Everybody who knows me knows I suffer from exhaustion. I’ve been to endocrinologists and have had my blood tested and got the meds for thyroid difficulties. For a couple of months when I first got on the meds, I felt fabulous (and started losing weight steadily, and started having more energy—not amphetamine-level energy, just “It’s 3pm and I’m still awake” energy). Then the effect wore off, even though my blood work showed that my thyroid levels were now normal.
Endless exhaustion makes for a boring day and even worse conversation with friends, so I don’t make it a topic of conversation constantly. A few times I’ve solicited ideas for things to try. One friend recommended acupuncture highly, and so I went in for a few treatments…which did, as far as I can tell, absolutely nothing. I’ve begun running again, and, while I have recovered some from my long running layoff, exercise still makes me tired. (Seriously, the next person who cheerily says, “Oh, isn’t exercise just the best for giving you energy!” is going to get slapped.)
My running bud Rob suggested two things, neither of which I really wanted to do: give up coffee (my only caffeinated beverage) and go on a low-carbohydrate diet. I don’t mind giving up starches, but I really, really like my desserts.
You can get to the point, though, where you’re willing to do and try anything. Which is why I now take several fish oil capsules a day, to get a lot of Omega-3, in addition to several other pills: amino acids, vitamins, etc. And I drink raw milk (1 cup every day, to wash down said vitamins and minerals and amino acids) and I’m avoiding white bread (not all that hard) and I have no sugar in the afternoon (harder). I still drink coffee but probably much less than I have been, and if my local coffee place doesn’t get Yrgacheffe in soon I’m going to find it easy to avoid making it at home.
I’m feeling a little better. I don’t feel like running a marathon come 3pm, but I haven’t curled up on the couch for a nap recently either.
I still like a croissant from Fleur de Cocoa now and again though. I wonder if I could get to the point where I punt that too.
Well, except for the whole surgery thing, and I signed up for that.
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I have a literary agent for my mystery novel!
Many writers have posted minute by minute updates on their searches for agents. I haven’t done that, for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is: I much prefer to announce results than process. Also: a lot of the things these writers post are, in a word, foolish. Don’t keep posting who you’ve been turned down by. Don’t keep posting who your “dream agent” is and how everyone else is just completely unimportant. People (such as, I dunno, agents) read these things. Really.
Anyhow: I sent my first query February 18, my last one April 3. I sent out 25 altogether and still haven’t heard from 10. One reason you have to query a lot — emails get lost! It was a nerve-wracking process that involved a membership to Publisher’s Marketplace (do yourself a favor: get one and stop worrying about it) and research and discussion. Other sites that have been invaluable are QueryTracker and AgentQuery. Get yourself the premium membership to QueryTracker; the extras are worth it and you’re investing in a great site. (And the forums have a lot of great, helpful, fun people who will help whip your query into shape.)
I have to sign and fax off the agent agreement. Whee! Happy dance!
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We surprised the kids with a Spring Break trip to Disneyland. We stayed at the Grand Californian, which is their big fancy new hotel outside of California Adventure. All of the rooms at Grand Californian either come with two twin beds or bunk beds; we got bunk beds and the kids had the time of their lives. The week cost a fortune — Disney has perfected the art of attaching a vacuum to your wallet — but the four of us had a great time together.
We discovered Sophia is Ms. Roller-coaster Girl.
The best thing we did was go to the fireworks one night — wow, do they know how to do fireworks — and then go to a late night cruise through the Pirates of the Caribbean.
We knew the kids were as exhausted by the whole thing as we were when on Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon we said, “Kids, we’re really sorry, but we have to go back to the hotel room to lie down,” and both kids said, “Yay! Us too!”
I can see doing this kind of vacation again.
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I had shoulder surgery last Monday. My left shoulder has been bothering me for about a year, and in the past couple of months it’s gotten worse and worse. It was finally diagnosed for certain as “calcified tendonitis,” which means calcium was building up in the muscles and tendons over where the arm meets shoulder. The bone had also rubbed into the muscle, causing a little hole. Turns out lots of people I know have had this had used physical therapy to cure it, but I decided to get the surgery.
I had thought it was going to be a short procedure with little to no recovery time. I almost had it right before we left for Disneyland.
Ha!
