When we're sharing, we're happy. . .

If I were a smarter woman, I'd have answered your questions a few (like five) at a time, just to ensure myself future blog fodder for many posts to come. But I'm not smart. I'm pregnant. All previous intelligence has been eroded by estrogen. Or progesterone. Or whatever is causing the brain synapses to misfire.

Actually, they aren't even misfiring. They're not sparking at all.

Anyway, I'll have the answers to your last few questions when I return to my regular blog schedule next week. I bet you didn't even know I had a schedule, did you?

In the meantime, I had a very Merry Birthiversary and thank you to all of you who wished me one. I now own a bread machine that crouches in its unopened box and mocks me. Maybe tomorrow, Bread Maker. I got lots of other lovely little things to play with, use, or simply admire and I am well-content. I am not a cat person and don't identify with felines in any way but I admit, the image of a fluffy white kitty, fat and sassy, festooned with a shiny bow and resting on a satin pillow is an apt image to describe me right now. I am deliciously spoiled.

I even gave myself a gift this week. I wrote a page I am genuinely pleased with, one that when I re-read I thought, "Hm. Maybe I can write."

I"ll share it with you. It may not make very much sense to you because you don't know the characters, but I offer you lagniappe, an expression we use in Louisiana when we throw in a little something extra for you.

Without further ado, a page from my work-in-progress:

The best thing about church starting after lunch was the chance to sleep in on Sunday, which meant the sound of “Crazy Train” shrilling earlier than it should have irritated Sandy even more than usual. With a grunt, she groped through the pile of random paper scraps and magazines littering her nightstand to seize the offending cell phone. She tightened her grip on it, wishing for a split second that her fingers were wrapping around her mother's neck instead.


“Yes?” she grumbled.

“Good morning, Sand Dollar. I hope you weren't sleeping.”

“No, this is my wide awake morning voice,” she said, the evident frogginess in it underscoring her sarcasm.

“Well, it’s a beautiful day. You should probably thank me for waking you in time to enjoy it.”

She cracked an eyelid open far enough to see that the light coming through her window was weak and watery, definitely not a harbinger of a “beautiful” day. “I don’t know what health spa you’re calling me from, but I guarantee you it’s not in the same weather pattern as my apartment.”

“Oh,” her mother said, sounding nonplussed for a moment. “I’m in Sedona and it’s gorgeous here. You should really—”

“I’m not going to visit and I’m not awake enough to find a polite way to say that. Move on.”

“I just thought—”

“Magdalena, is this why you called me first thing in the morning? Because if it isn’t, could we just get to the point?”

Her mother was quiet for a moment and she felt a twinge of guilt for her abruptness. Magdalena cleared her throat and complied. “Since you don’t seem to want to come to me, I thought I’d come to you,” she said brightly. Too brightly. Sandy suspected her mother’s forced cheerfulness was designed to distract her from pointing out that she wasn’t invited.

Lingering guilt and sleep deprivation overrode her survival instincts for a moment and she found herself conceding ground she knew she would regret. “Sure. I’ll check my schedule and see when it looks clear.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” her mother trilled. Trilled! It had to be the crack of dawn in Sedona and she was still alarmingly chipper. “You’re too tied to that Blueberry of yours.” I-phone, Sandy corrected silently. “I already got a ticket. It’s all taken care of.”

That warning prodded her to wakefulness. “And when are you coming?” she asked.

“Tonight! Isn’t it wonderful?” More trilling. Sandy wasn’t taking the bait.

“Magdalena, this is the worst possible week. I have a hearing on Wednesday and I have to focus on that. I can’t take any time off.”

“Don’t worry, darling. If I had to wait for you to not be busy, we’d never get to visit. I’ll just stay in the background, quiet as can be. I can practice ‘spirit stillness.’ I learned about it in our focus and centering workshop yesterday.”

Feeling a flood of New Ageism about to crest, Sandy stepped in to stem the tide. “I promise to find time next month, maybe during the cherry blossom festival out here. I hear it’s gorgeous. But if ever there was a week where I will literally not have enough hours in the day, it’s this one. Just get a voucher. I’ll pay the cancellation fee.”

“I don’t know where all this negative energy you have is coming from,” her mother said, sounding wounded. “I just want to see my only baby girl. It’s been months and you haven’t accepted one invitation to come and visit. Well, I’m not willing to be a stranger so I’m actualizing my dream of a healed relationship between us by coming to see you. Am I really so terrible that I can’t even just make myself part of your backdrop for a few days?” Her voice sounded suddenly small and sad and somewhere inside, Sandy’s guilty conscience throbbed in a way that she knew wouldn’t quit until she gave in.

