AletheaKontis.com

That’s right. I’m the princess.

Maurice Broaddus just posted this teaser poster for next year’s Mo*Con along with his con report for this year. (Check out his snazzy new website!)  Credit goes to Bob Freeman for its creation.

I’ve been meaning to do this forever–and have been asked by countless people to do it–so without further ado, here it is: Princess Alethea’s List of Things to Do Before She Dies. I’ve had this list in my head since I was a very little girl, and I will try to remember as much as I can. I reserve the right to add to or alter things as I remember/do them. (I will simply strike through the ones I’ve accomplished.) Feel free to steal any of these things and put them on your own list.

And no, I will NOT call this a “bucket list.” In the Kontis family, buckets are something you throw up in. “Daddy, I feel sick.” “Do you need the bucket?” The “bucket” wasn’t always an actual bucket–sometimes it was a trash can or other similar receptacle–but it was always referred to as the “bucket.” This is a list of my life goals. This is not a list I would like to associate–in any way, shape or form–to vomiting. (Except for the one about Deep Sea Fishing, which I’ll explain later.)

1. Be published by the time I’m 30. (Apex Magazine/AlphaOops/Elemental – 1996)
2. Go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. (1984)
3. See the Pyramids in Egypt
4. Climb the Castle at Chichen Itza (I’m not sure folks are allowed to do this anymore.)
5. See the Grand Canyon (1998)
6. Hug a tree in the rainforest
7. Stand on a iceberg
8. See a whale (in its natural habitat)
9. See the aurora borealis
10. See the sun *not* set on midsummer (somwhere in a polar circle)
11. See the redwood forest
12. Go deep sea fishing (I’m leaving this one unchecked, since my first attempt at deep sea fishing was such a disaster)
13. See the space shuttle launch (2007)
14. Go up in a hot air balloon
15. Go to the top of the Sears(Willis) Tower (2009)
16. Hit the New York Times bestseller list (The Dark-Hunter Companion – 1997)
17. Learn to sail
18. See a volcano (Oregon 2008 — I also saw the Goonies house & Haystack Rock!)
19. Ride a trolley in San Francisco (2008)
20. Run in a 5K race (2009)
21. Visit the Azores
22. Be in Mexico for Dia De Los Muertos (and see a parade)
23. Be in England for Guy Fawkes Day
24. See the sun set into the Pacific Ocean (July 2007)
25. Own a Hope Chest
26. See the D.C. Cherry Blossoms
27. Flush the toilet in the Southern Hemisphere
28. Win the Andre Norton Award
29. Have a four-poster bed

Facebook is a funny thing. Greg Hall (yes, that Funky Werepig we all know and love) posted this morning that he has 500 friends, and intended to celebrate by buying them all breakfast. Kelli and I were sitting on the green couch in the garage at the time, dutifully hammering away at our keyboards. We know Greg, and we know he lives like ten minutes from the Porch O’Awesomeness (which has, since the blizzard, graduated into the Garage O’Awesomeness), and we were hungry, so we told him so.

Just like that, we had a werepig in the garage bearing sausage croissants and tater tots. It was cold and cloudy and rainy outside those doors and neither Kelli nor I had woken up this morning feeling any kind of spectacular, but we laughed  in this garage like none of us had laughed since…oh…Mo*Con, anyway. There were Tweets and acronyms and interpretive dance and protective boyfriends and princes on mountaintops and death threats against evil banks…and the kids were home and Greg was walking back to his car all too soon.

What started out as a crummy day ended up as a really, really good day, and we have a chivalrous werepig to thank for it.
And, I suppose, Facebook.
Again.
Darn social networking sites making people all…social. What’s up with that?

My friend, author Nathan Long, recently commented on one of my Facebook status updates. Something he said reminded me of the gloves he wears while driving. Like an amnesiac with an epiphany, like a dream shattered upon waking, an entire week of my life came back to me.

A few years ago, I spent a week in Los Angeles. It was one of the worst weeks of my life, so bad that I created a complete mental block around it, so bad that I can’t even tell you the details. Not because I’d have to kill you, but because someone might come kill me, and I’ve grown quite fond of this awesome life I live.