Turns out I got general anesthesia for an hour and a half procedure. When I was done I was all bandaged up and brought home, still groggy. I don’t remember much of the first night, other than I was so seriously impressed with the cold therapy machine they sent me home with: you wrap the plastic end around the injured bit, you load the cooler with ice and water, and a motor forces ice water to the plastic end, meaning you have a cold wrap for hours and hours. That was pretty nice.
Tuesday was horrible: the pain meds wore off, and the pain meds I had (including Vicodin) didn’t seem to do anything for me. I was home and could barely do anything for myself, because not only could I not use my left arm, I basically couldn’t use my left side. At night I couldn’t get comfortable, and I was up until 3am crying about what a stupid decision I’d made to have this damned surgery, because I was in pain and uncomfortable and never, ever going to feel good again.
Wednesday I slept on the couch a lot.
Thursday the doctor removed the gigantic bandage on my arm, replacing it with 5 bandaids. While moving my arm too much still hurt like a mofo, I started to be able to do many more things.
Saturday I went to a wedding. I kept my left arm plastered to my side, but I felt pretty good all night, and not just because of the open bar.
I haven’t taken painkillers in days (actually, that’s not true, I took one last night, but I hadn’t taken one since Saturday before last night), and while I can’t raise my left arm up, I am able to do lots more.
When the three weeks of recovery is up, I think I’m going to be thrilled I had this surgery.
If I ever do anything like this again, I’m getting prescriptions for sleep meds so I can just sleep through the agony of Day 2, though.
I set up a Google Alert with my name. Apparently I am a spokeswoman for the Connecticut Lottery spokeswoman and a labor market consultant. Which is so cool, ’cause I thought I was horrifyingly underemployed.
I originally spelled “Connecticut” as “Connecticult.” Ira Levin lives!
Spring has hit our household with a vengeance. We finally said, “It’s time,” and bought the kids their Serious Bedroom Furniture sets. They had been living with Ikea specials, which are great for little kids, who are quick on the draw with markers, stickers, and who knows what else. However, after seven years of doing their worst, the kids defeated the Ikea furniture decisively (and they used penalty kicks for good measure).
What this meant was: We had to totally and completely take all of the crap out of both kids’ rooms—both the one they were sleeping in and the one meant to be Simon’s room but was mostly a storage area. We had to get Sophia’s room (formerly: both kids’ room) painted. We cleaned the rooms out and moved the new furniture in. Both rooms look fabulous. Sophia loves that she can stay up and read without keeping Simon awake. Simon loves having his own space (although it took him a night to adjust to being by himself).
Our dining room, however, is a mess, stacked with boxes and boxes of kid-crap we have to go through and sort into keep and, more likely, throw out.
Darin also finally went through our boxes and boxes (and boxes) of comic books. We’re keeping one bookshelf worth, and tossing 7 or 8 book boxes full of comics. That’s a lot of comics. I called a local shop to ask about trade-ins for our comics, most of which are 10-15 years old, primarily Vertigo stuff. “Gotta be honest,” he said. “The trade-in for recent stuff is pretty dismal.” But…you’ll take ‘em, right? ‘Cause this is 7 or 8 boxes full of comics and I really don’t have a garage to store them in.
Also part of spring: getting the termite killers in. Oy. This involves several days of them ripping up floors and putting stuff in the walls of the house and hammering on everything, it appears. Lots of hammering. I don’t know how I’m going to write with this nonsense going on.
Speaking of writing: I’ve begun the time-honored tradition of querying literary agents for my mystery novel. The first week, I queried three agents, as sort of a toe-in-the-water beginning. One agent rejected me immediately… and then another one asked for a partial! Whoo hoo! I thought. A 66% response rate per week! That rocks!
Needless to say, I’ve queried more, and haven’t gotten one additional response. This is what I get for hubris. However, my March horoscope sounds very promising. Of course, their job is to sound promising. I’m keeping an eye out for developments on March 7.
In case you’re doing research on where, how, and who to query, here are some sites to check out:
Query Tracker: make lists of the agents you want to query, keep track of when you queried them, and how and when they responded.
Agent Query: listings of just about every reputable agent in the biz and what they represent.
Publishers Marketplace: who’s selling what to whom and for how much. Invaluable. Yes, it costs. You can subscribe to the free lunch newsletter, but access to PM’s archives is wonderful.