“All right,” she said, sighing. “But I’m warning you, I’m up against one of the craziest weeks of my life.”

“Sounds like I’m coming at just the right time then,” her mother said, sounding all smiles once more. Sandy smothered another sigh. Magdalena clearly wasn’t getting it.

“Give me your flight information,” she said. “I’ll be there.”

When she ended the call, she could already feel the first pulses of a headache behind her eye. Not the start to the week she’d been hoping for. At all.

All right, kiddos. If you're here, it's because you're following the (what's the antonym for saga?) tale of the Big Love disconnect I experienced on Saturday. I didn't want to take up the issue with the woman at the moment because it would have made more enemies than friends in that instance, but I emailed the author yesterday and this is what I said (oh, and I borrowed a good line from . . . I think it was InkMom):

Hi, *****.


I enjoyed meeting you at the Cerritos library mystery event on Saturday. I hope you had time to explore the library a little. It's really cool even though it gives me a chronic case of library envy.

I wanted to clarify a little bit of conversation we had before lunch began. When you asked what I write, I said, "Mormon chick lit." You said something about how it's good that there's a television show supporting the genre and you mentioned Big Love.

I didn't feel like it was appropriate to address it at the time as you had other people who wanted to chat with you, but I wanted to take a quick minute to correct something. Big Love isn't about Mormons. It's about people who call themselves Mormons but no true Mormon would recognize themselves in that program.

I guess I'd offer this analogy to explain: Let's say that I decided to wear a yarmulke and call myself Jewish. Then imagine I ran around indulging every perverse impulse I had but sanctioned it under the cloak of Judaism even though it had nothing to do with their religion.

The faithful Jews would be hurt and frustrated by my actions, and that's pretty much how Mormons feel about Big Love. Despite the label FLDS, there's actually no such thing as Mormon fundamentalism. You don't get to slap a label on your lifestyle when you appropriate it from a people and religion who in no way share or condone your beliefs. (And when I say "you," I don't mean YOU.)

The fundamentals of Mormonism are that God lives, his Son atoned for our sins, and all of us benefit from that gift. We also believe that God still talks to a living prophet, Thomas S. Monson, and through continuing revelation and careful study of the scriptures, including the revealed scripture of the Book of Mormon that strengthens what we already know from the Bible, every person can learn about God's plan for our happiness and how simple it is to live it.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and I wish you the best of success with your writing career.

Sincerely,

Melanie Jacobson

Stupid answers, cont'd

Kazzy wants to know what kind of toothpaste I use. I kick it very, very old school. I use the Crest paste that does not whiten or remove tartar or do anything more than baking soda and water would. That's what my dentist told me to use. It's surprisingly hard to find a toothpaste without all the bells and whistles. My second favorite after that is that kind that Emeril advertises. I don't remember the name but I liked the vanilla mint kind.

Terressa wants to know my favorite brand of chocolate. Great question! I really like the Trader Joe's milk chocolate bar right now but I always have a pound of See's chocolates on hand as a writing incentive. I fill it with all my favorite pieces and I never share. No one else is allowed to touch it and even I can only touch it if I've written at least a thousand words in a day. Needless to say, I've thrown some really bad crud down on paper some days in order to get my chocolate. And I don't mean that literally because I do all my writing on my laptop but that doesn't have the same ring to it and I'm a writer so I had to make the image work, see?

I will answer both Kelly O's and Aunt Linda's question the same way: I think you both know the answer to those questions. Let's let any of my other relatives who read my blog continue to live their dreams by not revealing the answer here, shall we?

Sarah wants to know the plus and minus of being a CODA. Sarah is a very, very cool girl who is deaf with hearing kids. CODA stands for Children of Deaf Adults. If you're new-ish around here, she's asking me this because both of my parents were deaf. By far the biggest minus was that it affected my relationship with my mom. This was for a lot of reasons but some of the simplest ones were things like how I couldn't pick up the phone when things got tough at college and talk to her about them. It just wasn't the same going through a relay operator to discuss stuff like that. Maybe it would be different now with all the technology advancements like videophones but this was when email was still like, "What's that?" Instead, I would pick up the phone and call Pawpaw (my grandfather). So I always had someone to talk to; it just wasn't my mom. Variations of this played out in many, many ways over the years. The best part of being a CODA (although it takes getting older to appreciate it) is that it teaches you great communication skills, especially because of all the interpreting you do for your parents where you have to figure out what people are really saying. Also, I learned to be independent at a very early age and most of my CODA friends did, too. At first, it totally bugged me but now I really appreciate it. Also a bonus: people think I'm cool for knowing sign language.