But this is not about the bad; this is about the good things that shone in the dark night. I saw my dear friend Hillery before she moved to Australia. I met some amazing people who have remained my friends all these years. And at the very end of that week, I met Nathan for the first time (and then promptly and rudely fell asleep on his couch, the first time I’d been able to relax in seven days). We had some time so he took the scenic route to the airport. I remember the unforgiving sun that day, the wilting white rose I had stolen the night before, the ostentatious house (that surely housed a flamboyantly gay Greek man), and Nathan’s driving gloves.

Limousines remind me of that time too, though I don’t associate it with the evilness because it was an encounter had on the flight west out of Nashville. There had been problems with the connections and the plane was late–Nashville was something like the third stop on this particular flight’s journey (the way Southwest does), so my plan to get a nice cushy window seat in the first five rows was pretty much destroyed. However, a very tall man standing up front (played in this memory by Sam Elliot) took one look at me and offered me the middle seat beside him in the front row. Flattered, I took it with a smile and not another thought.

I wish I could remember that man’s name, but I remember his wife’s: Mary Kate Alben. Mary Kate was the one who ended up sitting next to me, telling me stories the whole way to L.A. What should have been one of the most strenuous flights of my life was over far too soon. Mary Kate had the most beautiful hazel eyes. She and her husband had been through a lot–they’d met when he was playing Santa Claus at a local mall. He had seen her and asked a friend to introduce them. Skeptical, Mary Kate brushed him off quickly. When he met up with her again later and shyly asked her out she decided to accept because 1.) she was a strong woman, 2.) she had a gun in the car, and 3.) he was still wearing his Santa Claus boots.

The two of them knew the Southwest crew like family–their job was to pick up limousines at the factory in L.A. and then drive them cross-country to the Baltimore harbor to be shipped overseas. Mary Kate had another great story about defending her pink limousine from four very large, very intoxicated Native Americans near a reservation. She was a wonder, my Mary Kate. She gave me her email address, which I still have somewhere, and she emailed me her address so I could send a copy of AlphaOops to her. It was a while before I pieced my life back together, returned her email and sent her the book, but I did. I didn’t hear anything more from her. But I think about her every time I see a limousine. I was driving through Baltimore recently and saw two white limousines on the highway. I made sure to pull alongside one long enough to check to see if it was her, even though I knew it wouldn’t be.

They say that smell is the strongest trigger for memory, but it was not the scent of a fading rose that pulled me back to that time, it was those driving gloves against the steering wheel. Funny how strongly they swept me back to that place, crashing through all those walls I so painstakingly built. The memory left inside replays like it happened to someone else, in soft focus, hot and sunny and covered in bougainvillea, dreamy and idealized as the City of Angels should be.

**************************************

Nathan has a new book: Bloodborn, about Ulrika the vampire, set in the world of Warhammer. (Don’t worry, you don’t need to play the game to read the novels.) It releases on May 25th — I just got my review copy in the mail last week. It’s a gorgeous cover. I’m really excited about digging into it. Be sure to check it out!

I get the nicest spam for this blog. They tell me I’m lovely and deep and fascinating. They promise to return again, and link to me. They tell me my hair is shiny and that my dreams will come true. Sometimes they play the devil’s advocate, hoping I’ll fight back in a rare fit of feist. Sometimes, they puzzle me…in the manner of Humpty Dumpty reciting “The Jabberwocky” from his perch on high.

Riddle me this, Batman:

This is my earliest opportunity i fall upon here. I create so scads interesting stuff in your blog especially its discussion. From the tons of comments on your articles, I postulate I am not the only in unison having all the exercise here! remain up the nice work.

Okay….I totally get that the last line is “KEEP up the nice work.” Now I want to backwards-decipher the rest of it. Any help is greatly appreciated.

I started writing a story with no previous plotting, no idea where I’m going with it, just words on paper (or electrons on Word Document). It’s a weird feeling, but a familiar one. It reminds me of being a teenager again.

Huh. How ’bout that?

