Twitter Follower Update

Newsflash!
The crop circle people have finally stopped following me on Twitter.  But in their place, I seem to have acquired a follower who thinks I like to play "killer poker."  (Dude, if it were "killer Go Fish," then maybe......)
Ah, the mysteries of the twitterverse.....

We Interrupt The Regularly Scheduled Posting For A Bit Of Awesomeness About The Real Man Behind One Of My Characters

In Confessions of an Average Half-Vampire AND in All in the Half-Vampire Family, Eric's best friend is a wheelchair user named Joseph Mitchell.  In a previous post, I explained about three people who were the inspiration for Joseph, but, since one of those 3 real people has gone very public with his name, releasing a CD and now performing on So You Think You Can Dance, I'm going to tell you that his name is Joel Brown.  And he's paralyzed from the armpits down.
Yeah, you read that right: he's paralyzed AND he's on So You Think You Can Dance tonight.  Because he can.  Dance, that is.  I've seen him.

UPDATE FROM 9/7/12: Lila has provided a link for us to see this on youtube.  Click here to see this AMAZING performance.

Joel's great-aunt had a HUGE influence on modern dance and children's dance theatre in Utah.  I know that well, as she was my very first dance teacher.  Her name?  Virginia Tanner.  Her niece -- Joel's mother -- was my second dance teacher ever.
Joel danced before the accident that paralyzed him, and when he was about 14, his older brother Graham choreographed a number that put both brothers in and out of wheelchairs.  And Joel returned to dancing.
I recall when he got a role as one of Danny Zuko's friends in the high school production of Grease.  Joel danced so well that anyone not familiar with the role would've thought it was supposed to be for a wheelchair user.
The next year, Joel became the school's student-body president.  He also took up tennis, singing, swimming, and rock climbing.  "Handicapped" is not really a good adjective to describe the fellow, even if he is paralyzed.
I don't have a TV that actually picks up programs (it plays DVDs, though), so I can't watch tonight's show.  But, if any of you watch it tonight, just know that Joel Brown is amazing.  (I haven't seen him in a couple of years, but I've heard about his doings now and then.)
And, if you do watch AND you've read my book, you'll understand how the fictional Joseph Mitchell moves, since part of the character comes from Joel.

(PS.  People have been getting to this post by searching for how Joel ended up in a wheel chair, so I will add that info.  When Joel was 9, he went on a fishing excursion with his older siblings.  They were in a car accident, and Joel's spinal cord sustained significant damage.  He has never walked since, but he does just about everything else.)

(All photos from The Salt Lake Tribune.)

One Of My Favorite Lines #3

While making what I hope (please, please, please let it be so!) are the FREAKIN' FINAL edits on All in the Half-Vampire Family, I ran across this description, which I really, really like:

He kept stroking the beard, his fat eyebrows bunched together under thick bangs so that his eyes seemed to be fighting a losing battle against the hair on his face.

My Current TBR List

(Note for the non-literati: TBR= to be read.)
On hold for me at the library AS SOON AS THEY COME IN are:
1) The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
2) The Crown of Embers by Rae Carson
3) The Dark Unwinding by Sharon Cameron
4) Long Lankin by Lindsey Barraclough

I'm very anxious to dig into all of these!

Photo Mysteries: A Writers' Game #30

Carmi's has this week's theme up on Written Inc.  It's "weathered and worn."
Here on my blog, of course, we do more than just post a related photo.  I choose one to fit Carmi's theme, then I add a title and a single line of flash fiction to go with the photo.  Then you get to add your own titles and lines in the comments section.
Here's last week's, if you need a sample.

"Weathered and worn" strikes me as an easy theme, and here's one of my favorite photos to fit with it:

Title: The Mists of Time
Single line: It was the same boat he'd tied to the dock the night before, surely!  But it looked as though half a century had passed since then.

Your turn!  Choose a genre: horror, romance, sci-fi, mystery -- whatever you like.  Then add a title and a single line to go with this photo.
(You don't have to call yourself a writer to play.  Just do it.)

The Mystery of the Missing Pillowcases

Last weekend, I stripped the striped sheets off my bed, put them into the wash, and went to put the patterned sheets on.  But nowhere could I find the pillowcases.  I hunted through the entire linen closet, but to no avail.  I gave up and put a pair of solid-color cases that sort of blended with the sheets onto the pillows.
This morning, I stripped the patterned sheets and the solid-colored pillowcases off the bed and put them into the laundry basket.  I then dug out the flowered sheets and put them on the bed, but, alas!  there was only one flowered pillowcase!  Again, I hunted through the linen closet.  Lo and behold!  I found the patterned pillowcases I'd wanted last week but no second flowered pillowcase.  I gave up and used the one flowered case and one solid case that sort of blends with this set.
I can only assume that my linens are out to drive me slowly insane.
And I'm keeping a careful eye on the set of striped pillowcases that are due up for next week.

Grandma Was Right!

Whenever I'd try to dangle so much as a couple of fingers out a car window when Grandma was riding with us, she'd always say, "If you hang it out the window, it'll go home with somebody else!"  It took until I was about 5 before I understood the euphemism, but I did understand that I wasn't supposed to put body parts out a car window.
This guy apparently needed a grandma in his life.