That’s the only way I can figure out how I got to spend last week the way I did. If I hadn’t gone to last year’s World Fantasy Convention, if I hadn’t wound up sharing a room with Daryl Gregory, if I hadn’t gone room-hopping with everyone, I would have been at home, watching the kid practice her back-to-front rolls and not get enough sleep.

Instead, all those things happened, so I got to kick around Flagstaff, Arizona with ten talented, funny people, watching Charlie The Unicorn and not getting enough sleep.

I met Sarah K. Castle at WFC, and we got to talking about writing and what we were working on (me, Windswept; her, a science fiction thriller about a world-spanning EPA with teeth, which I said she should market as SCIENCE NINJAS. She demurred). I made a friend, which is always a nice thing to do at conventions, and I also wound up getting invited to Starry Heaven, a novel-writing workshop based on the Blue Heaven workshop that Charles Coleman Finlay created.

The format works like this: every participant submits the first fifty pages of the novel they want to workshop. Everyone reads every first fifty, then chooses two full novels to read. Then everyone goes to Flagstaff (Sarah’s stomping grounds), where you eat, drink, and critique. The first three days are group sessions where we deliver critiques of the first fifties, four a day. The rest of the workshop, we split into groups of three to deliver the full critiques. It was a lot of work, but when you’ve got good material and good people, it doesn’t feel like it.

Sarah’s invite came at a real low point in my writing career (though that doesn’t feel like the right word. Writing apprenticeship? Writing gestation? Writing sitting-on-my-can-trying-to-fill-the-page-with-text time?), and the workshop was just the kick in the ass I needed. I got to read YA, horror (both urban and smaller urban), fantasy, SF, all of it great. There will be some excellent books coming out of this workshop, and I hope that mine will be one of them (or, at least, it’ll be better than it has been before). Fortunately, I got a lot of excellent input from everyone, especially my two full readers, Brad Beaulieu and William Shunn. This next draft won’t be a breeze, but the path to completion looks a lot brighter, thanks to Brad and Bill’s signposts.

So, time to get back to work. But first, I have to go change a diaper. Ah, the glorious writer’s life…

It’s also a place for clueless asshats to gather and steal time. If you’ve gotten a link to this through a reply from me on Twitter, it’s because I think you’re one of them, and I want you to know how much what I think you’re doing is wasteful and wrongheaded and it requires me to sit you down and point out the mess you made on the carpet.

It’s like this: I like that random people follow me. It’s just like the early days of the web, when a comment was like finding a nugget of gold in the pile of sand someone had dumped on my desk. That spark of recognition, that light that goes off in my soul when I know another human being has read what I’ve written and it’s meant something to them: that’s a marvelous thing, and it makes a tool like Twitter that much more special. It brings a little warmth to a world that is always growing colder.

And you ruined it.

That’s right, you ruined it, because I got an email saying that you followed me on Twitter, and I clicked on your profile, and I found out that you call yourself a social media maven, an online marketing guru, a SEO expert.

You are none of those things.

You are a murderer.

You have killed a few of my precious seconds, and all because you think your link farm or your blog or whatever twaddle you’re pushing is worth my time, my limited time, my never-going-to-get-it-back time, my time that I could spend with my family or writing or on my bike or connecting with another human being or making the world’s greatest sandwich, and for what?

You follow me, because you hope I’ll follow you back so I can hang on your every word.

Don’t lie to me. You follow a few thousand people. You think I’m going to believe that you really pay attention to all of them?

No, you follow them in the hopes they’ll follow you back. You’re preying on the protocols of Twitter. You are a parasite, a leech, a tumor on the Body Internet, and I feel sorry for you.

Why? Because you are that most awful thing: you’re boring.

You’re boring because you only care about trying to sell stuff. I don’t care if it’s your services or your thoughts or a new website about cheese; you are trying to sell me something, and we both know that what you’re peddling is worthless. That’s why marketing was invented: to convince people that the shit sandwich they’re being served is actually tasty roast beef.

I should know, because that was my job.

“Aha!” you cry, “hypocrite! You self-loathing loser!”

Maybe.

But there’s a difference between the stuff I sold and what you sell: I knew my audience. I went out and hunted for them. I used tools to speed up the process, but I knew who I was looking for. I knew what I was selling was something that people would want to know about, if they only knew about it. Nine times out of ten, I was right.

But you? You have a tool that scans Twitter for keywords and follows automatically, and those keywords are boring. “Marketing.” “Social media.” “Online.”

Pathetic.

What’s worse is that they devalue both of us. They turn me into a commodity and your words into so much bland mush. You don’t care about me except that I could be one more number on your Followers list, and that’s a sad, sad thing. You measure your worth in how many people are engaged in the sad game of Pay Attention To Me.

