Nooo, Walnut Creek, don’t go like that!

Augh! On Monday, there will be a rally in favor of Johannes Mehserle out here in Walnut Creek. Mehserle is the BART cop who shot Oscar Grant, an unarmed man who was restrained at the time. [Here's the news story if you missed it.]

Mehserle got off light. He doesn’t need a rally.

ETA: I hope this house-buying works out so I can leave Walnut Creek. The house is back in El Cerrito, where I used to live.

House(?)

We’re in contract for a house. Inspections are on Thursday. Eep!

The creative process, in cartoon form

This cartoon about the writing process is completely and utterly brilliant.

I’m currently lost somewhere near the self-doubt signs on my current project. Time to refuel and head for the expressway.

Thanks for the link, anghara.

World Cup party?

Is anyone hosting a World Cup party on Sunday, and may I shamelessly invite myself over? I’ll bring food!

Overbooked

You know what’s really hard? Trying to buy a house and write a novel in the same month.

Goalkeeping and sports, a ramble

This may surprise some of you, but I love watching sports. I don’t have a TV, so I don’t stay up to date on anything.

I mostly watch rather than play. I’m pretty good at sports that don’t involve a ball (i.e. swimming, dancing, wrestling). I’m an okay sprinter and a poor long-distance runner, or at least I was last time I tried.

When it comes to sports with balls (heh heh heh), it’s a completely different story. I was okay at basketball. I couldn’t shoot worth anything, but I was fantastic on defense. In middle school basketball, I’d yank the ball from other players’ hands. Perfectly legal if I don’t touch the player, just the ball. And if I couldn’t yank, I’d drag us both to the ground and wrestle until the ref whistled a jump ball. Totally fun.

But basketballs are big and pretty slow-moving (comparatively). I have always struggled with any sport that involves a fast-moving ball. Especially when it’s headed for me. Softball terrified me because I was afraid of getting hit by a pitch–or worse, someone’s line drive. I played catcher so I felt safer (slow-pitch softball, no base-stealing).

Tennis–I had a killer serve. I just couldn’t hit anything back. So I aced my serves and couldn’t do anything else. I did better in doubles. Volleyball–also aced many of my serves, served some perfect games, was reduced to gibbering mess if a volleyball came at me.

I think it’s because I needed glasses at a very young age, and had bad eyesight before that–so I never developed that sense of “where the ball is” when I’m not touching it. (Contact juggling: fun and not too hard. Toss juggling: I never could learn it.)

Long ramble, made short: I was in the Persian coffeeshop today and got distracted by the penalty kicks in the World Cup. Being a soccer goalie is somewhere near the bottom on my list of “things I’d enjoy and be good at.”

Tiger quadruplets born at the Denver Zoo

Too much gloom and doom in the news, so here’s… Pile of kitteh!