I don’t really use horoscopes to judge how well something is working out. I use Tarot cards.
I’m workshopping my new novel, an urban fantasy, at Critique Circle. It’s free to join, and so far I’m seeing thoughtful, intelligent critiques. If you don’t have a writing group but you want to try out your stuff on other people, check it out.
I don’t really use Tarot cards either. But boy, they’re pretty and fun and good for generating story ideas.
The other night, Darin and I headed to Oakridge Mall down in San Jose to a)go to Cheesecake Factory to eat their yummy new Fried Chicken Slider appetizer as our dinner and b)go to the movie theater and see the Spiderwick Chronicles, to see if it was okay for the kids. The sliders were indeed yummy, and then we went to buy tickets.
The movie showing was not up on the gigantic LED board.
We went to the ticket seller.
“We cancelled that showing,” he told us.
Then the family behind us walked up and said, “Don’t you have an 8:25 showing of Spiderwick Chronicles?” and he had to explain again.
I have never heard of a theater canceling a showing. Certainly not at one of these big mall theaters. Once again: I learn something new every day.
So we went to Borders, where we spent an inordinate amount of time and money on books (like we don’t have any around here already…). We started a basket and periodically walked by to drop a few new books into it. On one round, I excitedly showed Darin my new find.
You may have heard about this storm that blew into California recently. All over California at the same time, which is as neat a trick as you are likely to see. Usually the storm has to blow into one part and then move across or down to another part the next day, because we’re a really big state. Apparently, this storm knows from big.
Yesterday our power went out at 9:30am, so I called the painting guy I had an appointment with and said, You know, it’s cold and dark here, let’s postpone. He said, Yeah, I’ve kinda been wondering if I even want to leave my office today. I didn’t need any extra pushing — a café! With lattés and music and people going by! Just what I need on a stormy day!
The lights kept going out at Coffee Society.
I drove back home, where I discovered the Borders was closed and the local café was dark (though packed with people, hilariously enough — no idea what they were all drinking). I bought some sushi at the local market and drove around. Branches down everywhere. I saw one car that had been crushed by a falling tree (wish I’d gotten a picture of that). I listened to a lot of my podcasts of “Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me (the NPR news quiz)” and eventually went to Club Swanky, where the kids were having a holiday day camp. They both seemed okay with having to stay at the club even past the end time of the camp, but by 3pm both of them were like, Time to GO, Mom.
So, what to do? I took them to see Alvin and the Chipmunks, which was cute (not a good movie, per se, but cute, and the kids really liked it). Then we looked for a restaurant — many of them were closed by power outages. I called home, and the voicemail picked up immediately, which meant the power was still out.
We ended up back at the Pruneyard, where everyone had decided to go for dinner last night, so we waited a long time for a table. During dinner, Darin and I decided we should stay at a hotel that night, so he phoned around to a couple of hotels. Nothing doing: either full up, or closed for remodeling.
We drove home, I found one of our flashlights in the pitch black, and I packed us an overnight case. We drove to the hotel around the corner from our house, where they gave us a so-so room (what the hell, we had a place to sleep and it was warm). The kids were at Defcon 5 for a while, until they actually lay down, at which point they were asleep.Darin and I watched the news for a while. Nothing about the Storm of the Century. Lots about Britney Spears, though. Yay.
I also apparently missed some story about tigers at the zoo, but that’s okay: I don’t need to know. Affects my life not at all.
In the morning I called home and the phone rang, which meant the power was back on. So we did what anybody would have done: we went out to find breakfast somewhere. Then we came home, where the kids have permission to play video games all day and have taken us up on that proposition.I hear massive thunder overhead. If we lose power again, though, we’re staying here. A night’s sleep with absolutely no distractions from lights will do us all a world of good.
The kids’ obsession recently has been World of Warcraft, to the point where they were continuously fighting over who got to play. “You played last! It’s my turn!” “No, you played! It’s mine!” (This is how they play: they start a character, do all the intro quests, lose interest, start another character. Sophia has shown great fortitude in getting a character all the way to level 15.) So, finally I came up with this rule: Sophia was born on an even day, so she plays on even days; Simon was born on an odd day, so he plays on odd days; only Mommy gets to play on the 31st.
And this plan, almost unbelievably, seemed to work out just fine.
