I just realized that I didn’t take a single photo of the cupcakes Annalie decorated for her birthday party today. I took the photo above of one of the unfrosted cupcakes, because happy cupcake is happy, and that’s kinda neat. I took a few shots of the kids eating cupcakes at the party, but the decorations probably aren’t very visible, and who knows when I’ll get around to downloading those photos off the memory card anyway.

I’m bummed that I don’t have a picture of the cupcakes, because she really had fun decorating them. But I also think, “Eh. Whatever.” And that indifference bums me out a little bit too.

There was a reason I was kind of distracted today, though. Sonja—one of my favorite people on this or any other planet—was busy having her baby yesterday and today, and I was checking my phone every time I even imagined it might have beeped or buzzed, anxious for news. From the little I’ve heard, the day was far more exciting than they would have liked, but everyone is fine. Whew. Also, yay! Baby!

I was going to try to blog every day this month. I didn’t mention it because I didn’t want to make a big thing of it, I just wanted to set myself the goal and see if I could reach it. I did great for nine days. Maybe I should just be thankful I got that many posts written, and work on keeping myself afloat until there’s another calm week when I can write a post every day. Maybe intermittent blogging is all I can do right now.

I’ve come to the reluctant conclusion that it’s impossible for me to do all the things I need to do in my daily life (homeschool an 8-year-old and parent a toddler, be a halfway decent wife/daughter/sister, keep the clutter and dishes and laundry from taking over the house, cook the occasional meal, crochet baby blankets and golden snitches, keep up email correspondence with friends, sleep more than four hours a night) AND ALSO blog on a regular basis. At least not like I used to, with lots of photos and thoughtfully composed paragraphs.

I just…can’t. And that makes me really sad. I don’t know what else could possibly give at this point. I guess I could give up reading and TV. I’ve already basically given up painting, and am trying to find a way to cram exercising back in there somewhere.

Sigh.

Then, as I was backing out of my spot in the parking garage, I was distracted and talking to one of the kids and forgot I was parked next to a giant concrete post. You see where this is going, right? I plowed right into the post with my door and knocked the sideview mirror off. There’s a pretty severe dent right under the mirror, about four inches wide from top to bottom. Pretty sure that one will be expensive to fix. But on the bright side, no one was injured and I destroyed no property that didn’t belong to me. And I have learned that when I am in a parking garage, I need to make sure the sun shades on the windows are down. I realized after the accident, when we’d all calmed down and I’d finished a phone conversation with Troy and I went to back out of the spot again, that with the sun shade up, it was dark enough in the parking garage that I couldn’t see the post out that window at all.

Since we were across the street from the store where I needed to pick up a photo order, I went ahead and did that. Then, after I’d carefully checked and re-checked my mirrors and over my shoulders, I reversed slowly out of my parking space and tapped a shopping cart that had rolled right into my path as I was backing up. It made Annalie declare that the day was cursed. (There was no damage to the back of the minivan or the cart, thank goodness.)

Roasted veggies for dinner, plus a chance to work out for the first time in days, an amazing season finale for Castle, and a great nerd twitter party with friends discussing which Hogwarts houses the Avengers, Commander Data and various others would be sorted into redeemed the day, though. Here’s to a less eventful Tuesday.

Outside my window there is a supermoon!

I am thinking about The Avengers. Troy and I just went to see it this evening (on opening day!) and it was really, really excellent. Joss Whedon knows how to direct an ensemble cast like no one else, man. Usually during action movies I get pretty bored during the action sequences, but I wasn’t bored for a single minute during this movie, which simultaneously felt like it flew by and went on far longer than 2 hours, 20 minutes. There were a couple of cameos that were a pleasant surprise, and I laughed out loud many times. When the end credits started I turned to Troy and said, “I wanna see that again.”

I am thankful for the fact that the big database Troy’s division was working on, the one that was causing him to work such ridiculously late hours and some weekends, has been turned over. Troy has been coming home in time for dinner most of this week, and it’s been fantastic. I know it won’t last, but I’m enjoying it while it does.

