The Average Blogger

It's an Honor Just Being Nominated

Well, it would be.  I don't recall ever being nominated for anything, come to think of it. 

But! I was contacted regarding my interest in applying for change of venue, workwise.  I am equal parts gratified and horrified that I have priced myself out of certain markets.  I'm sure my boss feels the same way.

The Young Prince is taking an active interest in the political primaries, and for about five minutes there he was all fired up about SOPA and PIPA.  I'm not sure where this sudden civic interest originated, but it has led to some interesting dinner table chat.

The other kid excitement was we went to see all his old pals in the second show of the kid-theater season, which was Annie.  I like the show, I grew up listening to the record and it's amazing how many of the lyrics were still stuck in my brain. It was a well-done production, much better quality than the first one.  Will be interesting to see what they do with the third one.

And because the silly boy can't stand not having an audience even when he's in the audience, at one point in the play Daddy Warbucks mentions "Babe Ruth is the right-fielder for the New York Yankees,"  and my kid hollers out "Boo!"  from his seat dead center in the last row of the auditorium.  Not Your Average Blogger high-fived the kid. A big help he is.  I desperately tried to sink through my chair, face in my hands, while surreptitiously counting how many mothers of kids on stage whipped their heads around to glare at us. To his credit, the kid appeared to realize he'd been a bit too loud, as he too sank down in his chair and asked if he should leave.  

In other news, I finished the rough draft of my second book.  After setting myself a limited word count and still coming in 4,000 words long, my friend in publishing says it's too short. The good news is I know what I need to add and I know how much to add, so I still  might have it into a solid Real First Draft before March.

That, or I'll temporarily ditch the fixes and instead start on a third book I've got banging around in my brain. I can get back to rewrites when Outburst Fever has run its course.

Tomorrow the great agent quest begins for my first effort.  365 agents in 365 days. I polished my query again, and picked 20 recipients.  That'll get me through Presidents Day, which should give me time to find the next 20.  

The kid's birthday is next week. Nine years. Good lord. All that attention-sucking aside, we are doing something right, because he has asked to be taken to Steak and Shake for his birthday dinner.  Happy to oblige!

Projects, projects.

I'm working on other things in other places at the moment.  Working to polish my public-facing image.  More on that in a few weeks, probably.

As for my more private (privater?) image -- I don't have one. But y'all, the Young Prince is cracking me up right and left. 

This weekend was his first performance (First two, really -- afternoon and evening shows.) He was great, and he had so much fun.  It really does make up for all the crap I had to do as an Involved Parent.  He's already waxing wistful that it'll be over after this weekend. So, yeah, on to the next audition.

In other YP news, he brought home two pieces of paper on Tuesday:
1: He made the "captain's list" for getting all A's and B's.
2: He got written up for "lying on the floor and being disruptive" during music class.

So, yeah, I'd say he's right on track.  It's getting harder for me to get worked up about this stuff. I mean, he's mouthy and opinionated and balks at doing stuff he doesn't want to do.   Yes, it's a problem and it will make life harder for him. It already does make life harder for him when he pulls it with me, though I'm not sure my methods are necessarily communicating the lesson I intend.

But the thing is, I'm getting out of the habit of thinking that it is MY problem.  I used to go into these meetings with the teachers thinking that I should be able to do something, I should be able to fix it, I should be able to make my kid behave even when I'm in a meeting at my office 47 miles away.

Know what? I can't. Go figure.  I can hassle him about it before and after the fact, but I can't Be There and Deal With It -- and I rather suspect that if I were to do so, the teacher would heartily disapprove of my methods.

So, yeah.  He'll figure it out when there are consequences.   Meanwhile -- A's and B's!  Yay!

Grains of sand, letters on a page.

Another day at the beach this weekend, a greater desire to move there.

Kid begins his third drama camp this week. I must heap praise on Not Your Average Blogger, who rearranged his hours so he could shuttle back and forth to drop off and pick up while I'm buried in Work Stuff this week.

Not losing weight. Ascribing this to the vast amounts of summer junk food I've been thoroughly enjoying.

Not gaining weight. Ascribing this to the adrenaline I expend on writing, cos it sure as hell ain't from exercise.

At the end of next week, we go on vacation. Looking very forward to that. And to more not losing weight.

Proceeding apace on the book. Pondering going on hiatus from all social media until I finish it. On the other hand, everything I read tells me I'm an ass if I do this, because the best way to get an agent/published/attention/any sort of official-type validation is to join writing groups and participate in writing blogs and it's all word of mouth and nepotism and lalalala I hate it. I'm not saying I don't crave feedback and respect criticism. I'm saying I hate the long-established fact that publishing is a lottery/networking gig, and merit is a distant second. 

And I will cop to the fact that while I like people to read my stuff, I am less hot on the quid pro quo, not in small part because I can be highly critical and that is not always well received. I've been in writing groups before. Sometimes they're useful. Sometimes you can find one person in there who's got a good feel for things. But more often I've encountered great big circle-jerks of dangerously fragile egos. Nobody wants to hear anything negative, nobody takes anything to heart -- and of course, nobody has been published. Perhaps I'm just finding the wrong groups. I need a group that can look at a manuscript and say, "yeah, that sucks. Fix that. You'll never get anyone's interest doing this, take it out. OK, done? Here's what you do now." 