You could be so much more.

That’s why I’m sending you this link before I block you. It’s not that I’m angry at you; it’s that I’m disappointed. You seem to get how Twitter and the web and the online world all work, yet you’re wasting it all by trying to get me to pay attention to you.

What if you spent all that energy into doing something that was worthy of attention on its own? What if you turned off the auto-follow tools, sat down, looked hard at your life and found that brilliant, amazing thing inside you that wants to shine? What if you worked like mad honing, shaping, polishing that thing until it was so fucking bright that people couldn’t take their eyes off it if they tried?

What if you want tried to make things better?

Most of you who get this link won’t get very far. You’ll write me off, continue checking boxes and going about your boring business. That’s fine. Within twenty-four hours, I’ll have blocked you, and you’ll be out of my life.

But some of you will read this, and it’ll gnaw at you. You’ll roll it around, like that bit of corn stuck in your teeth, and you won’t be able to dislodge it. It’ll drive you nuts, and that’s because, deep down, you’ll know I’m right.

An oyster needs a grain of sand to make a pearl. I hope yours turns into something beautiful.

2) God, I love putting her in the sling and walking around. If this feeling of peace and contentment as my daughter snoozes against my belly means that I get my Man Card pulled, tell me where to mail it, man. You can keep your card; I wouldn’t trade this time with Grace for anything.

3) You can’t burp out a fart. Yes, I can rub her tummy or bicycle-kick her legs, but, dammit, I want some brilliant pediatrician to find the magical spot on my daughter’s body that I just have to pat a few times to relieve all that gas that’s making her cry like it’s the end of the world. Whoever finds this spot will get the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Probably the Peace Prize, too.

4) For the first three weeks, Grace has had two facial expressions: Asleep and Serious. Then, in week four, when her neck had gotten strong enough to hold up her head, she added a new one: Curious. We’ll get her on one of our shoulders, and she’ll look around with this wide-eyed face that looks like she’s saying, “Hey. I like this. This is cool.” The pots and pans above our sink? Fascinating. The tree outside the living room? Incredible. She’s looking around and drinking it all in, and we love it.

5) I thought my heart was going to burst the night she was born and I first held her. Turns out that feeling was nothing compared to the first time she smiled at me. Oh, man…

6) While baby photographers are great and kind and professional, the companies they work for? Pushy.

7) I know every father since time immemorial has felt these things, but I still want to tell everyone I know. I want to stop strangers on the street and say, “Here, you! Look at my daughter! Isn’t she the greatest thing ever?” I have to make sure I don’t babble about the things she does (tummy time! Laughing in her sleep! Grabbing her bottle!) so I don’t become That Kind Of Dad.

8) Actually, I am That Kind Of Dad. I should just admit it.

Grace Laural Rakunas was born at 6.24 in the evening on Boxing Day, 2009, and it was so fast. One minute, I’m holding our birth mom’s hand as Roy Silver, our friend, walked into the room and into his scrubs; the next, there’s this little girl slipping out like she was on a waterslide (which, in a way, she was). I cried, Anne cried, Grace cried, but only a little bit (Grace, that is. I bawled my eyes out and lost a contact lens, so I was literally half-blind as I cut the cord). After she was warmed up and rolled into the nursery, we got to hold her and feed her and I understood what my mom meant when she said this cord was just going to spring from your chest and wrap itself around the kid and never let go. It tugs whenever Grace cries or sleeps or makes one of those big baby sighs.

We got through the first night by swapping off shifts and learned a few things right away:

1) She loves eating
2) She’s not a fan of pooping
3) She sleeps best when we’re holding her

We are over the moon about all of these things. Even the poop, though I’ve now upped our weekly order with Dy-Dee Diapers.

I think the best part of all this has been the ridiculous outpouring of love from our family and friends. Every email, Tweet and Facebook update about her has melted the both of us, and it’s going to take a while to thank everyone with the individual notes you all deserve. I’m especially thankful for every one of you who’s shared that you were adopted (or are married to someone who’s adopted, or has parents or siblings or cousins who are adopted). Grace is in a club with some pretty awesome members, and I think it’s going to make for some very happy birthdays.

Our moms are coming Tuesday, and we’re going to start receiving other guests on Wednesday (I wish there were an app to make scheduling this all so much easier. Is there?). The first of the pictures are up on Flickr here, and there will probably be a ton more.

And now I have to wipe my eyes and blow my nose and inhale some food and do laundry while I can. Grace will be up soon, and I’ll be too busy staring at her while she feeds and burps and sighs to do anything else.

Welcome into the world, Grace. We love you so much.

Second note: this takes some time, so either do it in two parts (filling one night, ravioli the next), or make it a group activity.