I am wearing dark gray yoga pants and this t-shirt. Why ARE there so many songs about arcs of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths between 380 and 750 nm in concentric bands formed by the refraction and reflection of solar energy off of moisture in the Earth’s atmosphere? (Though really…there aren’t that many.)

I am remembering that I really loved the TV show “The Incredible Hulk.”

I am going to the National Mall tomorrow. We thought it would be cool to take Aurora downtown and take photos of her in front of some national monuments and museums, so she’ll be able to see evidence that she visited D.C. when she’s older.

I am currently reading Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. Well, re-reading it, really. It’s only been released in the UK so far, but it will be released in the U.S. and Canada next February. So if you think you’d like a book that’s funny and sad, sarcastic and sincere, and above all geeky—a book about two misfit high-schoolers who accidentally end up sitting on the school bus together every day and fall in love over X-Men and Watchmen comic books and mix tapes featuring The Cure and the Smiths—a book about falling in love the way you do when you’re 16 and it’s your first love and everything is desperate and hopeless and wildly hopeful—then stay tuned. I’ll be talking about E&P again in February, have no fear.

I am hoping that out cats will stop vomiting and peeing and pooping all over the place. But I know it’s a forlorn hope. They’re 16 and 10 years old. They’re gonna be throwing up on our carpets and peeing on our laundry and pooping right next to the litter box until they die, probably. Sigh.

On my mind: Uh…my mind is a blank for once. Fringe? We’re watching Part 1 of the Season 4 finale right now.

Noticing that I need a pedicure. And to use lotion on my hands more often.

Around the house things are getting rather messy. Three kids create so much more mess than two. I don’t even wanna think about what four kids would be doing.

In the kitchen, there is a bag of gumdrops. BRB.

One of my favorite things is the bouquet of orange ranunculus and pink tulips sitting on our mantel.

From my photo archive: our friends’ daughter holding a woolly caterpillar on a stick at the beach in April 2007.

How is it possible that I haven’t blogged any crocheting since October!? Oh, wait…I guess I did blog about some cup sleeves and crocheted golden snitches back at the end of February. But still! The lack of blogging about it certainly does not indicate a lack of crocheting. Let me show you.

This rainbow blanket is one of the most recent things I’ve crocheted, and I love it. It’s probably one of my favorite things I’ve ever crocheted. It was made it for my friend Joanna‘s sweet baby boy, but Elliora tried claiming it as her own. First she came over and plopped down on the blanket when I was trying to take photos. (That was only two months ago. Now she runs if I point a camera at her; forget her voluntarily inserting herself in a photo she wasn’t asked to pose for in the first place.)

Then she stood, gathered the blanket into her arms, and walked off with it. She climbed into the blue chair still holding the blanket, and hugged it, grinning at me, daring me to take it away from her. The goober.

A photo of the rainbow blanket before Elliora tried staking her claim.

Photo taken two months ago. It’s bigger now, since the blanket is one-third done!

Have I told you all about the sky blanket I’m crocheting? You might have seen the sky scarf on Pinterest. I liked the idea, but decided I wanted a blanket, and went with my trademark spiral squares instead of stripes. I started just after the first of the year. Each day, I look at the sky around noon (or whenever I remember; or unless it rains or snows anytime that day, in which case the day’s square is sparkly gray or sparkly white), and that evening I spend about 20 minutes crocheting one three-inch square out of the appropriate color yarn and then attach it to the blanket. I’ll end up with 360 squares arranged in 20 rows of 18, and maybe a six-round border for the last six days of the year, which will make a decent-size blanket in shades of blue, gray, and white. It’s a totally different color scheme than my usual palette of brights. I’m surprised by how much I like it and look forward to cuddling under it at the end of the year.

My sister-in-law Dana sent me this bag for my birthday. I love it.

These two little nine-patch blankets were made for our friends Lynette and Med’s twin girls.

I didn’t notice till after I’d started working on the purple one that the colors were very Mardi Gras. Good thing Lynette and Med appreciate (and throw!) a good party.

