One Day Till Othermoon is released!

My shameless countdown to the launch of OTHERMOON continues! As I type this, the counter says one day, eight hours and *mumblety mumblety* minutes till it's out! That's midnight Pacific time, of course.

On the day the book comes out, I will post about a fabulous giveaway! So stay tuned. 

Meanwhile, I'm thinking about the number one. Roar it out loud - ONE!

Is it indeed the loneliest number?



As Three Dog Night says, two can also be pretty damned lonely, depending on how the two of you are getting along at the moment.

(Also - how awesome is Three Dog Night? My favorite song when I was a kid was their "Joy to the World," which continues to be amazing:



I thought of it as the bullfrog song, naturally.)

One is the last whole number before you get to zero, after all. It's sort of standing out there by itself, a bullwark against nothingness.

But in a countdown, it can be a pretty aweseome number, because next comes the thing you're anticipating. Here's Apollo 11's countdown and take off, which lead to men landing on the moon, which is about as cool a thing as has ever happened EVER:



The rocket itself is like a big number one. Or a finger pointing at the sky, as if to say "That's where I'm headed, guys. Stand back!"

It's also a very simple number, mathmatically, which makes me happy as a non-mathy sort of person. Anything you multiply it by stays the same, and it's super easy to add and subtract, thank you very much. It's evolution as a numeral isn't particularly complex:

For fans of a certain boy band, one is something they think of as primarily part of that band's name.

(For those of you over the age of 17 or without kids, that's One Direction.)

One indicates a certain wholeness, a lack of division, a unity.  Are we one?

On a good day, I think we are.

Two Days Till Othermoon!

As I write, it's two days, eleven hours and *mumble mumble* minutes and seconds till OTHERMOON's launch date!

Winston Churchill knows what I'm talking about.

Oh yes, I'm shameless, using historical figures to countdown the days till my book is out. Check it out.

Okay, so that's a peace sign. And Churchill is flashing the V for Victory sign. But you need two fingers to make those signs, right?

On a serious note - I love and admire John Lennon. (Churchill's cool and all, but does not inspire the same feeling of lurve, luff, love. you get the idea.)

Because all you need is love.



But I digress.  Here's how the number 2 came to look the way it does:

It's an important number for many reasons - not just because it's two days till OTHERMOON. Sometimes it's really better to have two of something.

When you find just one of these, it's really annoying.

You need two people to make more people. Heck, you need two of any kind of mammal to make more. Without two you don't get the concept of dualism (good vs. evil), or the Hegelian dialectic (you can't have any kind of dialogue at all without at least two!) It's the atomic number of helium, the first even number, and DNA is made from a double helix.

In China, they say "good things come in twos." Plus, there's this:

So happy Two Days Before Othermoon Day! Think I can get it made into an official holiday?

Oh wait, it's Saturday.

Nevermind.

Three Days Till Othermoon!

That's right! My second book will be out Tuesday, January 29, and I'm counting down the days, pointlessly but in a fun way, here.

And yes, three is a magic number:



Another way it's magic? If you type a "greater than" sign - < -  then the digit 3, it means love because it makes a sideways heart.

THREE, baby! It rules!

According to Wikipedia, this is how 3 evolved to look how it does today:

Just a few examples of how three shows up in  major religions:

• the Christian Holy Trinity
• the Hindu Trimurti
• the Hindu Tridevi
• the Three Jewels of Buddhism
• the Three Pure Ones of Taoism
• the Triple Goddess of Wicca 

Three fates rule our lives, there are three witches in Macbeth, Three Musketeers, Three Blind Mice, and Dante's Divine Comedy is in three parts of 33 cantos each.

And although "the third time's the charm," the "third man" to do something bad, is the one who'll get caught.

And, of course, bad luck comes in threes.

Maybe I'm glad tomorrow we'll be down to two days?