I got a New Jersey jury summons.

It requires me to show up two weeks after we move to Minnesota.

I sent back the summons with the excuse “Um… I’m not going to live here by then.”

They returned with a snarky note saying “Prove it.”

Considering we don’t have anything finalized about our move except for the fact that our lease is running out at the end of September, I’m at a loss on the Prove It front.

The worst part isn’t their request itself.  It’s having only 2 weeks after one of the top 3 stressors of anyone’s life (I think the first is having kids or dying or something) to certify with the state of Minnesota that I live there and get that information back to people half a country away from me, even if my “living there” is just molding in my brother’s leaky basement until we find an apartment.

Alex said “It’s okay, we’ll prove it” and then “I think it would be cool if you had an arrest warrant out for you in New Jersey.  It would be like in a movie, where everybody’s formulating a plan and you would be like ‘Wait, New Jersey?  No, we can’t go that way.  You have to find another route.’ ”

I almost died laughing.

“When are you going to write a real book?”

I started to say this was a backhanded insult, but it isn’t.  It’s a very straightforward insult.  Anyone who can’t tell why should take a good long look at the way they interact with other people, because something is very wrong.

I found it on Patricia C. Wrede’s blog, as an example of what some people ask published genre authors.  Wrede is a fantasy author and well in my top 6 all-time favorite writers.  (She used to be higher, but I found Jane Austen my senior year of high school.)

Her post made me wish to iterate something because I consider it an important subject:

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When in doubt, the answer is yes.  It does make you look like a pedophile.

(Does not apply to a mustache-beard or mustache-goatee combo as long as the mustache does not stand out as the more prominent feature.)

I’ve been tinkering with an idea of how to introduce my mom to the idea of World of Warcraft in a format she, as a non-gamer and email-only computer user, can understand.

I came up with a few things she should watch as homework to bridge the culture gap of Mom and Gamer Kids.  You may consider all of the videos optional.

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I should be back to work right after we move in September.

I plan on:

1. Getting my driver’s license and heading to the public library on a regular basis.
2. Sending out query letters for Frostbite as soon as we get there.
3. Finishing the last little edits while those are in the mail.

At the moment, I have too many things on my plate to get things organized and edited, but I’m going over the series plotline in my head and have a few holes that current characters can’t fill.  This has kept me busy mentally, at the very least.

I’m also more driven right now to get Frostbite out in query form because Alex is considering grad school and it would really help us if I could move forward with my work (I just don’t want to get a day job — laziness beats procrastination in a two-punch knockout, woo!!).

So.  :)