My current obsession has been Doctor Who. The third season has been playing here, and I love it so much that, while I can pass on watching anything until a few days have gone by, Friday night I am right there in front of the TV. (Albeit, after it’s TiVo’d—can’t stand commercials.) I have recently become so into it I a)joined NetFlix (nope, hadn’t been a member before) and b)queued the first two seasons to watch at home. I’d never seen any of the Christopher Eccleston ones, and we missed about half of season two.
The day my first NetFlix movies arrived Sophia had a friend over, and they were off playing in her room, while Simon stayed with me. He, of course, wanted to play World of Warcraft, but it wasn’t his day. So I said, “Hey, wanna watch Doctor Who with me?” We snuggled on the couch and I put the first disc in. And it was hilarious—FTW: “If you’re a space alien, how come you sound like you’re from the North?” “Lots of planets have a North!” (Eccleston has a northern British accent you could cut with a chain saw). Simon thought it was the greatest thing ever.
The next day Simon said, “Can we watch another one?” and Sophia said, “Another what?” So she sat down to watch the Doctor and Rose get into various messes.
The day after that, when I got home with the kids, the first thing they asked was, “Can we watch another Doctor Who?” No one mentioned World of Warcraft. It was somewhat blissful. Of course, now my DVDs have run out and I have to get the next set post-haste.
But when the Doctor’s in the house…no Warcraft! Yes!
After two incredibly busy weeks, the Third Annual Foothill College New Works Festival comes to an end. I can’t believe it — I remember looking at the summer of rehearsals and going, Wow, this is going to take forever, and like every time you have that thought: Poof. It’s over.
The whole experience was fabulous. Watching the director work with the actors, seeing the actors try various things, sitting through several rehearsals of not only my show but others to see how they were coming together: priceless. Also, my critical faculties zoomed way up during the process — as I told Mary Ann during our drives to and from Foothill, I was itching to get out my red pen and edit everyone’s play, not just my own. “Give me a chance, I’ll take out five minutes from everyone’s play!” I said. (This wasn’t an option for any of us; final edits were due July 24: they were not chancing playwrights rewriting up until opening night.)
The only thing that had me really, really worried was that the show was really, really long (two and a half hours, including intermission) and my play was last. Why was mine last? Was this a comment on my play? Would the audience even stay that long to see mine? (Seriously, I can overanalyze anything.) I liked the friends who told me mine was last because you always save the best for last. I have no idea how in fact the show order was chosen, but that explanation suited me just fine.
And then, August 10, the birthday of moi, the New Works Festival opened. I discovered that I can’t see a play as if for the first time: all I could see was where the actors did something different, or missed a line. Why didn’t the audience laugh at that? Or, why did they laugh at that line, that was never funny before. I couldn’t accurately judge what the audience thought of any one play, but they sure seemed to like the evening overall. The actors had so much more energy with an actual audience there. Lines went faster, action became more electric. Theater is a participatory sport, whether or not the audience knows it.
Darin went to the show on Saturday night.
Darin’s special genius is being able to honestly assess things for what they are, point out their strengths, and analyze their weaknesses. This turns out to be a very marketable skill (as you might imagine), although a couple of times it’s really, really annoyed some people; they don’t want to hear criticism, they just want to hear how great everything is. If this is what you want, Darin is not your guy. I don’t show everything I write to Darin, because if I ask him what he thinks, he’s going to tell me. Only when I’m sure I’m ready to hear it do I ask.
When he came home from the show, he said, “I’m not sure which was the best, yours or (other play), but I liked both of them for (list of reasons here).” And you have no idea how much that critique meant to me. We discussed some of the other plays too, and he had much the same take on most of them that I did. I’m sure if I would have let him, he would have done an analysis of my play that would show me where I could strengthen it and explain a bit more, and which parts I could cut but I didn’t ask and he’s not going to volunteer (because he likes being married and he knows my process by now).
My friend Rob went with Darin Saturday and told me he really enjoyed it too, particularly mine. He even said, “You should write more of these,” which was nice to hear. And he even explained to me why mine was last: “no dull moments…
perhaps not every joke worked, but one had not time to ponder it because, hey, here’s the next one.”
So, it’s all over now. Alas. I am quite fired up to finish a full-length play and submit to a few festivals. The Foothill Playwriting class starts Sept. 26 — if you’re looking for a great writing class with a committed (and committable) bunch of writers in it, I highly recommend it.
