How long before someone stages an intervention?

My Kajukenbo class is the most challenging - and yet fun - physical activity I have ever done. I grew up uncoordinated, the girl who pulled straight As except for Cs in PE. I could not dance to Winchester Cathedral. I nearly broke my knee on the pommel horse. I was so skinny that I sank rather than floated in swimming. I once managed to swing the bat in front of the softball I had just hit, so it bounced back and hit me in the eye.

One of things we do in class is practice getting out of all kinds of holds and grabs. I'm starting to wonder how long it will be before someone hands me a card for a women's shelter.



Last night the Kajukenbo instructor tried to get me over my fear of sparring by putting me in the bullring with every other person in class - one after another.

I actually landed a few punches and kicks. Probably wincing the whole time.

But watch out world, I'm learning. Better not mess with me.

Anyone can write a book! (with some help)

New York Post's Page Six has an interview with the ever-articulate Hilary Duff.

"“I wrote a book, so it goes to show you that anyone can write a book if they have an idea,” says Hilary Duff, who’s not exactly “anyone.” The newlywed, 23-year-old pop singer, “Lizzie McGuire” star and fashion designer just came out with “Elixir” (Simon & Schuster), the young-adult novel she wrote with Elise Allen."

Yup! All she needed was an idea and someone to turn that idea into a book!

Of The Hunger Games, she says, "I’m going to do a terrible job of explaining it because, like my book, it’s very complicated."

About Eclipse, she says, "it’s so genius."

Click here to be inspired.

Dead parents in books for teens

Editor - and author herself - Leila Sales takes issue with the number of dead parents in books for teens.

For the record, I’ve had written teen with parents (Shock Point), teen with older adoptive parents (Torched), and one dead mom (Girl, Stolen. The dead mom is barely mentioned - the step-mom gets more air time. And she’s nice) (although I guess another character has a mom who took off).

She thinks writers who create characters with dead parents are guilty of lazy writing - because they don’t have to show their relationships, because it creates instant empathy, and third because grownups are boring (although I don’t quite follow why that is lazy writing).

And I think she undermines her own argument when she says, “Adult characters put a damper on the kid-only adventures that make children's books fun. But there are solutions to this problem other than just killing them off. Set the book at boarding school, summer camp, or another parent-free zone. Create parents who are clueless or uninvolved, à la Harriet the Spy. Fade their role into the background.” This is the only part that bolsters her argument about laziness. “Write parents who actually have something to contribute to the story, who aren't just a barrier between the kids and fun.”

I think one reason there are so many dead parents is because the teens need to fix things on their own. No parent or parents means one less person to interfere.

You can read her article here.

What do you think about the issue of dead parents?

Why a brush with death triggers the slo-mo effect

A scientist who had a brush with death as a child wondered why during such times time seems to slow down. He came up with a hypotheses - but first he had to figure out a way to test it.

NPR reports: ""We went on all of the scariest roller coasters, and we brought all of our equipment and our stopwatches, and had a great time," David says. "But it turns out nothing there was scary enough to induce this fear for your life that appears to be required for the slow-motion effect." But, after a little searching, David discovered something called SCAD diving. (SCAD stands for Suspended Catch Air Device.) It's like bungee jumping without the bungee."

Read “Why A Brush With Death Triggers The Slow-Mo Effect”.

I bet these two authors had a sinking feeling...

It's every authors worst nightmare: you spend years writing a book with an unusual angle - only to find out that someone else is coming out with a book covering the exact same thing. Even though the two books will probably be quite different, is there space in people's limited attention spans to remember both?

What it you could taste something that is not normally associated with taste - like a word or an emotion? Two authors, both with books out this summer, explored the same unusual premise.