This photo was actually my Day 6 photo from 7 Days this past December. (You know, that 7 Days week I never finished blogging about because (1) it was Christmas, and (2) I got sick on Christmas Eve. Sigh.) Summer complimented a similar coffee-cup sleeve in Mandy’s Day 2 photo, so I offered to make her one.

Queta, another 7-Dayer, complimented the same coffee-cup sleeve. I made one for her too. (Apparently, all it takes is a compliment and I’m falling all over myself to make you stuff.)

Erin peeking over the blanket I crocheted for Indira Jane.

Two-month-old Indy, sleeping under her blanket. She’s EIGHT months old now, and I have not seen her since this picture was taken. That’s so sad. Once we’re back on the west coast, I think I’m gonna be visiting Oregon a lot more often. How else are Elliora and Indy going to become best friends?

Last but not least, some yarnballs! I’ve made a bunch of crocheted balls for my friend Rebekah’s kids over the years. Her husband Jason loves them (balls you can play with relatively safely IN THE HOUSE) and periodically puts in an order for more. Not long ago I made these three for them. And I just remembered, I need to make them a few more! I should add that to my crafting queue…

Mystery yarnballs! For the life of me, I cannot remember who I made these for. Was it more balls for Bekah’s kids? Did I make these for Jen‘s Preston? Did I perhaps make them for you? I honestly can’t recall.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get cracking on about three baby blankets, including one for a baby who is already several months old and another one for Sonja‘s baby who will be born any minute now. (ANY MINUTE, Sonja. I’m sure of it.)

What kinds of crafty things have you been doing lately?

*I have never actually crocheted any ketchup. But now I kind of want to.

There are so many violets in our backyard in the spring that it looks almost completely purple for a couple of weeks. It’s one of the reasons Elliora’s middle name is Violet, because our backyard looked like this around the time we found out we were pregnant. It was actually even more violet-covered a week before this, believe it or not. It’s almost the end of violet season around here.

Here’s an alternate Day 7 shot. Our LED twinkle lights (they’re not Christmas lights because we keep them up year-round) cast interesting pools of light and shadow on the ceiling and walls around them. I was inspired by Bex’s shot of her grandparents’ vintage bunch-of-grapes lamp and the cool shadows it cast.

Hey, look! I am actually done blogging every single one of my 7 Days photos from the run that was only a couple of weeks ago! Not only that, but…I MADE IT THROUGH THE WHOLE WEEK WITHOUT GETTING SICK. IT WAS A 7 DAYS MIRACLE! *cue angelic choirs*

I expect to come down with the plague shortly, now that I said that. (Although I originally wrote that almost two weeks ago and I’m still not sick.) I guess there was that toothache I had that week—really that I had had on and off since around my birthday almost a month ago. It was finally resolved on Day 6 when I went to the dentist. It turned out the problem was a cavity in one of my remaining wisdom teeth. The solution was easy: pull the tooth. It was done and I was driving home less than 30 minutes later, much relieved. I don’t really count that as being sick.

While I’m blogging, a couple of quick things:

• Up until a few days ago, I was more than a month behind on uploading photos to Flickr. I’m still taking photos every day, I just don’t get around to doing anything with them. I’m starting to catch up and am hoping to be caught up before I leave for Omaha. Wish me luck.
• Instagram finally released an app for Android phones, just a few days before Facebook bought Instagram. So I’m enjoying using Instagram as a new, easy way to share photos from my phone on Twitter and Facebook. Or you can see my photos here.
• Elliora has a new favorite all-purpose word, suitable for all sentiments and occasions: MINE. Her dad’s laptop? “Mine!” Annalie’s jacket? “Mine!” My frosted mini-wheats? “Mine mine mine!” Lily the cat? “MIIIIIINE!”
• We’re heading to Omaha on Friday, just me and the girls. (Poor Troy, he has to stay here and work, and have the house to himself for a week and a half.) When we come home, my mom and my niece are coming with us. They’re going to stay and visit for three whole weeks and will be here to celebrate Annalie’s eighth birthday. We’re all pretty excited about that.
• Party plans for Annalie’s birthday were on hold for a while, because we weren’t sure if my mom was going to be able to come here, or if she’d have to stay in Omaha because of some family obligations. Now that we know, I have sorted out the party plans and I think it’s gonna be really fun. It’s a big relief to finally have a plan.
• Chris wrote something great about blogging with two small children that expressed perfectly how I feel, so I’m just going to quote her:
  

  Well, I’d still love to have an awesome, regularly-updated website. That endeavour is sitting on a back burner, as our time and energy are all earmarked for other stuff for a while.