The Internet has been great for this because there are now kajillions of writing blogs and find-an-agent blogs and indie/vanity publishing blogs. I can see them, they can't see me. This does nothing to advance my ultimate ambition, of course, but it is easier on my soul for the time being.

Ugh. See what I mean? Ditching social media while I finish my first draft would probably be doing the world a favor.

The beach has spotty Internet access.  And it's too windy and sandy to really do much writing or critiquing. Perhaps that is why I love it there so much.

Ready to Go.

Ahh, August -- when everyone in my neck of the woods takes a deep breath because Congress has recessed, and then passes out from the heat.

The Young Prince is wrapping up his second drama camp.  He got a bigger role in this go-round than last time, which is nice -- last time NeighborGirl and I sat through an hour and a half of mumbling and bad singing (I blame the directors/conselors for this, not the kids,) to hear him say approximately four lines. And I only really heard half of those. This time he is a narrator and has a one scene where he plays someone's .... boyfriend? Boy who's a friend? It's unclear.  Then he starts his third and final drama camp next week, which is off in the hinterlands because I'm a dope who can't read fine print.

I think he's learned a fair amount, not only about acting and singing and whatnot, but I'm hoping this has also been beneficial because he's been stuck in groups of kids all summer, so he's been forced to keep up his ability to function in a group -- as much as he ever had this ability to begin with. He's had to STFU when someone else is talking, and take turns, and I think -- after an altercation yesterday -- something might have finally sunk in about how to deal with different points of view. He got all  bent out of shape because he felt some friend of his cheated in a game, a matter that was the subject of some debate. It seems that rather than shine it on, he opted to quit playing and rid himself of cheaters.  As a result, some other gal called him a baby, and he wound up thwacking her with his script. Surprise, she told on him and denied ever having called him anything. So we discussed:

1: that his friend probably didn't think she had cheated and was probably quite upset when he stomped off, rather than just rolling with it.
2: that girls lie.  DUH.
3: that there are much, much better ways to deal with name-calling than smacking someone, which will only land the smacker in trouble. (Oh, right, this was the 49325832597th discussion of that.)

The reason I'm hopeful that something sank in this time is twofold: First, I got him to admit that part of the reason he got so mad when she called him that was because he knew she was a little bit right; and second, I told him the Winston Churchill story.  (For those of you who don't know -- WC was at a party and Lady Astor sniffed at him, 'Sir, you're drunk.' He replied, 'Yes madam, I am. But in the morning I'll be sober, and you'll still be ugly.')

Well, the kid was all over it. He wasn't sure about the "ugly" part, however. "Maybe I can just say, 'but you'll still be a brat'??" But of course.

So, we shall see.

I am, I think, more than half-done with the first draft of my latest version of optimism triumphing over experience, and I'm hoping to shop it around for publication soon.  Maybe. Perhaps. And all my delusions of grandeur will be validated or roundly mocked  as deserved, I'm sure.

Mostly, we are all just looking forward to vacation.  Beach, Illinois, Indiana, Beach.  Nice set of bookends, that.

 

Feeding the Mind, Taxing the Body

A friend of mine on Facebook posted something the other day -- "If life gets you down, remember you're already a winner: You were the fastest sperm!"

I rather hope that was not my last significant achievement. There are days, however ... 

So, in the past week I have:

-- Written 32 pages of my novel.
-- Edited another chunk of my dad's magnum opus.
-- Read several pages of an extant, published novel without passing out in exhaustion three sentences in at every attempt.
-- Filled out a mulch path that will allow me to get the riding mower from the back yard to the way-back yard. 
-- Lost my son to a bevy of high school girls.

My book is going apace, though I find myself more than occasionally disheartened in the process. I think I'm almost ready to cobble together an outline and send it to someone. (Define ambition: a four-book arc. That's a big outline.) The bigger question is if anyone wants to read it. We read a piece of it to the kid last night and the content may be too old for him. This makes me a little sad and leads me to wonder if I'm doing it wrong, since he's reading at a pretty advanced level. (Of course, it is also possible I picked a bad time and he just really, really wanted to get back to his computer games.) I've loaned it out to NeighborGirl and I'm waiting to hear back on her assessment. Sigh. 

I'm reading my dad's book. The content is interesting, the rewriting is kind of satisfying, and I think he'll find a publisher for it. But (she said, in her best Eeyore voice,) in a way that will be even more demoralizing because I have to believe that there's a bigger market for mutant teenagers with extreme daddy issues than there is for a fairly dry and factual biography of a corrupt robber baron dead and gone lo these many years.

At NeighborGirl's suggestion, I'm also reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It's slow going, and again, if a "thriller" leaning this heavily on Swedish financial history can be a megamovie, why am I so certain my stuff won't win the lottery? 