Luisa wants to know when I decided that I knew the writing life was for me. Tricky question. I've always been a storyteller and come from a long line of storytellers. Before I even knew how to write, I would stand by the side of my father's typewriter and dictate poems that he would type out for me. I still have some of those and for age six? They're pretty dang good. I remember writing a scary haunted house story in eighth grade that got passed around during earth science every day in a spiral bound notebook and everyone waiting for the next installment each day. I remember writing a very Poe-esque short story as a junior that was published in our school literary magazine. I quit writing any kind of fiction in college and didn't have much to do with creative writing again until I began teaching it. It was a question of time. I taught eighth grade creative writing for five years and I kept thinking, "I ought to write a book." Actually, I thought that all throughout college too, but again...no time. It wasn't until I stayed home full time that I felt like I would be wasting a God-given talent if I didn't take a stab at it and so I did. I've never had literary ambitions. I just want to tell good stories that people enjoy. I write with a lot of humor and I write characters that I understand very, very well. I have no designs on the great American novel. I just want to entertain.

Ambrosia wants to know how I keep my house clean on bed rest. The answer is, I don't. It's a mess. And I'm not actually on bed rest so that's even worse because I don't have an excuse. I'd say my husband actually cleans almost as often as I do and he definitely does the dishes more. But I cook a lot and I DO clean. There just tends to be a day or two a week where I don't get to it and I don't care. My house is clean about 70% of the time and I'm fine with that as long as I know it's not bothering my husband AND as long as I don't have company coming. But I figure if they find me in a messy house and judge me, Oh well. They're probably dead right most of the time anyway. I accept that as a consequence of putting other things first sometimes.

CaJoh wants to know if I feel I've grown as a writer over the years and whether or not blogging has helped or hindered my writing style. First, I've grown as a writer FOR SURE. My voice as a writer is much more authentic now. I don't read my stuff and think, "Wow. That sounds impressive." I read it and think, "Yeah, that sounds like me," and it's hard 1) to write that way and 2) to recognize when you are and aren't doing that. So it makes me happy that I can. I'm sure blogging has had some effect on my fiction, but I'm not sure what. I can't point to a direct correlation so I don't know if it's helped or not. I can say that my blogging has improved tremendously in the 18 months I've been at it because I found my voice here, too. My first three months of posts are especially cringeworthy but I like to see that I've grown. What I express is ME now, not a persona I was trying to define, like it was sometimes at first.

Kimberly asked if having two books accepted for publication changed the way I see myself. I love this question. The short answer is no. The longer answer is that I definitely feel validated and I guess there's been a change in the sense that I feel like a Writer now, not someone who writes. I should do a post about that some time because it's a very key distinction for me. However, the reason I'd say mainly no is...

Well, this all going to sound very arrogant, but I've answered all these questions truthfully so far and to keep that up here is going to preclude false modesty. Here's the thing. I have a lot of personal fears about whether people will like and accept me but if you were trying to figure out whether to hire for me a job, I'd be able to break down for you with astonishing accuracy exactly what my assets are and how to best use me. I don't have many doubts about anything I tackle professionally because I know I'll do whatever it takes to master it and I'm a total sponge. I love learning new things. To be fair, I don't tackle things that I don't have an affinity for. Hence, I am not and will never be a rocket scientist, fashion designer or preschool teacher. I would totally suck.

Writing was a little unnerving at first but I was pretty sure I had the talent for it; I just worked very, very hard to soak up enough knowledge to make sure I also had the skill. I KNOW how to learn. I read, I went to workshops and conferences, I listened, I asked questions and I applied. Each of my manuscripts has shown me how much I'm learning and growing. Each of them shows me how much I still have left to learn. But I DO see progress and that's what I expect from myself. I'm following the same M.O. I've always had when it comes to professional goals.

