I often wish I had an office to go to during the day. Yes, I admit it, I would like to hide from my children. There’s Alex, asking if I like some new Cookie Monster-sounding band, Sara asking for an endless parade of stuff, from her friends coming over to food to money to … whatever, and the little ones telling on each other and asking to go here and there. All the while I try to work on the novella. The books goes really, really well when I can string together five minutes to work on it.

One of these days the kids will be grown up and gone and I’ll look back and wish for days like these. But right now I’d like to have a few hours of me time.

We’re about 20 days from school starting. I learned last week that half our English staff has quit. If you know of any English teachers wanting a job teaching high school in OKC, Western Heights is looking.

I now have over 1,400 MySpace friends. Of course, I’ve never met, or even e-mailed, most of them. And never will. The electronic world is kinda weird. I could have a lot more MySpace “friends” if I’d approve the non-stop requests from cam whores. What really gets me, though, is visiting the photo pages of women on MySpace and seeing the absolutely stupid crap guys post there. Tell me, ladies, has it ever turned you on to see a photo comment that says, “UR h-a-w-t!!!1! Id tapp u sexxy grl”? And coming from someone you don’t even know? The anonymity of the Web is almost scary. I hope those guys wouldn’t walk up to a woman on the street and just blurt out how much they’d like to hump her. Unless it works, which would just prove how out of touch I am with the dating world.

What else can I ramble about? Conestoga? Good time. Rachel, Melissa and Jeaniene totally outclassed me, but they are all just incredibly nice gals. People tell me I didn’t do too bad on the panel, but I think I was learning as much as anyone in the audience. I finally picked up Rachel’s debut novel, Stray, about a werecat, and am looking forward to reading it. I also got Maggie Bonham’s latest, the second in her fantasy series. It’s called Runestone of Teiwas.

Ah, and the youngest kids have found me. They are examining the cover of Greg Lamberson’s Gruesome DVD. “What’s that?” Amanda asked. “A zombie,” I answer, to keep it simple. “When he was a regular dog, before he was a zombie, did he wear that?” Jacob asked. Johnny Gruesome, the headbanger from hell, is wearing a spiked leather collar in the cover picture. Priceless! I’m reviewing the book, film and CD for Horror World next month. (Preview: It’s all good, so get out your wallet.) Jacob has left, but Amanda is still intently studying the DVD case. “Why did he sticked a knife in his head?” “Is this a real movie?” “Are these just actors?” “Why is she bleeding?” I’d let her watch it, but I think it’s a bit too intense for a six year old.

We watched Spiderman 3 at the dollar theater yesterday; it was half-price day. It wasn’t bad, but it sure felt all of it’s 2 hour 20 minute run time. I was surprised Jacob stayed interested in the whole thing, but he did. Later we went to a park and Amanda played in the sand. She stood up with sand all over her legs and declared she looked just like the Sandman.

Alex got four tickets to Ozzfest in Dallas. He asked his mommy to drive him and two friends down there. Nevermind I was an Ozzy fan before any of them, including Kim. Humph! Oh well, most of the other bands suck. Though, I have to say I could get into Lordi. “Would You Love a Monsterman?”