As a means of purging my angst, I spent a lot of the weekend hacking up tree branches and creating new paths around the property. The tally at this point is as follows:
Top flowerbeds: Gone, with weed killer sprayed in the rocks that are supposedly serving as a way to maintain functionality of the drain under the driveway.
Front flowerbed: Probably 3/4 done. Many rock-lined mulch paths to cut down on weeding; a few more plants need to be stuffed in holes, and I want a patio. I do not want to dig a 4-inch-deep and 12-foot-wide hole to make a patio. I want to pay someone to make my patio. I get tired thinking about the patio.
Side yards: In excellent shape, due in large part to me putting my boot on the kid's neck and making him pull weeds.
Back yard: Path from bridge to steps has had rocks added to it that look quite nice. Path from deck through springtime swampy area to driveway has been widened and edged with tree limbs to replace the rocks I repurposed for the flower bed. It all actually looks sort of planned and classy, not all white-trash junk-yard castoffs and 'well, I had some crap lying around and threw it over here instead of over there.'
Way-back yard: Still just a yard, still needs some help around the fences.

Unfortunately, there are also several dead trees and one extremely large brush pile to be addressed. I do not want to address these either. (See: patio dilemma.)

But, to end on an up note, last week did have a bit of success to it. Those of you who follow this blog with any sort of regularity know that Harry Potter has been a bit of a thing in our house for the past year or so.  The Young Prince was hot to see the movies. I insisted he had to read the books. I kept waiting for him to hit a point where he had no idea what was going on, he couldn't interpret what he was reading, he had no concept of the deeper issues. I think, in all honestly, he did fall short on that last bit, but he followed the plot OK and didn't get alarmed or unduly upset by any of the larger plot points all the way through the end of the seventh book.  So as a reward,  I agreed to allow him to attend the midnight showing of the last movie.

He was fired up to go in costume. Well, thought I, that should be easy. Surely the big chain stores will be all over that idea and have all the old Harry Potter junk out for sale again.

Hahahaha. Riiight. Maybe two days after the midnight premiere. I tried Walmart. I tried Target. I stuck my nose against the (still too early in the morning to be open) window of Spencer's. Zip. Nada.

I went to Party City, and saw an entire wall of Harry Potter tags. With no merchandise. I asked the guy when the merchandise would be out. His oh-so-helpful answer was, "Later." Hmf.  I found another Party City person and asked her if she had graduation gowns or anything of the kind, and when I explained why, she shot a very nasty look in the direction of Later Dude and said, "We've got tons of stuff in the back. Stand right here and I will bring you a costume. For age 8, you said?" God bless Party City Girl. Throw in a pair of John Lennon glasses that I spent 40 minutes working over to pop out the blue lenses, and I was in business.

The YP was appropriately grateful and excited, (though a bit peeved at my assertion that I was dressed up, I was attending as a Muggle,) and we left the house early to get dinner. The crowd we were with included the YP, myself, NeighborGirl, NeighborGirl's roommate from college, and NeighborGirl's friend from grade school, who was decked out in a schoolgirl uniform with a red/gold tie. We arrived at the theater around 8:50. There were already at least 40 people in line. And the YP got a standing ovation when he walked in. He then immediately plopped himself down with the group in front of us in line and proceeded to build himself a whole coterie. I think he would have worked his way up to the dead front of the line if I'd let him. I mean, he had three hours to do it. There was a lot of wand talk involved, and some admiration of Time Turners and Death Eater arm drawings and I don't know what all.

At some later point, he came back to where we were camped out and informed us that You Know Who was in the theater. He seemed to feel a need to do something about this. I asked if he wanted me to take him downstairs and he insisted that no, Gryffindor (NeighborGirl's childhood friend,) needed to go with him.  Fortunately, Gryffindor (whose real name is Meagan -- I think? Megan?) was completely on board with this and off they went. I have no idea what transpired, except that when they came back I was told that there are now probably several photos of my kid floating around out there that I will never see. Heh. 

After 2.75 hours of this, the theater folks opened the doors to the auditorium. We swarmed in, NeighborGirl chose the seats, and we parked ourselves. I was getting the YP settled and debating with him whether he would sit between me and a stranger or between me and NeighborGirl's roommate, when a chorus went up from behind us: "Young Prince!! You have to sit with us!!"  I turned around, and fully six high school girls were looking at him and waving him up to their row. He looked at me. I suppose it is a bad sign that I conceded defeat so easily, but I waved him off.  And off he went, with a "Be right there, Bellatrix!"  to one of the more outlandishly costumed.  I will say that either I got lucky or high school girls have gotten smarter, because he somehow wound up in the seat directly behind mine, as well as in the back row, which meant that I was fully within bounds to stand up and loom over him in the event discipline needed to be enforced without particularly bothering anyone else.  (As it turned out, this was largely unnecessary. There was one incident where he dropped his wand and the light-up end blinded someone, but that was an accident.)

I'm pleased to report that aside from all the Event-ness aspect, I did fully enjoy the movie as well, and it was entirely worth the money, lost sleep and crankiness that overtook me the next day. The boy, of course, wisely slept it off and was back on track for morning hours when drama camp resumed the following Monday.