And now: the food.

Ravioli filling:
3 oz pancetta (or 3 slices bacon)
2 T olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 large butternut squash, peeling and cut into 1 inch cubes
3 cloves garlic, smashed and diced
1 T sage, minced
2 t thyme, minced

Ravioli (from Bob’s Red Mill Semolina package recipe):
1 1/2 cup semolina flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten (make sure you listen for the safe word!)
2 T water
2 T olive oil
1/2 t pepper
1/4 t salt

Brown butter:
5 T butter
20 sage leaves, julienned

Scallops:
Just, y’know, get some. 3 to a person should be good.

Make the filling first; you can do this a day ahead. In fact, you should do it a day ahead, so all the flavors can merge and melt and oh my God give me some of that squash and bacon…

Sorry. Got carried away there. First thing you’ll need to do is lightly cook the pancetta so it gives up its fat. Get yourself an oven-proof skillet (cast iron, if you’ve got it, and, really, you should got it), put the pancetta slices in it, and turn the heat to medium. As the pancetta starts to sizzle, stir the slices around until they’re a little crispy. Take pancetta out of pan, dice it up and set aside.

Caramelize the onions in the pancetta fat, adding 1T oil if needed. Put the heat just a hair above medium and stir away. This flavor is one of the key points, so take your time with the onions. You’ll want them a deep, rich brown and smelling like a pan full of awesome. It takes me about 30 minutes, so your time may vary. If anything starts to look (or smell) like it’s burning, turn the heat down. Remove any onion flakes that are scorched.

When the onions are done, turn the oven onto 425 F. Add the squash and 1 T of oil to the pan, and turn the heat up to medium high. Stir the squash around, making sure it gets coated in oil. When the oven is ready, stir in the garlic and put pan in the oven for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. After 30 minutes, add pancetta, sage and thyme to pan and cook for another 10 minutes. Mash squash with potato masher and set aside to cool.

Roll out the pasta according to your pasta machine’s instructions. If you don’t have a pasta machine, you’re in for a hell of an upper body workout. Roll out sheets to second thinnest thinness. If you’ve got a ravioli attachment, you’re set. If not, cut the pasta sheets into 3-inch squares, put a teaspoon of filling onto a square, dab water along two of the edges, and seal the beasties shut like wontons. Put a napkin on a cookie sheet, dust the napkin with flour, then put the finished products on the napkin. The best result is to put them into boiling water immediately, though you can pop ‘em in the fridge, too.

When it’s getting time to eat, put a pot of water on to boil.

1 egg
2 T flour
1/8 t salt
1 apple, diced and peeled
1/2 c sugar
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 c nuts, broken
1 t vanilla

Beat eggs and sugar until smooth. Add flour, powder, salt. Add nuts, apple, vanilla. Bake in 8″ buttered pie tin 35 min at 350. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream. Serves 3-4.

Note: we triple this recipe for a 9×13 pan, but do not triple the sugar.

(Note for clarification: we were not on drugs of any kind. I feel it’s important to state that for the record. We were so squeaky-clean that you could’ve served a banquet for the Queen on our souls. Not that you’d want to, ’cause, dude, that would make for a really crowded table.)

One of us would slow down to catch his breath, look at the other, then start all over again. We reinforced each other in a positive feedback loop that had us laughing so hard that it hurt. Tears streamed down our faces, our stomachs hurt from doubling over, but we could not stop, not even if we wanted.

Last night, at w00tstock, it was just like being in Wendy Grace’s living room, except instead of Rob, there were three hundred geeks, and, instead of “The Commitments,” there was the greatest line-up of nerd music, movies and comedy this world has ever seen. And I just made my Saving Throw vs. Hyperbole, so that’s totally for reals. My sides still ache from laughing.

I don’t want to give a blow-by-blow recap, because Paul & Storm have said on their Twitter feed that there will be future w00tstock events and I don’t want to ruin the surprise. But I will give you these three things:

1) You couldn’t have asked for a better line-up: Paul & Storm, Wil Wheaton, Adam Savage of Mythbusters, Vork from The Guild doing stand-up, Molly Lewis and her ukulele, my new-favorite-comedy-musical-duo-who’s-not-Paul & Storm Hard ‘n Phirm, Josh A Cagan, Felicia Day singing “Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?” (with the whole ensemble, plus Zabu). Sprinkled throughout were videos that were made with nothing but awesome.

2) There was so much love in that room. The audience was throwing out so much goodwill that it was impossible not to have a good time. It was like the performers and the crowd were wrapping each other into a giant nerdy Snuggie (but in a totally non-creepy way) and cracking each other up, not to cause snags in the show, but because that’s what you do with the people you love: you make them laugh until they’re on the floor, crying and gasping for breath. (What, you don’t do that with the people you love? What’s your deal?)