In Bitter in the Mouth: A Novel, 30-something Linda has the ability to taste the words she hears. This is "lexical-gustatory synesthesia," which according to Wikipedia "is one of the rarer forms of synesthesia, in which spoken or written words evoke vivid sensations of taste, sometimes including temperature and texture (e.g., for lexical-gustatory synesthete JIW, 'jail' tastes of cold, hard bacon)."Despite its starred review from Publisher's Weekly, I think the book is going to have a hard time finding traction because of:

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel. PW says, "Bender's narrator is young, needy Rose Edelstein, who can literally taste the emotions of whoever prepares her food, giving her unwanted insight into other people's secret emotional lives—including her mother's, whose lemon cake betrays a deep dissatisfaction."

The cat who came in from the cold

Yesterday around 1 in the afternoon, I went out to get the mail. And who comes trotting up the driveway?

The cat.

The stray cat.

The stray cat I took to Multnomah County Animal Shelter on Friday.

The shelter is 30 miles away. It's not even in Multnomah County. And there's a river in between us and the shelter. Plus two freeways.

The cat did not look any worse for wear.

I grew up reading my parents' Readers Digest. So immediately I knew: I could parlay this into one of those "Amazing Animal" stories about pets who find their owners even after they move out of state! It was a miracle! A miracle that might earn me $2 per word!

I picked her up and called the shelter. While I waited on hold, I opened a can of tuna. Albacore tuna. Because I had given all the cat food we bought to the shelter. .

Me: I dropped off a cat there on Friday and now it's at my house again.
Shelter: What's your name? (Tap, tap, tap) No, the cat is still here.
Me: What? I'm holding her right now.
Shelter (somewhat patronizingly): Maybe it's a different cat that just looks like the cat we have.
Me (could the cat have a twin? Is there a whole litter of identical cats out there and I'll have to bring them one at a time to the shelter?): I grew up with cats and I'm pretty sure it's the same cat.
Shelter: Let me go back to the cattery. (long pause while I wonder if I am going crazy): Oh. It looks like the owner just picked it up.
Me: Owner? Then why is she so scrawny?
Shelter: Our records show that she is old, has broken teeth, and a heart murmur. Sometimes when a cat is old, it loses weight.
Me: But she's got fleas. And no collar.
Shelter: Hm.

The shelter also gave me the address for the owner, which is about a block away. Ever since the cat has been back, she's been living in my driveway again.

Okay, now if you loved your cat, would you:
- let her live outdoors?
- where the street is busy?
- and there are signs up warning about a mama coyote and her pup stalking cats in the area?
- without a collar or chip?

I guess I'll stop feeding her and I won't put back out the bed we made. She hasn't gotten the message though. She still thinks she belongs here.

I would let her live here, but there's the little matter of Spouse's inability to breath.

Super Sad True Love Story

Gary Shteyngart third novel, Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel, is a black comedy set in a futuristic America. A future that is drawing ever nearer -- where books don't exist, the economy has collapsed, and the only two televisions stations are Fox Liberty-Prime and Fox Liberty-Ultra. I'm not sure I've ever seen another book get stars across the board - Kirkus, Booklist, Publishers Weekly.

I was lucky enough to see Gary at Powells on Wednesday. And even though I came 15 minutes early, it was already a standing room only crowd. He waited for his entrance right in front of me, so I got to hear the unconscious noises one makes when one is being talked about to a crowd.

His reading was incredibly funny, complete with gestures and accents. The question and answer period was even better - he so sharp that sometimes you didn't even realize he was joking. Like one guy said he had just been reading The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, which talks about what the Internet is doing to our brains and our attention spans. As the man was still asking his question, Gary started a bit, pulled out his iPhone and began to say, "Uh huh, uh huh," as he tapped away on the tiny screen. We're so used to this kind of half-assed attention that it took a few seconds for everyone to begin laughing.

The line for getting a signed copy was long. Two people ahead of me, the guy had several books, with weird instructions for each: "Write something random in Russian, but don't tell me what it says." "In this one, draw a stick figure." Gary gamely complied. The guy ahead of me brought a Kindle and a special pen so Gary could sign the back. There was some debate as to how large he should make the signature (since it was the first of presumably many) and then some fumbling as Gary tried to take a picture with his iPhone while simultaneously signing.

Read and hear more about the author and the book here - including an interview with NPR's Terry Gross.