I do hope the boy enjoyed and remembers it. I think he will. I hope he sees it as a stellar event. I rather saw it as the end of the beginning. Or the beginning of the end. I'm still deciding.

This week is a performance of a different sort. The first of his four drama camps wraps up, and he has two bit roles in their production of the Arabian Nights.  I look forward to seeing it, and I look forward to seeing him read the book; we picked it up from the library Saturday.

Annd, I've come full circle to wondering who will ever read mine. Lalalala.  Off to my own personal salt mine!

 

Itchy, Scratchy

Saturday: Do a bunch of yard work. Overhaul a large portion of my flowerbed, feeling very industrious and pleased as I pull out weeds and install rock-lined mulch paths to prevent such a huge need for future weeding.  (Speaking of rocks, my grandfather has cleared up the Virginia vegetable garden rock mystery: "Rocks grow deep in the earth, and when they are big enough, the devil pushes them up to the top for us to deal with." I don't doubt it for a second.)

Sunday: Wake up with itchy arms and one eye swollen shut. Sigh. Groan. Apply ice packs and cortisone. Realize I'm a little late this year. Develop plans to further reduce growing space for evil weeds by installing a tiny patio in one corner of the flower bed. Talk to grandfather, who assures me it will be a huge amount of hassle and work. Sigh. Groan. Apply ice packs and cortisone, and go to bed. 

Monday: Get up at 4 a.m. for work. Wince at the ghastly reflection I see in the mirror, but suck it up, apply more cortisone and go to work anyway.  Leave work at 1:30 p.m., pick up kid from camp, go home and doze from exhaustion of itching while he watches Harry Potter Part 5. Wake up enough to feed him and apply more cortisone.

Tuesday: Get up at 4 a.m. for work. Horrified by spread of crud. Stop at drug store on way in to office and drop a ridiculous sum of money on assorted snake oil. Delighted to find that something appears to be helping, as itching decreases. Rashy face is still disgusting, however.

As a PSA, here is my experience:

Long sleeves and pants probably help. This has not been my experience, however, because in the process of getting undressed and/or throwing those clothes in the washer, I still get the crap on me, which means I sat outdoors in the blazing sun in winter clothes for naught.

All that business about showering as soon as you can after getting it on you may be sage advice. My problem is, I barely know a tree from a shrub and certainly can't pick out good weeds from bad ones, so knowing exactly when to go hose off is problematic.

I don't know if Ivy Off works. I bought some once, then we had 2 years of rain and by the time I was in a position to use it, the stuff had expired and I never bought any more.

Once you are afflicted, if at all possible, I strongly advise jumping into a 50-gallon vat of calamine lotion, getting very drunk, and remaining asleep for a week. Perhaps even an induced coma, if means allow.

Not possible? Yeah, not for me either. 

Cortisone lotion works for me, but it doesn't last very long, and all those warnings telling you not to use it more than 3 times a day have served to freak me out. I also don't like that stuff on my face.

Ice packs? Don't do jack.

Running impossibly hot water over the rash? Ohhhh, that feels really, really good.  However, the time I tried it, I also wound up in much worse shape for the long run. The rash got much worse, blistered, lasted forever and looked like I had a flesh-eating disease. I do not recommend this, though it was, indeed, a pleasant itch-killer.

This time around, I have taken an allergy pill and used this stuff called Tecnu Rash Relief. I don't know which one did the trick, but I'm feeling much better. I figure the allergy pill won't hurt anything, even if it doesn't help.  The tecnu is wonderful stuff, but it is very oily, so keep tissues and stuff around and maybe wear sleeves to keep it off counters, desks, laptops, etc.

I don't know how much validity there is to this, but it does seem like a logical move to try to keep your contact with linens to a minimum til you know the oil is gone or til the rash is clearing up. This means changing the sheets, using different towels, etc. It also means a lot of laundry, which is a bummer.

That's what I've got -- anyone else got any good Old Wives remedies out there?  Happy to try them out!

Numbers Game

I have been waiting until I could say it officially: I have lost 20 pounds.

This means I am now back down to the weight I swore I would never get fatter than.  So, yeah, 30 or so pounds more to go.  I've given myself until Christmas.  If I can keep up the rate I'm going at, I might get there before Labor Day.

You might think it is a vanity thing, because I'm turning 40 and tired of feeling like a tub. You'd be right, to a degree, but that wasn't really it. If I really cared about my waistline inch count, I doubt I'd have let it go this long.  No, what did it for me was running up 2 flights of stairs with a loaded-down laundry basket and feeling like I was going to die when I hit the top.  And then realizing that I couldn't even run up the same amount of steps emptyhanded without panting a bit.

So that was it. It didn't hurt that I was sick around the time of the kid's birthday, and cake just looked like food designed to hurt me. Off I went.

What's working? Eating less. Moving more.  That's all there is to it.

Most days I'm averaging a thousand calories. Sometimes a lot less, if work is busy. Some days a lot more, but over the span of a week it balances out.

