantities. So my assumption that we would have eggs for an omelet was not completely unfounded, however wrong it might’ve been this morning. So there I had leftover shrimp, sun-dried tomatoes, hearts of palm, and garlic fried up and ready for some congeal-y goodness to make it into a meal. I looked back into the refrigerator. And found the carton of egg whites Scott and I bought a few weeks ago to practice making whiskey sours with.

I check the expiration date; today! (OK, I just looked at a clock and technically it was yesterday, but when I looked at the carton I was thinking the wrong date in my head… the fail continues…) I don’t know about you, but for me personally, “Expires on” means “Valid Through” … but even more vital, there’s a smell test that may either shorten or extend the recommended date on the package.

Oh… if you eat at my house, please understand that my lack of concern for expiration dates applies only to food that I fix for myself. For guests, I scrupulously adhere to standards of packaging and cleanliness than would make you proud and not at all afraid to eat at my house. If you’re not me, you can eat in confidence and safety at my house.

Anywho, back to the story. So I perform the smell test. Smells completely blank.  But we had opened it awhile ago, and some things have an expiration date and a “once opened use within…” stipulation. I can’t find one. Smell it again. Pour egg whites into the frying pan on top of my nice assortment of foodstuffs. Then I find the “Once opened, use within seven days” stipulation. It’s been… longer than that…

Food fail.

I pour the rest of the egg whites down the drain and return to my omelet (which is now looking more like a frittata – there’s no way I’m folding this baby). I stare at my fritamelet. I’m hungry. Egg whites cook up pretty just like they’re supposed to. All I smell is garlic. You know where this story is going.

And so I just finished my fritamlet and  am waiting for the pain. I think I’ll be fine. But I’m glad it’s afternoon, because this has most certainly been a morning fail.