The Average Blogger

Learning to Think

It occurs to me that some of these long dry spells on the blog stem from long unventful spells in my life.  I tend to report on Things We Do and Stuff That Happens,  which I suppose makes me an Average Mind if you adhere to Eleanor Roosevelt's adage. I guess that's a step above being a Small Mind. 

This doesn't mean I don't have ideas. I do, plenty.  Along with opinions. But I am also part of the rational modern world, which means I realize the consequences of nattering on about political ideologies and religious positions in the public forum that is the Interwebz.  So I veer away from them in writing. 

This doesn't stop me from occasionally poking the bear on social media, I confess. I enjoy it now in a way I didn't used to be able to. I used to get so angry, so exasperated, so terribly frustrated by such exchanges, because they generally devolved to such infallible logic as, "It should be that way because I think it should be that way,"  or such sparkling repartee as, "You are a moronic Hitler-loving fascist," and those differing viewpoints were never really put across in such a way that I could give them any validity at all. I suppose my salvoes were probably equally infantile and irritating to the other side, although I never went so low as to call anyone Stalin.

 The difference, I suppose, can be credited to the Young Prince.  I spent many years answering his "Why" questions, and now that he has reached a certain age, those tables are turned and I have been trained to ask him the same thing, in an effort to get him to think more deeply on things. My forays into flame wars these days tend to be a series of questions, more than challenges.  "You think A? Why?"  And when they answer, if I haven't been distracted by Candy Crush or Scrabble, I follow up with, "Well, OK.  But if A,  then why do you not also believe B?"  I still wind up getting a lot of "It should be that way because I think it should,"  but my reaction to that has mellowed with age. Where it used to make me wish my head would explode, now it just makes me wish I could pat theirs, like an adorable child or a puppy.  An unattractively condescending attitude, I suppose, but much better for my blood pressure.  

And really, what is life for, if not to laugh at things that would otherwise make you crazy? 

This is also the approach we are trying to take with the YP's schooling.  We've always sort of tried to steer that way, but it became more of a conscious effort when we became responsible for his education. Coincidentally, I stumbled across a great article about this last week, that poses five great questions to ask kids.  I'd say four of them are great questions to ask of anyone you're in an ideological conversation with. 

-- What do you think?
-- Why do you think that? 
-- How do you know this?
-- Can you tell me more?

It seems to me that if you don't get good, solid answers to those, you have free rein to disregard anything else they have to say on the matter. (And if you can't answer those questions, perhaps you should explore your own positions more thoroughly.)  But that's me. I'm impatient.  Fortunately, the kid is doing pretty well on backing up his opinions. So far, anyway.  

Big Developments

Well, it's been a couple weeks and a couple thousand dollars, but I have much to report! 

1: We did, indeed, get a new washer.  The basement has not flooded since, I'm happy to report. I'm even happier to report that king-size bedspreads fit in the new washer without any trouble at all, which makes me very happy. 

2: Because that wasn't enough expense for a week, we made a down payment on a timeshare and membership at a resort fairly close to us.  It has a water park, golf course, skiing, hiking, trail rides, several pools and exercise rooms, a zip line, etc., etc.  And the condos are gorgeous.  We signed on for a one-bedroom, the floorplan of which has a giant jacuzzi tub in the bedroom and a queen-size foldout couch in the living room for the kid.  It is way awesome.  And the best part is you can make exchanges with sister resorts if you want; you aren't constrained to going to the same place the same week year after year. I'm very excited. 

3: We switched the Young Prince to a different doctor and drug regimen.  It's been an amazing change. He's been more cheerful, more laid back, more pliable — really, just more fun to be around. I sort of hate saying that, because he was fun to be around before. But with fewer things setting him off, everyone has relaxed a bit, I think.  He started math camp this week and loves it as much as he did last year. I haven't checked how far up the grade scale this camp goes, but I'd love to send him every year through calculus if they have it. He actually begged me to leave him at aftercare this week, which was a big change from drama camp the week before, when they couldn't wait to get rid of him and he couldn't wait to leave.  

And now, a funny story: 

The first day of math camp, I picked the kid up and one of the instructors comes up to me. He's about 800 lbs and pasty and I swear my whole body might fit in his big gut. And he starts in, "So your son and I were talking ...." 

On the Upswing

Well, I was waiting until I was in a more positive frame of mind to write something here, and it appears to have paid off.  Several waiting games are still being played, but we have at least seen some small movements on several fronts.

The Young Prince is well into his form of capitalism, which is to say that he now understands good deeds are rewarded and shoddy work is shunned.  He is paid in the form of poker chips which are redeemable for a dime at some later point in time.  He's up to about $8 right now, and I was thunderstruck when he said he did not want to spend it all on a milkshake but would prefer to keep going and buy a videogame. Deferred gratification is a bit of a stunner in my ADHD world.

He's writing more. I can't tell you how happy this makes me.  His penmanship is still for shit, but then, so's mine and I've got 30 years on him.