With the exception of splurges, I've given up drinking milk and soda. Those were huge. I've started ordering kid portions when we go out. I plan and compensate. I do still eat chocolate, but not very much. I am eating a lot of yogurt. And Slimfast -- because let's face it: I can't REALLY give up chocolate milk. I still eat the same dinner as the rest of my family at least 3 nights a week.  

I'm not moving much more than I was, and not nearly as much as I should, but I do make a conscious effort to at least stretch and take some stairs. So now I can run up and down the stairs seven times before I want to die. 

Baby steps! Progress!

I have also, to my husband's dismay, become a slave to the scale. I weigh myself repeatedly in the course of a day.  I  only count one -- the time I weigh myself while getting dressed for work.  I record that in a book, along with the calories I've eaten that day. It keeps me honest, and it's a way to track progress, and reassure me progress is being made.  But what keeps me agonizing and motivated is when I weigh myself again at the end of the day and the scale says I've gone up 2 pounds when I know darn well I haven't ingested 2 lbs worth of matter. 

There is one frustrating thing. Every weekend I backslide.  I mean, Every. Weekend. I eat more, I eat less, I skip the family dinners, I gorge at the casino buffet, I sit and watch TV all weekend, I go to the pool and chase the kid for an hour, it doesn't matter. The amount I gain back on weekends varies from a half-pound to 3 (that was the casino buffet weekend,) but it's always there Monday morning and I'm not entirely sure what to do about it. It's OK, though. I like puzzles.

The thing that's really hard, and that I try not to think about much, is that this is pretty much how it's going to have to be forever if I want to keep the weight off once I lose it. Occasional binges, periods of fasting to make up for them, but mostly just severely limited intake compared with what I used to be used to. The good news is, that actually seems doable, unlike the past.  This time around, I haven't been starving at bedtime, I haven't been miserably obsessed with other people's lunches (for the most part,) and I do still eat what I want when I am in a fuckitall frame of mind, because I know I'll get back on the wagon with the next meal.

I don't know where this rational behavior is coming from. I might need psychiatric treatment.

Coming of Age in an Age of Self-Importance

Less Than Zero was on the other night, and I was ashamed that I couldn't remember the name of Ellis' other book about disaffected college kids.  It was The Rules of Attraction. In looking that up, I found that I'd missed last year's release of Imperial Bedrooms, a sequel to Less Than Zero.

I didn't really like Ellis when I read him in college. I love-love-loved the Spy Notes parody of his and "All Those Other Hip Urban Novels Of The 1980s." I think you can still buy it on Amazon. It nailed everything that drove me nuts about that style of writing -- the characters' detached emotional distance from everything, the bratty world-weariness, the arrogance that comes with the 20-something certainty that they know EVERYTHING, WAY MORE THAN YOU DO.

Which is funny, because then blogs came along, and every tween-/twenty-/whatever-something in the world got his and her own forum to be detached, bratty and SMARTER THAN YOU.

This is why I love Facebook.  It lets you broadcast as much as you want, and no matter what the fearmongers say about identity theft/sale/distribution, the truth is that if you have half a brain with half a filter, you can also lock down or leave out what you don't want others to know.

That means people I haven't seen in years can find me, or I can find them, and we can learn as much as we want about each other, then go our merry ways without feeling obligated to maintain any deep and abiding relationship if all we are looking for is, "Hey, you're still alive! That's nice to know." And if they don't get the message? As a friend of mine put it, there's always Block, Ban, and Hide to help you out.

Blogs, on the other hand ... those are more of an investment. People write more. You find a blog, you get sucked in, it means you have to read more. You have to have some commitment to the writer or the content.

I just deleted my first blog. It chronicled a lot of who I was and who the Young Prince was from the time he was about six months old until he was ... I don't know, 3? 4?  It was a useful tool, it was a nice memento. It also hadn't been touched in several years and I hate loose ends. So I printed it out, bound it up, and shut it down. 

I have a second blog I'm thinking about wiping out too, for pretty much the same reason. But that one still has some live strings attached to it relating to other people I know and like to keep up with, so I'm leaving that one up for now. I might decide someday to pay the money it would take to lock down all the old posts, but ... eh.

I consider myself lucky that I was old enough to understand the Internet when it came along. I live a relatively public life online. I mean, my resume's posted, for pete's sake. I just figure it's pretty easy to find my name and phone number and all that, so I'm not going to try to hide it. I am vigilant about finances and quiet about family comings and goings (which also occur in rather random patterns), so while you might have our address it is pretty unlikely you'll have an opportunity to do much harm. I always figured if I were in the public eye and wanted to get out, I'd just offer up way, way TMI and bore everyone to tears with that stuff.

I was also old enough to know that stuff's permanent. You can't ever really take anything back or wipe anything out because you don't know who saved a copy before you attempted damage control. I know this. I have said and done a lot of things on the Internet that people didn't like, misunderstood, took personally, whatever. 

