Just called a magazine I’ve been getting for years, but haven’t received for several months. The subscription is supposed to run out in July this year so I called to find out why I hadn’t gotten any for the last few months. First, they couldn’t find me in the system, but they found another woman in my zip code with my name but a different address. However, they had no record of me, my account number, nothing. Here I stand with June 2009 in my hand with an address label on it and the woman on the phone is puzzled. She even got a copy of that issue just to be sure I was calling the right magazine. At this point, I’d begun to doubt that I was although the publishing info from the old one matched the issue I bought at the store today!

Finally, she put me on hold for a couple of minutes and came back and said, “Okay, would you like me to send you the back issues you’ve missed or extend your subscription because your last issue will be mailed in a few weeks?” I told her I want the back issues (it’s a cross stitch magazine) and I’ll renew it online.

Then I asked if she could tell me what had happened.

“The system changed your address.”

Hmm…I’m wondering if someone found my magazine by accident and changed the address to “steal” my subscription!

Anyway, I don’t know how the “system” changed my address any other way.

Just an interesting event in my day.

How’s your day going?

Me: I’m thinking about making my hero a veterinarian.

Beloved: You know, veterinary school is very hard to get into.

Me: That’s one of the joys of being a writer. I can just say it’s so and it’s so. No tests, no grades, no hassle!

When the Girl was little, she made up the names for her grandparents – Rugga and Bumpa. I guess a lot of kids do that. I have a friend who called her mother “Bimma.” When we were roommates and my mother called, she told me my Bimma called. I told her I don’t have a Bimma, she does!

Anyway, my son has started calling our guinea pig a perb, as in, “Oh, aren’t you a little perb??” He told me that “perb” is something that’s cute. Um, okay.

The Girl made up a word like that when she was little. She used “mudge” for what I would call a gray-peachy color, kinda like Caucasian skin tone. Anyway, we use “mudge” for that color now (and she’s 20). I figure we’ll start calling things “perbs” soon, too.

I finished Sword & Illusion! This was the final editing. Beloved is now going to read it for what I’m calling “polishing.” I do NOT intend to do any more rewriting or scene adding or anything like this.

I’m going to RWA’s National Conference in July in Orlando, and I fully intend to do my best to get an editor and/or agent appointment to pitch this book.

Very excited for both things!!