  In my mind I have an enormous stovetop with quite a lot of burners, especially at the back.

• I started a page to keep track of all the words Elliora says. She’s adding about three or four new ones every day. There’s a button for it over on the sidebar. —>

How on earth did it get to be mid-April already!?

Last week, we made an impromptu trip down to Southern Virgina to see Karyl and her girls.

Karyl and I are both Navy wives. We’re accustomed to our husbands being gone for weeks or months at a time, and working long hours when they’re not gone. Most of the time, we deal with it just fine.

Once in a while, we struggle. It just happens that last week, we were both struggling a little bit. That made it seem like the perfect time for a 7 Days meet-up.

And you know what? It was. We arrived on Tuesday and had a great time hanging out, eating good food, playing outside, talking and laughing together. Grace and Annalie immediately jumped right back into the friendship they established when Karyl and her girls visited us last summer, when Sonja and Noah were visiting. And Mary Ellen loved Elliora. She seemed to think she was a living doll, and Elliora didn’t seem to mind that at all. Anytime we walked anywhere, Elliora walked straight to ME and grabbed her hand.

I dragged everyone all the way to Virginia Beach, to my favorite Greek restaurant, Elia’s. The hummus and pita there are to die for, and the rest of the food is delicious too. We were regulars at Elia’s when we lived in Virginia Beach over a decade ago, and just like every other time we’ve been there since we moved away—even when years have gone by between visits—Elia remembered us as soon as we walked in the door.

We sat in a booth right next to a high wall. On the other side of that wall was the grill, and Annalie and Grace amused themselves by occasionally standing on the seat and peeking over to chat with Elia and the other people working that day, all of whom seemed to get a kick out of it. Everyone enjoyed the food, especially Elliora. She took bites out of a lemon, rind and all; ate the hummus by the fingerful after we ran out of pita; and gnawed a kabob full of chicken clean. Annalie even branched out from her usual chicken nuggets, and thought the chicken kabobs and rice were really tasty.

The next morning, we all walked Grace to school and got to see her classroom and meet her lovely teacher.

Walking back to Karyl’s, I spotted this heart-shaped rock in the dirt path. I love finding random hearts in the world like this.

We stopped at the playground to let the kids blow off some steam, and so we could get our 7 Days shots.

The theme for Day 5 was FRESH. Karyl’s had the idea that we could be getting some fresh air, which we certainly got playing on the swings. But even more than the air, the time spent with a friend refreshed me. Thanks again, Karyl! We went home with lighter hearts, already looking forward to the next visit.

Isn’t it amazing how the internet makes neighbors and friends of people who live across the globe from each other? Lauren and I had a bit of fun with our Day 4 photos, uploaded as she was getting ready for bed in Australia and I was waking up and having breakfast in the U.S. (When my photo is viewed here in the 7 Days pool [look to the thumbnails at the right] we are waving at each other.)

Comment #6, Kuky!

I’m glad you REALLY want to read Attachments, Kuky, because you’re going to get a paperback copy of it and a signed bookplate from Rainbow in the mail soon. Congratulations!

For the rest of you that didn’t win, you can still purchase Attachments at Amazon (in paperback, hardcover, Kindle, Audio CD, and Audible Audio) or your favorite independent bookstore. (If they don’t have it, ask them why they don’t!) And did I mention that Rainbow has posted several deleted scenes from Attachments on her blog? It’s like her book is a DVD with extras—how cool is that!? My personal favorite involves Data from Star Trek.