I don't really care if people don't like what I have to say -- I never have. Not in my nature. I figure I am who I am and I mean what I say, and you can agree or disagree and that's why God made several flavors of ice cream. I have a lot of opinions, and with the exception of office and national politics, I'm not shy about sharing them online. (And if I worked in any other industry, you can bet politics would be on this table too.) I try to be careful in explicitly stating that they are my opinions, my experiences, my bugaboos. Take it or leave it. You are unlikely to change it.

I'm more embarrassed when people misunderstand or misinterpret what or who I'm talking about, because that means I screwed up. I mean what I say, but I also try to say what I mean, even when everything I say is All About Me and Mine, and has nothing to do with what you're up to over there. (Which is another reason Facebook is so great. It's much easier to get 30 words right than it is to get 300 words right.)

And sometimes -- not often, but sometimes -- I realize I was just plain wrong about something.  Those are the most embarrassing, obviously. But hell, that's what life is: figuring stuff out. Odds are I'm gonna be wrong sometimes and I might as well just suck it up, admit it and learn the lesson.

I am aware I'm not a good writer. I'm a pretty decent editor, and I can usually revisit my first attempts and make them into something coherent. But mine is not a literary blog. It is a public diary -- a do-this list; a don't-forget-that record. I am not artful when it comes to original language. I am not elegant. I don't spin symbolism out for pages and pages. Rain is just rain. It isn't a metaphor for how I'm crying on the inside.

Which I guess means I'm going to have to reread Less Than Zero, and then get Imperial Bedrooms, and see if I'm more charitable to Ellis's writing than I was in my 20s when I was SMARTER THAN HE, even if he did get published and I didn't. (Although I think that makes me the lucky one. I often wonder about people who had wild creative success with their Angry Youth and how they look back on their accomplishments. Does Ellis read stuff he wrote and think he should have done better? Does Alanis Morissette squirm when anything from Jagged Little Pill comes on the radio? I know I do, and all I did was buy the album.)

On second thought, maybe I'll just crank up the Elvis Costello. I guess it depends on my level of commitment.

Snow Place Like Home

So, that shows what I know. We got about 8 inches in our predicted Big Snow.  School turned out to be canceled three days of five this week.  The roads are clear, the cars are not trapped, we have power and Internet and all that.

Unfortunately, the 8 inches we got all came down in the space of about 2 hours, during the worst commuting hours, which meant stuck/abandoned cars blocking some roads, fallen trees blocking other roads, etc.

The worst commute I've ever had before last night was 2.5 hours. I figured it would take me about five hours to get home last night.

Turns out I was four hours too optimistic.  To pass the time, I liveblogged the whole thing on Facebook. It was actually pretty fun.  It was just me in the car, and I didn't really need food or a bathroom; I knew that Not Your Average Blogger and the Young Prince were safe and warm at home, and I knew they'd be able to meet me at a motel if the power went out and things became less warm.

What follows, then, is the item of record, with selected comments from friends who were following my tale.

5:46: leave office garage.

5:54: 4 blocks traveled.

5:55 -- prick behind me leaning on his horn that I should move while dingbat pedestrian thinks putting up her hand like Wonder Woman would stop my car from sliding into her. If I were moving, natch.

6:04: First instance of people pulling into intersection they clearly won't exit before the light changes. Dorks. 1 mile from work.

6:14: 2 miles from office. 38 to go. Kaliforna Gurls on radio. Not that I'm questioning this life choice, or anything.

6:25: 3 miles from work. Some chick with a purple umbrella stops dead in the middle of the street, snaps a bunch of photos and then examines them on digital readback. Nobody even honks.

6:30: 3.5 miles from office. Radio talking about vehicle fires. Srsly? Colleague e-mails that another colleague's power is out. Wondering if mine will be when I get home -- in time to start my 5 am shift... ‎

6:53: 6 miles from work. Guy leaning out apartment window over Whitehurst Freeway is pointing and laughing. And taking bong hits. Party on, Garth.
Neta: I'm having a glass of wine and laughing at your posts! 

7:13: 8 miles from work. 32 to go. Never noticed before that there are No Parking signs along this stretch of road. Go figure.

7:18 - figuring I might make the DC-VA line at the 2-hour mark. "The Wa-yay-yayi-ting is the Hardest Part." Just what we need, a clever DJ.

7:26. Huh. I've never watched snow accumulate on my car hood while it was running. It's about like watching paint dry.
ChrisH: You need to rev the engine more to melt it off! Just kidding
AB: Nobody mentioned this downside to the Prius!! :) 

7:36: ok, maybe 2 hours was optimistic. But at least I'm not like the guy I just saw hunching across the Key Bridge on foot with his umbrella blown out the wrong way.

7:45: Just had to get out of my car to give my rear windshield wiper an assist. Damn! Slippery!
Jill: Wait to you get out here. It looks like WW3 with all the trees down and I bet we are out of power by the time you get here. Good Luck!
AB: Yeah, I'm kinda worried about that. Watch me get home and hafta go to a manasas hotel so I can work! 

