Author: the outside lane

I work in a very diverse neighborhood, so I have a multitude of choices at lunchtime. This works out well because I love trying new food. The downside is how exhausting it can be to work up the nerve to walk into a restaurant where no one speaks your language fluently, where you can’t read the menu, and where you may not be sure of what you’ve ordered even after you’ve eaten it.

I thought I was ordering a simple lunch combo at one place, and ended up with the entire left hand side of a menu sitting in front of me. Food just kept coming!

Whenever I think about that, I think again about how brave people are to uproot themselves and their families, move across the world, and start new lives in places where no one speaks their language fluently, they can’t read the menus, and not even the television can communicate information effectively. That takes a lot of hope and faith in community.

I put some faith in Travelocity today, and booked one of their “super secret” hotel deals. I’ll let you know how that turns out.

I wasn’t sure how long I would have to wait to find out the results of my Listen to Your Mother audition.  It turned out I didn’t have to wait long at all.  Yay!  I have been announced as a cast member of the 2015 show in Austin!  Yay!

I am excited, and excited, and excited!

It is huge validation to know that my essay and performance were appreciated, but it thrills my soul that the work is about the respective awesomeness of my mother and my son.  Doesn’t get much better than that.

I went to do my Well Woman visit this morning.  It’s been a while.  See, my amazing doctor (the one who delivered Thor) decided to leave her practice, and I’ve been dragging my feet on finding a new one.  I went to another doctor within Amazing Doctor’s group, but we didn’t make a love connection.  I need to feel loved before you pop me with a speculum.

I went lady-doctor shopping by way of Google, and started calling around asking who was taking new patients, and who accepted my insurance.  I was pretty happy to find someone with an appointment within 10 days of my call, and at 7:30 in the morning.  Mama has things to do.  I can’t be sitting around waiting rooms.

Listen, the service I got this morning is what EVERY doctor appointment should be.  I was in the office, in the stirrups by 7:45, and walking down to make an appointment for a mammogram by 8:15.  The mammogram shop had an opening, so they took me right in, then I was back in my car, headed to work by 8:52.  When is the last time you’ve been in and out of a doctor’s office that quickly?  Zip, zip, zip.  I loved it!

When the perky, 20-something radiologist was smooshing my boobs into the boob smoosher, she asked, “Did you breastfeed your baby?”

I looked at the breast that the plexiglass device had turned into a sad, white pancake and said, “I did.  They used to look better before that.”

She laughed.  “That’s what I keep hearing.”

This was in keeping with my response to the lady-doctor’s question, “Have you noticed any changes in your breasts lately?”

I said, “Just gravity.”

My grandmother once told me to enjoy my chest while I was young because eventually it would end up looking like a couple of hard boiled eggs dropped into the toes of wet stockings.  Good old Grandma.  I’m still about forty years from fitting that graphic depiction, I think–I hope, but time does change a body.

At least the mammogram store had capes that looked nice on me.

If you’ve been putting off your lady visits, stop that.  Find a doctor and go get things checked out.

If you know someone who is medically underserved, or underinsured, have them check out the YWCA.  In Dallas, they help women by providing free mammograms.  If you know someone who can’t make time for self-care because it is cutting into her spa time, have her check out Methodist Hospital’s Monday Night Mammogram.  From valet parking to a chair massage, they are putting the aaaaaaaaah in mammogram.  There wasn’t an aaaaaaaaaaaah before, but now there is.  Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaahmmogram.

Whatever–Google Free Mammograms for your area, then go get yourself taken to second base.  You’ll be glad you did.

In 2013, at the Boston Book Festival, I met this fantastic woman, Jackie Hennessey, of Venting Sessions.  She was delightful, and sweet, and funny, and smart so we made friends.  She introduced me to Listen To Your Mother, having been a cast member in Rhode Island.  I told Robyn about it, and we both sent essays to the Austin show in 2014.

Robyn was an Austin cast member last year, and her remarkable essay will be part of the Listen To Your Mother book, which you can pre-order here.

This year, I sent in another essay.  This year, I was invited to audition.

Normally, I’m pretty public with things like that.  If I’m going to audition for something, I’m usually gabbling about it to anyone who will listen.  I get excited, and I get talkie.  I mean, I even post when I’m submitting manuscripts and collecting rejections by the pound.  I don’t know why this was different, but I only let a few people in on it.

As of this writing, I have no idea whether, or not I’ll be cast.  I think I made a fair showing.  I read well.  I didn’t disgrace myself, or faint, or freeze up.  I also was not stellar.  I walked out feeling very -enh- about my performance.

That I had nightmares leading up to it says all I need to say about how important it was to me, but my excitement at just having been asked to audition my piece says a lot more.  It was one of those rare events where it really is an honor just to be nominated.  It felt really good to present my work aloud, and to have an audience for the words I wanted to say.

I would say the piece worked because the laughs came in the right places, and the smiles softened when they were supposed to, and I gave it my all.

I would say that I need work because I have a terrible time claiming any kind of victory for my own creation.  I had to dork it up as soon as I was finished because I am so uncomfortable taking myself seriously in front of people.

Paraphrasing a line from my own essay, I know that failure isn’t losing, but failure is in refusing to play because you’re afraid to lose.  I never sit one out because I’m afraid to lose, but I blow a lot of raspberries at myself because I’m afraid to get caught enjoying a win.  It’s a lot easier for me to clown around and pretend to be a goof-up, than it is for me to admit I think I’m kind of awesome.

I am kind of awesome, whether I get cast, or not.

Last year, I sent an essay to 3 cities and go no calls.  This year, I sent an essay to two cities, and I was invited to two auditions.  I have my second audition this coming Saturday.  However it shakes out, I’ve already improved on my own record.  And however it shakes out, I’m proud of myself for trying again.

That’s what I want to model for my kid.  Enjoy the trying as much as you enjoy the winning, and you’ll never have to worry too much about failing.

Meanwhile, go pre-order the LYTM book because Robyn’s essay is so good!

It’s been quiet here, huh?

Quiet on the blog anyway. Since the last time I posted, Robyn Lane Books has released our first, full length novel (the fantastically well-received SECOND DEATH, by Emily Reese), brought together a baker’s dozen voices for a soon-to-be-released compilation of essays on motherhood (MOMMIE DIARIST), signed two new authors, and I’ve started art for our second picture book. I also completed another manuscript and am waiting to hear back from an editorial review board about the potential for its publication.  AND I still have that day job, the husband, and the child.  The last two are my favorite things.

I gave myself a couple of months off from major social media because I was tired.  I’m still tired, but social media is important.

Bear with me while I try to get a regular blogging pattern going again!

If you are in the DFW area, mark your calendars for Saturday, April 11.  Robyn and I will be in Denton at the North Texas Book Festival with the Robyn Lane Books catalog and Emily Reese, who will be signing copies of SECOND DEATH.  I will also have my own books available.  It’s our first festival, so I’m very excited to see how it goes.

Meanwhile, get your copy of SECOND DEATH.  It’s a really good book.