I know, that's incredibly boorish, right? But you asked. I feel a real sense of accomplishment and pride in being a published author, but not really any surprise. It wouldn't occur to me that I wouldn't achieve a professional goal I set for myself. That's why the inevitable setbacks in my writing career are probably going to hit me harder than they will most people, but I just truck along worrying about what I can control, not what I can't. I'm sure I'm in for some kind of breakdown when things don't go right in my writing career, but I don't know when that will happen and I can't expend emotional energy worrying about it. In the meantime, just know that the moment I got my acceptance from my publisher, it was truly magical. It's a blessing to occupy a space in time where you are feeling your dream come true.

Migillicutty wants to know what kind of shampoo I use. I use Pantene. Sometimes I use Head and Shoulders when my scalp won't cooperate. And I use a fantastic Bumble and Bumble conditioner that actually helps with my incredibly dry hair.

And oh, my goodness, I have BLATHERED again. I'll save the last few questions for my next post. Tomorrow (or whenever Christmas Eve is for you when you read this) is my birthday and I'm going to be soooo self-indulgent. I'm not exactly sure how this is different from say, your average Tuesday, but I will say that I will consider each comment tomorrow as a birthday present from you to me and I thank you in advance. Merry Christmas, all!

Everything you never wanted to know

After receiving a few comments, I went back an reread what I wrote. It sounds SUPER cranky. I don't know why because I don't feel cranky at all so I plead pregnancy, but I'm going to let the post stand because it took so long to write. However, please know, I wasn't directing these AT the person who asked the question. I guess I'm feeling a wee bit feisty today, so no one take these personally, okay? These were actually really fun to answer.

I didn't know when I said you could ask questions that they would be HARD questions. Sheesh. (Kidding.)

All right, since Christmas is a season of love and forgiveness, let's all go ahead and forgive me now for not doing links. If we had to wait for me to do that, we would be waiting for a long, long time and the links still wouldn't get done.

Also, I should be working on my manuscript right now instead of blogging. Grant just went down for his nap (yes, I realize I just used his real name) and my two hour window of peace and heavenly quiet just opened up for writing. The problem is that I'm at the climax of a scene where my main character is about to destroy her competition in a Dance Dance Revolution type of contest and I'm having a hard time playing it for the proper drama and humor given that my character is a Jimmy Choo wearing diva. And no, I'm not making that up. I mean yes, I'm making it up in the sense that I write fiction, but that is the actual scene I'm working through right now. But I don't wanna. So maybe blogging will get me on a writing streak and after I answer your questions, I'll feel inspired to keep going with the Dance Dance smackdown.

Deep breath . . . and moving on . . .

Steph and Diapers and Divinity wants to know my favorite place I've traveled. Until I was thirty I'd never been anywhere interesting. Since then, I've been to Egypt, Italy, France, Scotland, England, and New York. Honestly, I think my favorite is NYC. It's as alive as everyone says it is. I want to go back badly. But believe me, none of those other places was chopped liver. There was something I dug about each of them. As far as where I long to go: Africa. Costa Rica. London. Scandinavia.

Don C. wants to know what kind of tree I want to be. I think Josi Kilpack did an excellent job of answering this on her blog already, but I'll take a shot at it. The last time I was asked this question, it was a journal prompt in my 11th grade English class. I said a live oak. Part of it was that I was only two months into a move to California from Louisiana and I was a little homesick. Mostly it was because I love those trees. They represent deep roots and wisdom to me. So I'm still going to go with a live oak. They're my favorite.

Jami wants to know my favorite childhood memory involving food. Again, I grew up in Louisiana so this is a rich, rich file in  my memory banks, but I'm going to go with jambalaya. My Cajun great-grandfather, who remained vigorous until his passing when I was seventeen, would cook up a tasty jambalaya a few times a year in a Dutch oven over a fire outside. I learned not to ask what the meat was (after he answered "squirrel" one time and meant it) but usually it was chicken and sausage. I remember running around the yard, playing with my cousins, and thinking that I would die if the jambalaya wasn't ready soon. Like a Memphis man with his barbecue skills, a good jambalaya or gumbo is the mark of a great Cajun cook. Grandaddy's was the best.

Kristina P., I don't want to be an inanimate object because I like having a brain. But I'll pick anyway. The first thing that jumps to mind is a clock. Not the Hoff's underwear. Sorry!