The writing conference was good.  It kicked me back into gear, not least because the agent I chose to talk to asked for three chapters and a synopsis.  So yay.  I was also pleased with the fact that doing research in advance led me to actually choose the agent I would have chosen in person.  She was the only one on the panel who seemed to have it all there: one was a bit too tree-huggy for my tastes, one said like she was in it for "a change of pace from writing books," and one was absolutely irritating with her arrogance; when someone asked how to bounce back from bad sales of a first book and how to convince Barnes and Noble to take a chance on selling your second, this one had nothing helpful in the way of how to pitch the second book capitalizing on what little good may have come out of the first, or altering one's marketing strategy, or looking for other sellers, or writing in a different genre, -- no, her advice was "write a better book."  I found that a bit insulting, as if the people in the room intentionally wrote/pitched/published a bad book the first time around.  (But in sharing this with others I have also been informed that I'm an ass for thinking this was unhelpful, so what do I know?)

Weight loss continues to be a slow if steady process. I'm down 10.  35 to go. If nothing else, I'm getting a hell of a lot more exercise these days.  The family put in a 5-mile hike yesterday, which wound up being a little longer than that after the dog took off on a spree and Not Your Average Blogger and I headed out to find her, leaving the tired and complainy YP where he was to wait.  As it turned out, he's the one Miss Amy returned to, and he also had the presence of mind to ask other people he saw on the trail if they'd seen her, and if they happened to find her later to please call the number on her tag.  We didn't tell him to do this; he just used his brain. I can't tell you how delighted this made me, especially when coupled with the fact that he'd up and started a load of laundry entirely on his own a few hours before. 

Even with the heart failure of the dog disappearing, days don't get much better than that.  Life is good, y'all.

Sigh.

Well, assorted other shoes have dropped. I feel like they all landed on my head.

Home: The Young Prince brought home 2 Cs, 2 Bs and 1 A on his report card, along with a note that said, "He is smart. He gets A's on the tests.  He answers the questions when I ask him out loud. But he doesn't finish his classwork, and he is disorganized and loses things."  In my "this ain't gonna fly" conversation with the YP, his response was, "Well, they aren't F's!"  Where the hell did I go wrong with this kid?? I think-- though of course, this is the YP so I can't be sure -- that by the end of the conversation he understood that in this house a C actually IS an F, and an F is grounds for being put up for adoption. Play rehearsals are still going somewhat well, at least -- although on Monday they introduced more kids to the cast and the boy was MUCH more interested in goofing off with them than doing his job. I think we squashed that urge, though -- the rehearsals since then appear to have gone better.  Not Your Average Blogger appears to be trucking along; it's nice that there is one fairly steady and consistent force in the otherwise looly Blogger household.

Personal: Got 3 rejections this week on the book. Better than the void, but obviously not what I'd hoped for.  In worse news, my computer hard drive crashed.  I lost the latest versions of both scripts, all my notes, my synopses, my query letters, my list tracking what agents I'd tried... along with a zillion photos (So Christmas 2011 and the YP's ninth birthday never happened, as far as that goes,) a bunch of blog ideas, addresses, passwords, genealogy stuff, old email exchanges and other manuscripts I also thought I might resurrect into something someday.   I was telling a friend that I'd much rather have had my wallet stolen than have this happen, because at least I can accurately identify every item in my wallet. I have no idea what-all I lost on that computer.  She said it's much more like having your house burn down, and I think she's exactly right.  Buy those flash drives, folks.  Jeezopete.

So now I need to figure out what I'm going to do next and what lesson to take from all this. NYAB thinks I'm insane for trying to divine messages from the universe, but I have to wonder: Is this the universe telling me I shouldn't be a writer? Is it dispensation? There's a part of me that would love to think this was a sign telling me it's OK to say "Yeah, fuck this noise. I'm going to use my precious personal hours pulling weeds in the flowerbed instead." But it feels so much like quitting, and that bothers me. Maybe it's just a slap to the head reminding me that my kid isn't the only disorganized dumbass in the family and maybe I need to fix my own self as much as I need to kick him to fix himself? ("Or maybe," I can imagine NYAB saying with exasperation, "it's just that your computer died. That sucks, but it does happen. No deeper meaning necessary; events do simply occur. Get over it.") Hmm.

There are two bright spots in all this.

1: I lost six pounds this week, and I'm not as unhappy about deprivation as I was. This is especially noteworthy given my proclivity to stress-eat. I don't know that I'll ever manage to alter that behavior to "stress starve" or "stress exercise" although I can certainly see how I'd benefit from either of those as far as the scale is concerned. 

2: We have conquered the pill thing.  The kid gulps them down like a pro now, almost as well as his dad, who takes more tablets and capsules than any non-senior citizen I know.  I told the YP this just proves that he can do anything we ask as long as he doesn't psych himself out. I don't know how we'll apply this to other endeavors, but I'm definitely counting it as a beautifully positive milestone in a tremendously negative week.  

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!