7:53: I've been listening to WTOP for an hour and still haven't heard why the Key Bridge is not moving. (Though I'm guessing it's cos all the people Not in My Lane keep moving into My Lane at the last minute.) Nor any mention of 29 or 50 or the other surface streets I take to get home. Sigh.

7:59 Hahaha. DJ on WTOP is harassing Pepco guy about lousy voice mail/response time. Awesome. And I'm now under the bridge, on my around to go over it. Man, there is just no good side to a bridge, imho.

8:17: Bound to happen -- someone 3 cars ahead of me got stuck and needed a push. 

8:25: Well, it is official. It took less time to put together a newspaper than it has taken me to escape DC. Yay to my staff, at least!

8:36: Mmmm. Aspirin and snow. Rounding the corner to the bridge!

8:49: Watching another stuck car get pushed on to the bridge. Thinking I really should have worn socks and flats today. Durh.

8:57: I'm on the bridge! I'm on the bridge! Any over-unders on when I'll be off it??
NYAB: Woo hoo!
Jill: Gosh, who the heck knows? I have a couple friends stranded on 66.
David: Not betting, but I am following this saga closely. Godspeed!  

9:02: Looking down at the cars on the curve up to the bridge. Pointing and laughing. Sadly, no bong hits. 

9:07: Waiting for the guy with the walker from the opening of Office Space to pass me on the bridge. No more blown out umbrellas. Sad.

9:14: Snow appears to be letting up. Just saw a guy walk by with a snow shovel. Brilliant! Fantastic!

9:23: I hate bridges. That is all.
Jill: Since you have been on the bridge we have watched a complete basketball game, did a load of laundry, the dishes. At this rate we are hoping you will be back for Thomas high school graduation.
ChristopherH: So sorry you are stuck :(
AB: Haha. It's not the stuck -- it's the bouncy bounce while getting a chance to do intensive study of all the pavement cracks and patches. :)
ChristopherC I think you're losing it.
AB: Nah. I just keep chanting, "it isn't the skyway ... It isn't the skyway..."
Beth: Skyway is the worst.... I've been stuck there!!
AB: Beth, I have been known to go 2 hours out of my way to avoid that thing. I really do freak on that one. Too steep to see the other side, too long to hold my breath.
Beth: I hear ya sistah! After being stuck for four hours on the "up" side, I don't drive it either.
AB: Guh. You're made of tougher stuff than I am!! 

9:34: All angst aside, it really is quite beautiful out. Snowy trees, reflecty brake lights, the almost-visible Washington Monument. I do like living here. Just not Here, on the bridge.

9:45: Off the bridge! Off the bridge! Who had 48 minutes in the pool?
ChristopherC: Look. You made two Facebook friends in the time you spent on that bridge, so it wasn't time entirely wasted. 

9:52: Why, hello, Welcome to Virginia sign! So nice to pass you! Have you been here this whole time?

10:02: Just called the kid to say goodnight. Not that it sounds like he is anywhere near ready to sleep.
Chuck: You should turn around now and begin the morning commute.
NYAB: I'm pacing, which is making him pace. It's a vicious circle.
Pam: It's not as if he's going to school tomorrow....  

10:14: On 29. It reeks of burning rubber cos of a stuck bus or something spinning its tires.  

10:21: Stupid speedtrap camera strobe keeps going off. I wonder if offenders will get a pass?

‎

10:27: Just went an entire half-block without stopping. Streak ended next to a "speed checked by radar" sign.

10:29: Just passed first abandoned car -- a Jeep 4x4. WTF?!

10:49: Continue to share the road with jillions of my closest friends. Hey, Mr. Bicknell, what's the iphone say about the weather in Fairbanks??
NYAB: 2 below, but no snow. Snowing all week in Seward, but warmer than it is here. 

11:07: I'd be feeling stupid about doing this if I weren't having so much fun. Am wondering how much I'll pay tomorrow with the sleep-dep hangover, though.

11:13: it is kinda funny how fast 10mph feels after sitting at 0 for minutes at a time.

11:23: ZOMG. 29 down to one lane with cars every which way. After that, a speed rush thru Arlington at 20mph.

11:29: Freakout sounds: spinning tires, groaning branches.
Chuck: FYI, since you left, I've gotten on a plane, flew to SoCal, got In-N-Out (Animal Style, natch), flew back and am back home.
AB: Impossible. I remember the lines at In-N-In-N-In-N-Out! You're posting from the baggage claim!
Chuck: Yes, back home. Still licking my fingers of the grilled onions and the fries. 

11:46: O hai, Falls Church. If it were 7 years ago, I'd be home. As it is, I'm not even in the right county.

11:52: wow. Snow piles at curbs and on lane lines creating big lake-y puddles. Yayyyy!

12:08: Happy Thursday! Just saw the beltway from an overpass. Uuuuugly.
NYAB: Guess I could have made the round steak, huh? It’d be thawed by now.
AB: Guess so! Heh. 

12:23: 29 gunked up again. I'd make fun of the stuck/abandoned cars but I'm too afraid of joining their ranks. Though I must say the car has handled marvelously so far!