Josi wants to know what goals I have outside of writing and family. Okay, this is going to sound obnoxiously earnest, but when my kids are grown and gone, I think I'd like to get involved with a non-profit organization that focuses on empowering underprivileged women, helping them develop job and parenting skills, etc. Slight less lofty and long-term, I'd really like to learn to sew. I've taken a couple of classes but I suck. This is mostly due to a total lack of manual dexterity or my fingers being possessed of the devil. I'm not sure. Also, it's possible an extreme lack of patience is a contributing factor. Possibly.

Wonder Woman wants to know why having a girl is freaking me out, though she asked it much more nicely. All right, I'll tell you but just know that I'm pretty cool with it now. The biggest reason is that I taught eighth grade language arts for five years and I hate the DRAMA. I think spending one day in a classroom with a parade of crazy teenage girls all day long is about the most effective form of birth control possible. WARNING: You could birth one of these! Sadly, there seems to be girl drama at every age. I'm so NOT into drama that I'm sure my poor daughter's efforts to share it with me will be met with eye rolls which will only incite MORE drama, so I'm trying to figure out how to prepare for that. Secondly, I didn't have a close relationship with my mother or sister growing up. There was a communication barrier with my mom (she was deaf and it's not as simple as knowing sign language; there are cultural experience gaps to bridge) and I was five years older than my sister. Those relationships improved greatly as an adult but I was already biased against having a girl by the time we worked stuff out. Lastly, I have two boys. That's what I know how to do. Like I said, though: I'm pretty excited now.

InkMom wants to know why I'm a raging liberal. Kidding! She wants to know if it's hard for me to sit a little to the left of most Mormons and how I came to my opinions on things. A most excellent question. I'm a registered Democrat right now because I wanted to vote in the California primary. However, I consider myself an independent and usually register that way. I vote conservatively on some issues and not on others, but the key is that I take it issue by issue and candidate by candidate. Let me go ahead and offend the majority of you by stating the following opinion: I think it's ignorant to vote party just because. Now, is it hard for me? No. My parents always voted, and always took us with them, but never indoctrinated me into their point of view. I was staunchly Republican through most of high school and didn't discover until much later that my parents typically voted Libertarian or Democrat. Huh.

Anyway, they let us think whatever we wanted and set an example more through their regular voting and keeping up with current events than by orating. You're absolutely right that I own what I believe, but I DO NOT engage in debates with people. I share my opinions when asked but the most publicly liberal I'll usually get is to espouse my devout hatred of Fox News. Otherwise, if someone wants to know what I think, they have to ask. I flatly refuse to argue about it. I'm a very good listener to other people's points-of-view. I'm not interested in changing anyone's mind. I resent people trying to change mine. I get my information from the BBC online, CNN and USA Today online, and NPR. And strangely, The Daily Show. And no, I'm not going to argue about or defend that, either. When I don't understand something, I ask people who know. I read. So no, it wasn't hard for me to reach my opinions on most issues. Some, yes. Some I still struggle with. But I don't shove my opinions down anyone else's throat and I'll shut down anyone who does it to me. I listen only when I can tell someone is well-informed whether I agree with them or not. Then it's just interesting instead of maddening. And in case anyone is wondering, I'm not liberal. I'm boringly moderate.

Whew! I'll go for an even ten and answer three more today.

Amber Lynae wants me to share my most embarrassing public bathroom story. Um, I used to have serious stomach issues that regularly turned me temporarily Catholic while I mumbled Hail Marys and raced to find a public restroom at all too frequent intervals. But the one that comes to mind is a Vegas weekend with my friend Colleen. We were driving through Old Town Las Vegas when I suddenly and desperately needed a bathroom. She raced to the nearest casino and I ran through wildly searching for a bathroom. When I finally found one, the only open stall was the handicap one. But I was desperate so I took it. Within a couple of minutes a little old black lady (and yes, her color matters because they chew you out SO much more effectively than little old white ladies do) starts banging on the door, demanding that I come out. She went on and on for several minutes because um, so did my stomach. When I finally came out at the earliest possible moment, she was super livid to discover that I was a youngster taking up the handicap stall, and let me know fifty different ways that I should be ashamed of myself. She even tattled on me to the bathroom attendant. So that was fun.