Having a favorite song is like having a favorite movie or a favorite book. There are just so many that reflect different aspects of our nature…it’s almost silly to have just ONE. Once upon a time I made a list of some of popular bands, and which were my favorite songs of those bands. Some of the ones I remember off the top of my head:

Tori Amos: Here in My Head/Purple People
The Lighting Seeds: Pure
R.E.M.: Nightswimming/Perfect Circle
U2: Running to Stand Still/The Fly
Rush: Presto/Bravado
Dave Matthews Band: Ants Marching
Coldplay: Clocks
Concrete Blonde: Sun
Green Day: Whatshername/Boulevard of Broken Dreams

When Tomo and I were sitting on the lawn last night, listening to Band of Horses and watching the yellow-shirted Event Staff guy milling about the crowd, he asked me if there was any specific song I wished Pearl Jam would play. Even if there were I try not to hope for such things — I prefer to be pleasantly surprised. But I tried to remember back to that list, because I’m pretty sure Pearl Jam was on it. Now don’t get me wrong — I’m a fan of the band, and of Eddie Vedder as a musician, but I probably haven’t bought a Pearl Jam album since Vitalogy. So I tried to think back on what I would have picked as my favorites.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe the Shopping Cart Song. Or ‘Black’.”

The Shopping Cart Song’s title is actually “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town.” For some reason, ever since seeing the title, I have called it “Elderly Lady with a Shopping Cart.” I have NO IDEA why my brain continues to think there should be a shopping cart in the title when I know damn well there is no shopping cart. Over the years, the song’s title has simply shortened to “The Shopping Cart Song.” My friends know what I’m talking about. (You’d be surprised how many perfect strangers know what I’m talking about.)

But I didn’t figure they’d play The Shopping Cart song — it’s old and sweet and short and a little obscure. Similarly, “Black” is kind of a slow and sad song which I didn’t think lent itself to an Amphitheater set list. I used to sit in my car and sing “Black” to myself  because my college boyfriend was fixated on redheaded girls. (Ironically, he’s dated the same redheaded girl since I left South Carolina over a decade ago.)

Turns out that yellow-shirted Event Staff guy was handing out free upgrade tickets to seats in the pavilion. Sweet! And right after Pearl Jam walked on stage, Eddie Vedder grabbed the mic and started singing: “I swear I recognize your face…” One of the only other songs they played that I recognized? “Black”, of course.

Thanks, Murphy. It was a great show.

Porcelain.
Chocolate.
Alabaster.
Cafe au lait.
Tawny.

At one point or another, you’ve read all these adjectives to describe skin tone. (Go on, I know I’m missing some. Feel free to add your own in the comments.) Every time I notice these same tried-and-true descriptions, it makes me wonder what words I would use to characterize my own skin. Tan? Olive? Casey used to describe herself as “unicorn pearl.” Silly, yes, but at the same time both apt and poetic.

Recently I stumbled upon the exact perfect thing.
Yeah.
Not quite as romantic as I’d hoped.

Last night I was editing a story I hadn’t looked at in a while — it needed some TLC and the 10% cut (you know, the rule about trimming 10% of the words…that’s a GOOD edit). I dug it out because it was one of those rare times when a magazine was in the market for A, B, X, and Q, and I just happened to have a story that hit all those points…one so specialized that I had effectively trunked it. Never say never.

In looking over the manuscript, though, I was startled to find the constant repetition of one word: extract. Not the typical word of choice for most “I abuse this word too much” lists. For most normal people, those words are things like: “then” and “just” and “that.” If you are Dean Koontz or Stephen King, those words are “preternatural” and “ennui.” And had I not written the word FIVE TIMES IN THE FIRST FOUR PAGES, it might have escaped my notice altogether. (As it was, it had already escaped Gypsy’s red-pen edit.) There was a checkbook extracted from a purse, hair extracted from under something heavy, an item extracted from a pocket, a candle extracted from inside a jack o’lantern, and cat’s claws extracted from an arm. (I kept the cat claws, but extracted all the others.)

It makes me wonder what frame of mind I was in when I wrote the story…what subliminal message I was trying to tell myself. Was I in a situation from which I needed to extract myself or someone else? Perhaps the word was an earworm, mentioned in a movie or on the street and spun on quiet repeat in my memory banks. Perhaps it was just coincidence. Whatever the reason, I’ll be reconsidering the next time I write the word “extract” in a sentence.

Unless it’s Scrabble, in which case I’ll happily take ALL those points.

Do you have a word or phrase that haunts your writing?

…is now up at Do The Write Thing for Nashville:

http://dothewritethingfornashville.blogspot.com/2010/05/day-6-item-23.html

Bids are already up to $35. (Wow! Thanks!) Come on folks, win it before you can buy it and support a great cause. You have five days to place your bid in the comments (starting yesterday), so keep checking back!