Donna icon courtesy of stolenpostit

First, a notice for those in the north Texas area: I will be having a booksigning with Rachel Caine (author of the Weather Wardens and Morganville Vampires series) on Saturday, July 19, 2 to about 4 p.m., at the Barnes & Noble in Lewisville, Texas (near Vista Ridge Mall). Come by and say hi! There will likely be much geeky conversation.

The film option contract is now signed, notarized and should be back in Hollywood (well, Beverly Hills), depending on the FedEx delivery schedule. There was a short conference call with the LA agency lawyer and my agent to clarify a couple of details, which was somewhat embarrassing as the way I tend to clarify things is to come up with bizarro hypothetical situations, and I'm not sure he knew quite what to make of that (I have no idea what he's really like, but on the phone he certainly sounded like Central Casting's idea of a Hollywood agency lawyer). Then I was able to get the contract notarized at my bank. They'd been snippy when I needed something like that previously, but that was at a different branch and this guy was really cool (of course he was, he was a fellow Longhorn). So yay for Chase Bank. I celebrated by going to Target and buying some new shorts. Yeah, I'm living large, but I'd recently realized I had one good pair of shorts (shorts I can wear outside the house) because all the others were in the mending basket. And then I noticed that all the shorts in the mending basket were "Mom jeans" shorts with high waists, pleats and cuffs. They're also all more than 15 years old, so I figured it wouldn't kill me to buy some new ones. Oddly, although the shorts I bought were all the same style from the same manufacturer, just in different colors, I had to get two different sizes because different colors fit different ways (they were even the same fabric, just in different colors).

Now, in honor of tonight's Donna-centric Doctor Who episode, here's a bit of silliness I wrote and posted to Television Without Pity last year. It's me being all practical about what I would do if I got invited to travel with the Doctor:

I would be absolutely certain never to violate Rule Number One (Don't Wander Off), even going as far as to have it tattooed on the back of my hand. I may be an independent woman who can take care of myself, but when I'm in a strange time/place, I'm not letting the guy who can get me out of there out of my sight.

I would insist that the Doctor give me a slide show and briefing on his major enemies, including the ones he thinks he's totally wiped out. That way, if external forces disrupt my slavish devotion to Rule Number One and I run into an old enemy while on my own, I won't mistakenly try to make friends with it, try to help it, or ask it if it's seen my friend the Doctor, you know, that Time Lord who travels around in a blue box.

Even if the Doctor does look like a cute thirtysomething guy, I will never let myself forget that he is an alien more than 900 years old who will outlive me by hundreds or even thousands of years (maybe I'll get that tattooed on the back of my other hand) and therefore probably not interested in me in that way. I'll enjoy my time with him more if I don't have any expectations of him in that area. And, hey, if he does make a move, it will be a pleasant surprise.

I will remember that kissing me doesn't necessarily mean he's making a move, as that's also a way of transferring genetic material or TARDIS energy.

When the Doctor gives me a truly universal cell phone, I will call my mother on a regular basis and not just when I'm in a life-or-death crisis so she won't worry about me or get suspicious because it's so rare for me to call her.

Now I hope to get some actual creative work done today. The part of my brain that can deal with contracts seems to sap all the energy from the part of my brain that can be creative.