Category: Uncategorized

Because you know you want to know.

I am currently reading two books. Slummy Mummy, by Fiona Neill, and Neon Angel: A memoir of a Runaway, by Cherie Currie. Very, very different.

The first focuses on Lucy, an English stay at home mom, who is questioning her place in the world now that Fred, the youngest, is in nursery school. The second is the story of Cherie Currie, the oft copied, never quite bested inspiration for and singer of The Runaway’s hit, Cherry Bomb. I am enjoying both equally.

When I was a kid, I loved Joan Jett. She was my favorite to roller skate to at the Forum Skate. Joan Jett songs would come on, and I would race out onto the rink and go as fast as I could, singing along as loudly as I could. Not your average eleven year old when it came to my musical tastes, I guess. I also loved the Bloom County version of her, Tess Turbo. I loved Lita Ford. Of course I loved the Bangles and Micki Steele (who was in an earlier iteration of The Runaways.) I never knew much about Cherie Currie, though. It’s always interesting to find out how the rock-n-roll sausage is made, and Currie doesn’t pull any punches. Anyway, she had me at Thin White Duke.

What I love about Slummy Mummy, is that Lucy seems very real. Yes, she has the cutesy foibles of a Bridget Jones, but somehow they don’t seem as contrived. Lucy just happens. But while she is happening, she is also remarking on the wonders of motherhood, the wonders of loving a good man, and the wonders of how you can be perfectly happy and want to punch everyone in the nose all at the same time. She makes empathizing easy.

Recently, I read Citizen Girl, from the makers of The Nanny Diaries. It was all right. It made me think. That’s good. Not particularly well written, but also not badly written. I preferred The Nanny Diaries as far as characters go, but Girl was a decent way to spend three lunch hours.

When I finish the current books, I am on to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke. My husband has suggested it, and he has fairly good taste.

Er… I’ve been busy?

I have, and I haven’t. Since June, I haven’t had access to this blog from my office–I did most of my blogging from work in my downtime. Since August, when Thor started school, our whole schedule has shifted. This means that by the time I get home, get dinner on the table, get the boy’s homework done, and get him ready for bed, I have completely forgotten I ever had a blog in the first place. This is why I will never be a paid blogger.

Today, I am sitting in the hallway, outside of the bathroom, giving Thor some privacy while he bathes (but still indulging my concern about his well being. He’s out of sight, but I can hear everything.) I have already run through all the usual pages I read, and thought it might be a good time to update. Of course, having sat down to write, I find I have nothing to say.

Rather, I have plenty to say, but not anything I want the whole world to know. And this being the internet…

I do have a book deal now. My writing partner (who is the go-getter of the two of us), has been submitting our work for publication for a decade. Someone finally bit. Maybe this time next year, I’ll have a book out. Meanwhile, I am waiting to learn what happens in the editing process, and wondering how much the book will resemble what we actually wrote.

I am trying to keep a lid on my excitement, having been a frequent target of Murphy’s Law and all, but it keeps boiling out of the pot.

And that’s all I’ve got for now.

BODY { BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; MARGIN: 4% 10%; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; DIRECTION: ltr; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.2; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; FONT-FAMILY: verdana; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff } TABLE { FONT-SIZE: 10pt }

My line of work is almost entirely customer service.  Yes, there are the technical aspects at play, but 90% of every transaction boils down to the human element.  I see happy people, sad people, patient people, angry people, weird people, demented people, prepared people, and people who are so intimidated by the technical aspects of their transactions that they are beside themselves.

I just encountered such a person and I think that really hit me for the first time.  Some of these people aren’t mean, angry people.  They are intimidated, scared people, who are reacting to their own fears and ignorance, faced with mile long numbers, forms, tick boxes, buttons, and whirlygigs.  They don’t know what to do, so when they turn their faces to me, they look like ogres.

I can either choose to react to their upset, or I can choose to be the patient expert and walk them through the ordeal.  I like being an expert.   

BODY { BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; MARGIN: 4% 10%; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; DIRECTION: ltr; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.2; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; FONT-FAMILY: verdana; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff } TABLE { FONT-SIZE: 10pt }

The formatting is wonky, but it is still a word processor and I can send directly to my blog, so I am not complaining at all.  Two words for you:  Zoho Writer.  Google it.  Love it.  Make it your own.

Now, with much less exuberance, a high school classmate of mine was killed in a freak accident over the weekend.  Attending a minor league baseball game, she was fatally struck by a line drive foul over third base.  She is survived by her husband, two daughters, and their extended families.  My deepest sympathies are with them.

I always thought W was a beautiful girl.  She had amazing thick, curly, red hair, and was the first girl I knew to wear a banana clip.  When W wore a banana clip, her hair looked like a molten waterfall–it was glorious.  I sat behind her in Biology and used to stare at her hair, blowing my own limp bangs up out of my face in despair. 

Once, I asked her how she got her hair to do that.  She showed me the banana clip.  I bought one.  As you can imagine, my baby fine, barely jaw length bob did not look as lovely as her shoulder length mane of wild curls.  So I went and got an asymetric cut and wrote emo poetry.  Oh my lord, did I write the emo poetry.  Did you know I was the editor of the literary magazine one year, and co-editor for two more?  Three years of wailing teen agony.  I got sent to the school counselor Senior year because my English teacher thought my six word poem was a suicide note.  (It wasn’t.  It was just twee.)

Obviously, I did not know W well.  I only knew her looks and that she did well in class, and that she was well loved by her friend group–a group that stayed close to this day.  I am sorry for their loss, as well as her family’s.

My heart also goes out to the player who was at bat.  How hard is it going to be for him to step up to the plate again?  I hope he is okay.

My fear of sharks in swimming pools is strange. I am only really afraid when doing the crawl, or when I can’t touch bottom, and then it is worse when my feet are exposed. I blame the first chapter of Jaws. Since I like to swim the crawl, and since I have been having some mild panic at the gym, I decided to get some new swim fins. See, with fins on, my toes covered, I feel better. But I can hardly wear full sized fins in a lap pool. Solution? Kiddie fins.

I wear a pretty small shoe. I can wear a child size 4. I found myself a little fin/mask/snorkle set. Problem solved! I can swim happily ever after. Especially considering it is a Disney princess set.

That’s right. I am rocking Disney princess fins at the gym, along with my serious speedo, serious swim cap, and serious racing goggles.

If any of you run across a twitter feed with a woman of this description, please let me know. I want to enjoy being gymtertainment.