Oh, July.

I have a couple of other blog posts sitting around in rough draft that I really ought to cleaning up (about deep thoughts, too, like e-piracy, internet pretend feminism, and an ode to UST containing all of the climax jokes that good taste would allow and then a few more besides), and I was bending myself to that task with my customary work ethic and good cheer when a slow and Poe-like sense of dread overcame me. I looked at the calendar on my computer. Have I really been so busy that I didn't notice, didn’t prepare…?

Yes. The worst was true.

Y'all, it's nearly July.

The beginning of July signals that the world is half-over, of course, and you guys might think that I'm flailing because I'm behind schedule. Quite the contrary. I've completed nearly four first drafts, two outlines, and a last spit polish on the first book that I'm going to self-publish. There was the one episode where I sat down in my living room floor and started laughing hysterically after the cover model who told me that she was only six weeks pregnant and would be fine if I shot her quickly went into labor and delivered a six-pound boy (WHY WOULD YOU LIE ABOUT SOMETHING WITH THAT KIND OF EXPIRATION DATE?!), but on the whole things have been sailing pretty smoothly on the big-girl writing front.

No, my dread is much more primal, my reasoning absolutely irrefutable. You see, July is the devil.

For the past five years of my life, if something bad is going to happen to me, it's going to happen in July. There have been car wrecks (multiple car wrecks), deaths (multiple deaths), and a mental breakdown (just the one so far, but if anyone reading this is interested in graduate school, I can tell you my story sot that you can then do the exact opposite). July is a sneaky bitch. She hides around corners and waits for you. Last year, the only thing that happened over the first three weeks or so was that someone smashed the bumper of my car and drove away, which is a pretty light sentence as far as July is concerned. I mean, I also had to ride on a plane that month. Over the oil spill. I am not the girl that dolphins or volley balls befriend, and if I ever fall through a hole in the space-time continuum it's going to be straight into the waiting jaws of the smoke monster. I didn't relax until the plane was within ten minutes of home. Then an elderly woman two rows ahead of me went into respiratory distress. (She didn't die, this is not that sad a story.) Coincidence? No. July took a swing at me and missed.

You might not want to stand too close to me for the next thirty days or so.