And then there’s Rainbow’s second book, Eleanor & Park, available late 2012 or early 2013 in the U.S., but available in the UK in a few weeks (because of the way it was sold; Rainbow explains it on her blog). If you’re in the U.S. and don’t want to wait, you can purchase Eleanor & Park on amazon.co.uk for about $25. Here is where I admit that I have had the privilege of reading E&P already, and tell you that it’s a really excellent read. Set in East Omaha in 1986, it’s a story of first love and how it’s almost always doomed. It’s funny and sad and geeky, taking you right back to those breathless, stomachache-y days when love was desperate and overwhelming and just holding your beloved’s hand was enough to make you walk on air for days. I think if you liked Attachments, you’ll probably love Eleanor & Park.

Thanks to everyone who entered the drawing! Kuky, I’ll be in touch with you about how to claim your prize.

If you’ve been reading my blog for the past year, you probably know that I have a friend named Rainbow Rowell. I went to high school and college with her, but wasn’t really friends with her back then—more like friendly acquaintances. We reconnected over Facebook around the same time that her first novel, Attachments, was published last year. I read it and LOVED it, and we emailed back and forth a few times and then had coffee in Omaha when I was there and somewhere along the way we bonded like whoa over books and Harry Potter and Downton Abbey and kids and Tom Felton and now she’s a really good friend. A marvellous friend, even. (Internet friends, FTW!)

Attachments is being released in paperback on March 27th. In honor of that release, here’s a review of the book, an interview with Rainbow, and a chance for you to win a paperback copy (a lovely trade paperback) of Attachments now!

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Attachments is mostly about Lincoln, a 28-year-old college graduate who has just moved back home with his mom temporarily and works as the IT guy at a newspaper, helping them prepare for whatever coding disasters the year 2000 might bring, while he figures out what he really wants to do with his life. Part of his job is to make sure employees aren’t using their email for nefarious (i.e., non-work) purposes, so he reads everyone’s email. Even though he feels uncomfortable with that part of his job, he starts looking forward to reading emails between two particular women who work in the newsroom. Beth and Jennifer’s emails are funny and smart and cover a wide range of topics. Eventually, Lincoln realizes he’s falling for Beth, and he doesn’t know what to do about it. It’s not like he can walk up to her and introduce himself as the guy who monitors her email and then ask her out on a date. The book alternates between chapters that consist of email conversations between Beth and Jennifer, and chapters about Lincoln becoming who he wants to be.

You might be thinking, An underachieving, living-with-his-mom 28-year-old man whose job it is to read other people’s emails as a hero? What was Rainbow thinking? She did set herself a tricky task, but you know what? Lincoln might have been drifting and unfocused at the beginning of the story, but he was also kind and intelligent and loyal and wanted more from life. He’s one of the most likable and loveable characters I’ve ever come across. Of course that might be because Lincoln—a D&D gamer and a big fan of the show “Quantum Leap,” who didn’t mind sleeping on flowered sheets or letting his mom cook for him because it made her happy—kind of reminded me of a lot of guys I know and love, including my husband. It was really refreshing to read a love story where the guy was a normal, socially well-adjusted geek. It didn’t come off as even the tiniest bit creepy that he had a crush on a woman he’d never met.

And the women! I loved Beth and Jennifer. Their email conversations are hilarious, smart and emotional. I want to be friends with them.

By the last third of the book, I was reading as fast as I could to see how everyone would manage to get their happily-ever-after. As I read the final chapters I was laughing and crying at the same time. I’ve read Attachments three times now, and enjoyed it just as much the third time as the first—maybe even more.

(NOTES: One of the reasons this book was especially fun for me to read is that it’s set in my hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. It’s never mentioned explicitly that it’s set there, but to anyone familiar with Omaha it’s obvious. It won’t detract from your enjoyment if you don’t know it, though. Also, when I wrote these interview questions, I was in a book-club frame of mind, asking Rainbow questions as if we were at a book club meeting at which everyone had already read Attachments. That means that some of this interview might not make sense if you have not read the book. But there are no major spoilers and I think most of it’s interesting even if you have not yet read Attachments, especially if you’re interested in the process of writing a novel.)