Sue wants to know if Kenny is the only guy I was ever engaged to and how he proposed. Well, he's the only guy I've ever been engaged to because he's the only guy I ever said yes to. I think he was about the fourth or fifth guy that wanted to marry me, but he's the only one I wanted to marry. Mind you, I was 32 when I got married, so my inherent awesomeness is only part of the reason for the other offers. Mostly it was just due to the law of averages. I went out with so many guys over time, every so often one of them got it in their heads that they might want to marry me. As for how he proposed, it was on one of the lifeguard towers on the beach at sunset. Apparently, that was Plan B, though. Plan A involved writing a song and a monkey riding a goat, and I'm not making that up. It's a long story or I'd tell it, but I really liked Plan B. It was actually more like dusk and when he opened the ring box, it had a light in it and it made the ring all shiny and awesome.

L.T. Elliot wants to know if I get pedicures or do it myself. Oh, I most certainly DO NOT do them myself. That would be an exercise in total frustration. Once a month (if I'm lucky), I go to the little place around the corner and sit in their lovely massage chair while they work on my poor, abused feet. I also usually get a French manicure that chips after a couple of weeks, so then I strip it off and have naked fingernails for two weeks until I can sneak away to indulge again. I figure I'm worth the $25 a month and so does Kenny, so it all works out.

Oh, man. I think that's quite enough for all of us today. Maybe I'll take on the other half tomorrow. Although, tomorrow is my anniversary. And Wednesday is a girl day with my friend. And Thursday my birthday and Christmas Eve....

Hm. I think tomorrow will work. In the mean time, don't hold your breath. This Christmas, I'm all about committing to as little as possible. It's been a fantastic holiday.

Yadda yadda yadda

I feel like I want to say lots and lots, but . . .

I've got nothing to say.

It doesn't happen often, but it does happen.

So. . . let's play twenty questions.

I'll answer the first twenty questions I get from you guys in the form of a blog post (assuming they're somewhat appropriate *cough, cough Kristina P and DeNae) so then I'm telling you what you want to know and not just something that falls out of my head because it got displaced by my grocery list or something. Otherwise, I may be forced to recount cute stories about my two-year-old's adventures in language acquisition this week. These stories are hilarious if you're there, sort of funny when you hear them retold, and don't translate at all into writing. And actually, kind of reflect badly on me as a mother because one of them involves his mastery of the phrase "French fries" when I tried to sneak an empty McDonald's bag that he recognized on sight. I swear I don't go that often.

So go ahead, ask. I'll answer. Probably.

Oh, and just so you know, I have to start going to the hospital twice a week for some kind of test. She (the midwife, which is not nearly as granola-y as it sounds) didn't tell me the name of it but I think it's a non-stress test. Now, that's not grand news, but it's certainly not bad news. Baby and I are fine and I'm not on bed rest, so I can deal with a bi-weekly hospital visit. Maybe, since I have to leave Baby G with someone when I go, I'll pretend I'm at a spa for those thirty minutes. Oooh, and I bet I'll get lots of reading done. I'll snap my fingers occasionally and demand ice chips or those lemon swabs hospitals always leave lying around. Nurses love that. And the first time the nurse sets me up on my little monitor and leaves, I'm going to stick cucumbers on my eyes and recline so it makes her laugh when she comes back.

Um . . . I have no idea where I was going all with this.

Twenty questions. Proceed.

Hide and don't seek

I'm nice. Mostly. I don't like to make people feel bad. I don't exclude people from conversations or ignore them when they talk to me.

Unless it's Facebook. Then I do.

I have 370-ish friends. This number has been built up over a couple of years and 97% of them are people I know. The other 3% are people I don't know but who sent a friend request and I didn't want to hurt their feelings by declining since we have at least a dozen friends in common and I may one day cross their path.

I have never taken the drastic step of unfriending anyone, but I have a long and growing list of people I've hidden. Not like buried-their-bodies hide. I mean when you press that little "Hide" icon by their news feed or status update when it pops up in your feed and annoys you for the twentieth time.

I don't hide someone because they bug me once or twice. I hide repeat offenders who drive me to a point where when I see their name come up, I twitch before I even know why they're in my feed. The twitch is accompanied by a vague sense of irritation and an urge to go postal. At least, it was until I figured out how to hide them with a mouse click.

Here's the breakdown:

Three people are banned because EVERY SINGLE POST is some kind of self-promotion. In one case someone is selling an energy drink and in the other cases it's the person's blog with an endless stream of giveaways and "Buy my whatevers!" I don't mind a personal plug on an occasional basis, but seriously...three times a day? I feel so USED.

Three more are banned because I have no idea who they are and can't find it within myself to care about the minutiae of their days. YES, I'm a bad person.