3) Okay, I’ll give one bit away: Adam Savage gave a talk called “One Hundred Wishes,” which was him going over the hundred things he’d like to do (build a house! Make a movie with his wife! Own a lightsaber, and a real plasma sword one, not one of the seventeen he’d milled out of aluminum). It was funny, and it was touching, and it was so nerdily joyful that it has given me a new goal, which is this:

I want to be part of the line-up for a w00tstock.

I want to be on the stage, in front of a microphone, reading to a theater full of geeks, and then making horrible pirate puns with Paul & Storm, Wil Wheaton and Adam Savage at the end of the show (and I got in one from my seat: as Adam Savage walked off stage after blowing one pun, I called out, “En-cARRRR!” Savage came back and said, “God, we can’t go out on that one.” WIN).

I want, in fact, to be reading the scene from the Principal’s Office from “The Right People” to that crowd, with musical and Foley accompaniment, the way Paul & Storm accompanied Wil Wheaton’s excellent “The Trade.”

So. There it is. w00tstock. When it comes back, if it comes to your town, go. You will not regret it.

(Rob: I am totally bringing you along next time.)

Anyway, remember how we were talking about the county ballot initiative to raise the sales tax for transportation, and how I was pretty sure we were going to get federal funding for a Westside subway extension, and you said it wasn’t going to happen in our lifetimes?

The MTA is going to start exploratory drilling in Santa Monica this week.

It’s still got a ways to go, but there will be a subway from Downtown to Santa Monica, and it’ll happen when we’re both alive and will be able to use it. And when it opens, I’ll be happy to pay for your first ride. See you on the train, Bobby!

Yesterday was the CBR finals, and I got dropped like a bad habit on the second lap. I was in the front with the mighty Ian Grimstad and tried to get a few wheels back, and I just couldn’t muscle my way into a gap. I wasn’t dead last, but I certainly wasn’t in the middle of the pack. Same thing happened at Brentwood, and my ITT time was 1:06.

On the other hand, I now have enough starts to upgrade to category 4, which is supposed to be smoother sailing. And I’ve got all winter to train.

Right now, I feel completely shagged out from this morning’s ride (and still a little squicked out by the elderly Irish gentleman who sat near us; he started out by talking about cycling and Oscar Wilde, and then began downloading his life story of travel, illness, and celibacy, including his longing “to hold a nude woman to my penis,” which he pronounced pennis. There are some things man was not meant to deal with before nine in the morning when the coffee hasn’t had a chance to kick in), and I’ve got a mountain of work to climb (starting with editing Windswept; now that it’s time to wade into it, I’m a wee bit frightened). The tomatoes have given their last fruit, and the weeds are threatening to make inroads in the roses, and I still have no goddamn idea what kind of creature is laying these monster turds by the composter…

And that’s a season. And this is a life. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Except a morning free of that Irish dude. shudder

I’m not perfect. I don’t always edit, and I let the occasional comma or capital letter slip away, and I feel like a lazy dumbass after I catch my mistake. However, I am still fully qualified to write the following to the person who left me a drive-by trolling last night:

Dear Adam Smith-

Thank you for your email and congratulations on your nom de web. I’m assuming you’re writing me in regards to my various Tweets and Facebook messages about my personal boycott of Whole Foods in light of John Mackey’s editorial about health care in the Wall Street Journal. Using the name of the father of economic theory in a drive-by flaming about economics? Well done!

However, my joy was short-lived when I saw the various grammatical mistakes in your email. I write, so words and the way they’re used is very important to me. I wanted to give you some corrections so you’d be able to express yourself clearer in the future.

First, it should be “cock-breathed liberals.” Note the dash between “cock” and “breathed”; it turns those words into a compound adjective, which is what you intended to do.

Second, you meant to say “You are such losing cock breaths,” not “cock breathes.” Since your implication is since that liberals engage in fellatio on a regular basis, the whiff of one’s partner’s penis is always on one’s exhalations (see the first correction above). What you wrote here implies that the penis is a respiratory organ, which would be a neat trick. My backstroke would greatly improve if I could use my cock for a snorkel.

So, if we put those corrections in, plus a few more for punctuation, capitalization and missing words, your email should have read like this:

Dear Cock-Breathed Liberals,

Fuck off!
Adam Smith

See? Clear, concise language. Granted, it still doesn’t make any sense, because my understanding of the Great Liberal Conspiracy was that liberals worked hand-in-hand with unions to bring down said successful business owners. But, hey, baby steps. We’ll work on thesis statements and backing them up next week. Good luck!

Love and kisses,
Adam Rakunas