Tag Archives: ocd

More dog food on the way!

Posted on by under About writing, Books, photos

I have another book in the works. Anyone who knows my penchant for OCD behavior had to see this coming. After all, how could I have nine books out when, with a little effort, I could release a nice round tenth book? Well, the book isn’t round. It’s rectangular like the others but the number 10 is…

Oh, never mind. You get it.

With any luck and some hard work on the part of myself and the rest of the team—designers and early readers—it should be out in time for beach reading season. Not that I expect you to actually read a beach. What I mean is…

Oh, never mind. You get it.

And a beach read this will be, with some romance, some excitement, some mystery, some broad comedy. That isn’t supposed to be a sexist comment. The term “broad comedy” refers to…

Oh, never mind. You get it.

In case you’re looking for a good reason to buy my next book, or any of the others, you might be interested in an endorsement one of my books recently received. The following picture gets the point across:

Yes, even pets enjoy my books! This little dog tore into my recent book, “Only Love Can Break Your Leg”. Now, how many authors can claim multi-species fandom? It was traumatic for the dog’s owner who hadn’t finished it and had no idea how it ended! After I told him the ending and he had a few months of therapy, he was okay. The dog needed no such help because he finished the book. And when I say, finished, I mean…

Oh, never mind. You get it.

[Obligatory shameless self-promotion: If you don’t have it, you should get it. This and all my others can be found on my Amazon author page today. In a couple of months there will be one more. The tenth, a nice round number but not a round book. Then I’ll be able to sleep better.]

Missed OCD connection

Posted on by under blog snax, Generic Rant

A BlogSnax© post

I’m a consolidator. When I see two or more things that can be combined into one, or at least that match well enough to belong with each other, I have to put them together. It’s a symptom of my low-level, high-functioning OCD.

A mess waiting to be consolidated

A while back, I was in the parking lot of my local supermarket. My shopping was complete and my car was loaded so I proceeded to perform one of my favorite pastimes: consolidating the shopping carts in the cart corral. Usually, thoughtless shoppers have shoved them in there any which way but loose, all randomly askew, taunting me, challenging me. They’re begging to be organized, i.e. consolidated. The juices start to flow and I get to work.

As I’m blissfully carrying out the task, a guy comes up to me and says, “Isn’t that the best part of going to the grocery store?”

He gets it!! He’s a kindred spirit, as Anne Shirley would call him. I was too stunned to say anything. How I wish I’d had the presence of mind to invite him back to the house to have some snacks and share exciting tales of consolidation past!

If that was you, drop me a line and let me know what you’ve been consolidating lately.

Where, oh where did my money go?

Posted on by under Original writing

[As threatened, er, mentioned in my last post, the idea of losing ten mill a day is too funny to pass up without elaborating on. So, here I go, elaborating. It’s a lot like writing, but easier.]

losemoneyThe first day it happened, I thought, “What the heck, it’s only $10,000,000.” The second day, I was a little more concerned, but didn’t lose any sleep over it. After all, Stephen Drew makes $10M a year and he’s batting 21 points under the Mendoza line. How much can it be worth?

After a week of losing ten million bucks a day, though, I was beginning to think maybe I should give this issue some thought. You know, ten million here and ten million there and pretty soon your talking about real money. This was a situation to be taken seriously before it became a real problem.

After looking in all the obvious places – my pants’ pockets, those little car storage compartments, the washer and dryer, under the bed – I was still several tens of millions in the hole. I know what you’re thinking: “No big deal.” But it’s the principle of the thing. Besides, you never know when you might need a hundred million or so. It would be embarrassing to pull up to a toll booth and come up a few million short. After all, I don’t have E-ZPass.

Still, it’s only money. Did you ever balance your checkbook and it was off by a few million? Yeah, me too. It happens all the time, but I never pay it any mind. I figure it’ll all straighten out in the next statement or two. Then there was the time I tipped the waitress at Applebee’s and accidentally put an extra seven zeros after the amount. I could have kicked myself, but these things happen. Besides, the service was very good.

I’m not one of those crazy OCD types who has to know where every million bucks goes. Come on! My time is worth more than that. If I worried about every million dollars that passed through my hands, I’d never get anything else done.

Some people tried to convince me that members of my family were bilking me of my money. The thought never received even a moment’s consideration. Can you imagine suspecting my own family of trying to cheat me? Accusing them would irrevocably sever our ties. Money comes and goes, but family is one nonnegotiable constant in my life. I’d never imperil my relationship with my family for money, no matter what the amount.

No sane person would.