On to the interview! Details about the book giveaway are at the end.

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1. Did you have a similar system of email monitoring at the Omaha World-Herald when you worked there in the late ’90s?

Yes. We were very late to get email and internet access, and when we did, it was very controlled. At first, there were only a few computers in the building that had internet access, and you had to get special permission to use one. When we got individual access, we all knew we were being Big Brother-ed. But even then, it was hard to resist using email to gossip or talk with your friends. It was so much easier (and more subtle) to email than to crouch in each other’s cubicles.

2. As you were writing, did you make sure that the emails were all ones that would really get flagged?

Well, I gave myself a pretty big umbrella…I say in the book that their emails can get snagged for being too long or too frequent. And I say that the list of flagged words is long and ridiculous. But YES, I usually tried to make sure there was a curse word—or a near curse word, or something that could be construed as sexual or even financial—somewhere in the conversation. Once, in real life, I had an important email get flagged and sent into IT limbo because I said that I was a “hardcore reader.”

3. How did you remember so much about 1999? Did getting the details right require a lot of research and fact-checking, or did you just remember a lot about that period in your life? I was struck in particular by details like which movies were out, what color lipstick was fashionable, drinking Slice and Zima, the Indian Hills Theatre closure, and the TV schedule (when Quantum Leap was on).

I started the book in 2002, so 1999 was recent history at first. The longer that I worked on the book, the more it became a period piece—which was actually more fun. I had the benefit of hindsight to know what about 1999 would still be funny or interesting over time. (Tom Cruise jokes. Matrix references.) All the Y2K stuff was a really late add. After my first draft, I realized that I had written a book about an IT guy in 1999-2000 that never mentioned the Millennium. Duh.

My next book takes place in 1986. That took a lot more thinking and researching.

4. In your head, are there more details about the characters and their world than there are on the page? Like how you said Beth’s full name is Bethany, but that didn’t make it into the book…or, say, do you know what dorm Lincoln lived in at UNL, or what mall Lincoln and Eve went to where he bought her an Orange Julius? (This is one of those Omaha questions, probably, but I want to know the answer anyway.)

Oh, good question. I guess the answer is a limited yes. I usually don’t think up details until I need them. But sometimes I need information that doesn’t make it into the book. For example, I always had to think about what part of town the characters were in, so that I could internally make sure they stayed oriented and consistent.

I never thought about where Beth and Jennifer lived. (Just realized that.) I definitely don’t have troves of information socked away about each character. Writing is very freestyle for me, just making it up as I go along.

5. Was your college newspaper, the Daily Nebraskan, a drunken viper pit? (More generally, I assume you based Beth and Jennifer’s experiences with working at a college paper and a city paper on your own experiences?)

The Daily Nebraskan was sometimes a drunken viper pit. I didn’t drink in college, which meant I spent a lot of time not fitting in. It was especially hard for me at the college newspaper because I spent almost all my free time there, but I didn’t party with anybody. I was there for the fights and the melodramatics and the coups. But I missed out on all the stress relief, the drunken make-out sessions and the inside jokes.

That said, I have great memories of working on the Daily Nebraskan, and I made a lot of friends there. I had Jennifer make that “drunken viper pit” comment because she seemed like the sort of person who would hold onto a grudge. I often gave Jennifer my most acidic feelings and thoughts.

6. Are you a D&D player? Or did that part require a bit of research? Did you run it by a friend who plays for a reality check?

I never played myself—not that I’m above it!—but I hung out with guys who did. And my husband did. So he was my reality check. (Funny to think about a D&D reality check.)

7. When Lincoln the perpetual college student was discussing whether he might have a problem with school with his sister, it made me think of your recent column about how you have a reading addiction, and that might not be a good thing.

