I sold my slipstream flash piece, The True Story of How I Became Real, to Hypersonic Tales for their November issue! I'll post a link once it goes live. It's a bizarre little piece I'm not sure how to categorize, and I'm very interested to see how readers interpret it.In other news, in the spirit of Halloween, I'd like to share an odd occurrence that has been happening off and on at our house lately. Two years ago, my sister got married and her new husband's family and ours had a great time getting to know each other while sharing a beach house in the Outer Banks. At the North Carolina Aquarium, I purchased a stuffed octopus. I had to--it was the first anatomically correct stuffed octopus I had ever seen, with the beak on the underside in the center of all the tentacles, eyes where they are supposed to be, etc.
There's a history behind my love of the octopus. One of the first books I recall reading while I was a tot in Germany was a slice-of-life story about an octopus, which had realistic artwork. As I recall, the octopus had to squirt ink to get away from predators, squeeze herself into a little crack in a rock, and lay a bunch of eggs, among other adventures. Naturally, when asked what I wanted for Christmas, I said I wanted an octopus. My parents couldn't find a stuffed octopus anywhere, so they made one! I still have "Brownie."
(When I took this picture of Brownie, I noticed he had four teeth marks in his head. Hmm.)The new stuffed octopus lives on a couch in the upstairs sun room on the opposite end from Brownie. But she doesn't stay there. I've found her in bed with us, tripped over her in the hallway, and found her on the landing of the stairs. Now, how she gets around isn't that huge a mystery, because I do have two cats. I did catch Narvi dragging the octopus across the floor once. But it's almost as big as he is, so getting it up onto the bed would be quite a feat. Though I've never seen Freya dragging it around, she has been known to carry off several much smaller stuffed animals. It's fun to see where the octopus will end up next. I hope to find her in more new and surprising locations.
(See how innocent Narvi looks? He couldn't possibly be responsible for moving that big octopus around, now could he?)