12:31: Vienna. Gonna try the interstate. (Crosses self.)
AB: Or not. Stuck semi blocking onramp. Heh.
AB:OK. U-turn, unplowed ramp, and on.

12:42: on interstate. 20 or so more miles to go. Alarmed by sudden and strong smell of gasoline, but it's gone now.

12:46: Safe to say I'm regretting the choice to wear a girdle yesterday morning.

12:55: guh. Way slippy and zero regard for staying in lanes!

1:01: at some point, doesn't it make more sense to list the schools that are still open?

1:04: Traffic conditions sign:"Expect delays to Exit 47." Ya think?

1:16: 525,000 people with no power. Not that they care, they're still trying to get home.

1:24: in keeping with chuck's earlier scenario, in the time I've spent in this car, I could have driven from LA to Vegas, emptied my bank account and drunk myself into a coma.
NYAB: Yeah, but those last two don't take all that long.

1:35: now seems like a good time for one of those infamous I-66 toppling lightpole episodes.

1:52: just passed string of plows. Wondering how I'm gonna get from left lane, over midroad snowbank, to offramp.

1:59: hello, rest area!

2:14: wow. No streetlights, lots of downed trees.

2:16: offramp offramp offramp!

2:17: hwy 15 plowed, wet, lovely!

2:25: one way to avoid your car being buried by the plows? Get home after they've left.

2:30: car parked at end of cul de sac, hopefully not in the way of any of the other cars parked down here.

2:33: home home home!
My husband is the best, y'all. He shoveled a path up our mile-long driveway so Little Miss No-Socks could get to the house.
Well. Just shy of nine hours. That wasn't so bad, except for how far off I was in guessing my commute time. My legs are kinda tingly, though.
P.S.: the kid is still up. Watching Creepshow. Bwahaha.
NYAB: And of course, she logged on and started working.

Year in Review, 2010

Facebook tells me a lot of people had a bad time in 2010.  I wouldn't say I had a bad time, but I certainly did seem to find myself generally less satisfied than in years past.  Can't really explain why, though. A lot of it had to do with work, though I'm not sure what I would have done differently to make it better.

NYAB quit his job, decided he liked having a job, and got a new one, so he is still working where I work.

The YP seems to have found an even keel in school and is doing relatively well. Or so we hear, anyway.

So there were a few accomplishments, a few setbacks, some blunders.  All in all, a pretty good learning curve of a year.

1. What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before?
Made jelly. And won a blue ribbon for same.

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I'm going to go the other way this time. I resolve to be perfectly spherical by this time next year.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes! Hello, Angela and Harper!

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Well, there are a few days to go yet, but we seem to have gotten all that out of the way last year, thank goodness.

5. What countries did you visit?
Just other parts of this one.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
More exercise. More free time. More sleep. Less self-imposed stress.

7. What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Well, the kid's birthday in a blizzard that turned into a week in a hotel room was pretty memorable.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I think the family made some pretty big strides in terms of figuring out strengths, weaknesses, and limitations. NYAB needs a day job. The YP needs structure. I need a lot of outlets for venting.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Work-life balance completely fell apart in both directions, but in some ways our schedule forced it to stay fairly close to where it should be.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nope.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Our trip to Alaska. Though the new TV is pretty damn awesome.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
The YP, who is doing immeasurably better than this time last year, though I tend to lose sight of that fact in the day to day.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
As usual, a few work-related things could have gone a lot better with far less drama and far more advance consideration of consequences.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Vacations. And a car. And stuff.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Any time I got to spend not working.

16. What song will always remind you of 2010?
Mr. Blue Sky.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
    i. happier or sadder? Happier.
    ii. thinner or fatter? Fat-fat-fatter.
    iii. richer or poorer? Er. Cash-poor, but so worth it.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Exercise. Gardening.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Work.

20. How (did) you spend Christmas?
At home. Hunkered down and in hiding. It was lovely.

21. Did you fall in love in 2010?
Over and over.

22. What was your favorite TV program?
Buh. Dr. Who, I guess.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No, but I am less fond of a whole lot of people.

24. What was the best book you read?
Did I manage to read a book this year? I liked I See Rude People.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
That I can love and hate Katy Perry all at the same time.

26. What did you want and get?
I wanted the kid to do better in school. He delivered.

27. What was your favorite film of this year?
Red was pretty good.

28. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I ate a lot, and got ice cream cake. 39.

29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
More money. More free time.

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
Finding five outfits I liked and wearing them to death.

31. What kept you sane?
Same as last year. Confidantes who listened.

32. What political issue stirred you the most?
I'm so fed up with all of it that I'm ready to go live in a Central American hotbed. Except I like not getting raped and shot. The election was fun, if exhausting. Should be interesting to see how next year shakes out.

33. Who did you miss?
I found I had a lot of questions I wish I'd asked JB's mom. And my aunt Shirley.

34. Who was the best new person you met?
My new staff members are all pretty awesome. I hope they stick around.

35. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010:
If you spend enough time being nice, people are really surprised and responsive when you finally hit bitch mode. 

36. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Runnin' down the avenue, see how the sun shines brightly in the city....