Good observation. It’s different, I think, because the reading addiction is more drug-like. More of a “more-more-more, now-now-now” feeling. Lincoln’s problem with school (if it is a problem) is more about not wanting to commit. Not really wanting to be any one thing. Not really wanting to make a choice. And a lot of it, for him, is just a love of knowledge. (I just sorted Lincoln into Ravenclaw, I think. Though he does have some Hufflepuffly moments…)

There were some lines and ideas in Attachments that I really liked, that resonated with me strongly for one reason or another.

“it was like sitting inside a headache”

This is one of the very first things I wrote, and I almost cut it a few times because I worried that the whole section was too belabored. I’m glad you like it!

“He tried to look like someone she didn’t need to worry about so much.” (Says a lot about Lincoln’s character.)

I’ve never given that line a second thought. (It’s about his mom, right?) It’s sad, isn’t it? One of the surprises/delights for me when I was writing was realizing that I could inhabit a character, Lincoln, who was so different from me. When I was writing him, I would start to feel like him and not like me anymore. It was a very weird/cool feeling.

“Sometimes I pray for a bumper crop of zucchini or a good night’s sleep.”

This one is a line that an editor asked me to cut because she thought it sounded silly. But it seemed like exactly the sort of thing that [that character] would pray for. Also, I like thinking about people who have such an intimate relationship with God that they can talk about everyday things in their prayers.

Eve’s ideas about adding good things to the pile instead of trying to fix what’s wrong, just letting the pile of good things grow; and “figure out what’s right with you.”

I have nothing to add to this—other than I think Eve is right.

“Nobody deserves a baby.” I loved this line because it sort of has to sink in for a second before you realize what Beth was saying. It sounds negative at first, then you realize it’s really not.

YES! A baby is a profound thing! And also a completely mundane thing. People have babies whether they deserve them or not, and even people who deserve them don’t really deserve them, you know?

“like a giggle falling off its chair” – Did you have some of these lines written for years, like you thought of them and saved them up for someday when you needed them?

Ha, no I am not so Machiavellian as that. This is another one that an editor asked me to cut. Sometimes the really interesting lines call attention to themselves, and you have to ask yourself whether they’re being distracting. This line survived a major rewrite of that scene. In the end, I kept it because it made sense to me.

One of the only exceptions I can think of is in my next book, Eleanor & Park. One of my very first notes was to have Park say that Eleanor’s body reminded him of a “perfectly made Dairy Queen ice cream cone.” That line survived, but it might be the only thing from my notes that did.

“There’s no air in space.” Perfect ending.

Thank you! I’m so glad you like that ending. A few people really hate it. There’s a very funny Goodreads review of my book that’s like, “WTF does that even mean?!?!”

I know what this line means to me. What does it mean to you?

Too much space in a relationship isn’t breathing room, it’s suffocating.

THIS! YES! That’s exactly what I meant!

I don’t see how you could have meant anything else! Not coming from Lincoln’s mouth, anyway.

I wish I could do this back-and-forth with the author of every book I love. This was fun! Thanks again, Rainbow!

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Would you like to win a copy of the paperback of Attachments for your very own, including a signed bookplate from Rainbow? All you have to do is leave a comment! For fun, tell me one of your favorite book quotes, if you can think of one. If you can’t, that’s okay. I’ll keep the comments open till Friday, March 30th, 2012. I’ll pick a winner using random.org and will notify them via email. If they have not replied within a day or two, I’ll pick another winner.

(If you happen to already own a copy of Attachments and would like a signed bookplate, mention that in the comments too! I’m pretty sure Rainbow would be happy to send you one.)

Comments are now closed. Book winner will be announced shortly!

If you’re in the U.S. and you’ve been to a Target store recently, you might recognize the rainbow in my 7 Days photo. I wish I’d taken a picture of it from another perspective, but I was in a hurry to get Elliora home because it was past her naptime and she was getting very crabby, so I just grabbed this shot very quickly on our way out. It’s a big mobile, for lack of a better word, of strips of colored cardboard in a wave pattern, hanging from the ceiling just inside the entrance.

Coincidentally, I’m doing a book giveaway right now for my friend Rainbow‘s first book Attachments. (See what I did there?) There’s also a review of the book and an interview. Go check it out and leave a comment to win a copy of the book!