I woke up this morning at 4:30, when it was finally cold enough in the bedroom to close the window, and I noticed Darin had not yet come to bed. Three options: he was working, he was playing World of Warcraft, he had fallen asleep in front of the TV. I was rooting for the second two, which made me suspect it was the first one.
The alarm went off at 6, Darin was asleep. I got up and started getting ready to go run. By the time Rob arrived at 7, the kids had come downstairs and I told them they could watch TV for a while, or, if they got hungry, Sophia could get them cereal and milk. They were only to bother Daddy if there was a)blood or b)fire. Rob and I went out for a good eight mile run. Despite starting at about 7, the creek trail was already packed — it’s like a thoroughfare for pedestrians, bicyclists, strollers, dogs (being walked), and runners. Luckily Rob and I don’t move very fast, so there were no collisions.
When I got back Sophia announced that she wanted to have a picnic in the park, which I thought was a faboo idea. Much better than yesterday’s plan, which was mostly “Everybody sits around the house and plays lots of World of Warcraft, except Mommy, who wrote a little bit and also did the dishes” day. Darin woke up around 11, at which point I learned that he had in fact been up until 5:30 am working <i>and</i> playing World of Warcraft, which I thought was a neat trick. I made lunches. We eventually got our acts together and on our bikes. Darin had Simon on the trailer bike, Sophia had her own bike, and I packed all of our stuff and picnic gear into my Xtracycle. We spent a couple of hours at the park, which was beautiful: warm but not too warm, sunny, a nice cool breeze. Another perfect California day.
As Sophia and I were sitting on the picnic blanket, I looked over at the train, which runs in a giant loop around the park, and I said, “I remember when we used to go on that every week.” She shrugged and said, “I don’t like it any more. It’s too babyish.” It was kind of a sad moment for me, realizing my baby is growing up at top speed.
Darin biked home with Simon while I stayed with Sophia. Who proceeded to play in the sand area and soak her clothes and herself through. I texted Darin (texting! I understand why it’s so popular!) and told him to drive back to the park with a towel. He picked up Sophia and her bike, and I rode mine home. Now we’re sitting around the house again (Darin playing World of Warcraft, me in the kitchen writing) and I’m trying to psych myself up to go to the store and do food shopping. Now would be a good time for us to have minions.
Otto pinged me the other day and said, “You’ve had your iPhone for 8 days and there’s no post yet?”
Well, he has a good point there. So without further ado: my new iPhone!
The iPhone really is better than sliced bread. It’s better than sex. It’s better than chocolate. It does everything you want or need it to:
The iPhone makes coffee for you!
The iPhone will help you hash out story ideas, and sometimes even takes over the writing for you!
The iPhone will play with your kids and read them stories, while you dash out to the store to pick up a few staples!
Who wouldn’t want one of these things?
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But seriously folks.
I like my iPhone, I really do. I look forward to getting calls on it in a way I never did with my v60. I even look forward to missing calls because the voicemail is really much, much easier to use than old cell voicemail. (Pause for a moment of Homer-esque shuddering.) I don’t actually think the iPhone is better than sliced bread or sex or even chocolate sex, but it is better than my old phone. Syncing contacts: a snap. Uploading photos to have a really cool (and sharp-looking) wallet of photos of the kids: the only hard part is picking out which photos of the kids. I haven’t uploaded any videos to it because, well, I don’t have any videos. (Although I am thinking about getting the Ninth Doctor episodes of Doctor Who to check out while the kids are swimming.)
I haven’t had a problem with the Edge network yet. Sure, if I were on my Macbook and it took that long to get my mail, I’d probably be annoyed. But this is my phone, not my business machine. I’m not expecting to surf the web at top speeds. I’ve used the web browser to do such crazy things as a)look stuff up when I’m in Barnes and Noble and wondering, What was the name of that author again? and b)play iPhoneSudoku.
Do I recommend getting one? Hell yeah! If nothing else, baby needs a college fund! (Actually, two college funds. I think both of them are going to give college a shot.)
Do I say you have to have one? We don’t keep Kool-Aid frozen pops in this house, sorry.
Not sure what this is but just stumbled upon it and assumed that it was some kind of forum for...