One is banned because EVERY post is a freaking complaint. Usually of the hypochondriac nature. I've known this girl since childhood and I KNOW she's a whiner. I don't need reminders multiple times a day on Facebook.

Three more are banned for posting nothing but political rants. Granted, it's on the conservative side and largely rooted in ignorance, which especially chaps my hide. But it's so contentious and inflammatory I'd block it if it were liberal, too. I don't happen to know that many liberals, so that's just a guess. But seriously, I'm so sick of the anti-Obama tirades, and the health care reform hissy fits, and on and on and on. Again, I'm all for people occasionally voicing their political opinions but I don't listen to talk radio and I'm not listening to YOU, status update political screaming heads. (P.S. I don't mind well-informed political updates on a regular basis whether I agree or not; it's the rants I can't take.)

One person i#s banned because every #update is also Tweeted and #the constant hashtags give me a headache #and I hate them. 

One person is banned because his spelling and grammar are so horrible I found that my inner English teacher wouldn't stay leashed (remember, I was in the classroom for five years) and became angry and I fought the urge to deface my laptop screen with red Sharpie wielded in an effort to combat his flagrant abuse of the English language. And let's ignore my comma errors and run-ons, shall we?

And that's about it. Eleven people. I don't think that's so bad. I'm sure people have hidden me in their news feeds, too but I can only invent the reasons why. If forced to guess, I suppose it would be because my days aren't nearly as entertaining to other people as they are to me. Maybe some people don't want to hear, "The baby pooped and it was green!" even if it made me laugh. Or maybe some folks don't want to know that "James finally cleaned his room. It turns out it IS carpeted. Who knew?" I mean, I think it's obvious that I'm only reporting the absolute best highlights but I concede not everyone may see it that way.

Anyway, I'm glad for the "Hide" feature or Facebook would be unbearable. Instead, it and blogging represent just about the only adult interaction I get until 5:30 or so. Now, if only there were a similar feature I could activate on my kids...

More brain droppings

The winner of my Favorite Things is. . .

Laura Moffitt!

Yay! Email me your address and I'll get those in the mail to you Tuesday.

That post was one of the more fun ones I've done for me personally because I got to discover how many things I have in common with many of my blog readers that I didn't know about before. For many of the books and TV shows you picked especially, I wanted to reach out and give many of you a high five and be like, "Me, too!"

Laura is a great example. She said she really liked The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and I absolutely adored that book. Ditto the people who said "30 Rock" or "Firefly" and about a dozen other favorites you mentioned that I wanted to cheer for, too.

In other random news, I saw The Blind Side this weekend and definitely recommend it. VERY worth it.

Also, I just realized how close we are to my Merry Birthiversary. Just to recap:

Anniversary: December 22
Birthday: December 24
Christmas: December 25

It's a busy week.

I'm having a great Christmas so far and I'm doing just about every Christmas thing I can think of: cookie exchanges, drive through live nativity reenactments, a boat parade in the nearby harbor, secret Santa  projects, Christmas music. Ahhhhh, fun stuff! I love Christmas!

Way more people read my blog than I realized. I'm glad I'm not in the habit of saying snarky things about them in writing. Humble pie is nasty. I now officially applaud myself for being a nice person. (Um, okay, it may be common sense that saved me and not niceness, but whatever. I'm still applauding.) Not that I ever have much bad to say about people but you know how sometimes you do an eye roll over the antics of a friend or family member? I'm glad I've never committed the written equivalent. Because frankly, that's dumb.

My husband sneezes very loudly. That is neither snark nor a criticism. Simply something I happened to notice right this second because he just did it. In fairness, I should disclose that I am not perfect, either. While I'm not a loud sneezer, I do sneeze multiple times. At least three times every time I sneeze. So it works out.

I haven't bought a single thing at the mall for Christmas this year. I didn't plan it that way. It just so happened that everything I needed was pretty much online.

The most irreverent person in our Sunday School class is the teacher's wife. (Me.) Because I think I'm funny. It's a bad habit.

Two-year-olds are extremely funny. And repetitive. Okay, mostly repetitive. But the funny stuff is pretty funny.

I like my Christmas decorations. Even though they include my son's paper bag turkey dressed in camo with an artillery belt. It kind of adds a little something now that I'm used to it.

I think it's funny how the posts that I go, "Huh. I have nothing to say. I'll spit out a couple of random things," end up being the longest ones I do.

Merry Christmas!

So.

I got pretty much the awesomest email on Wednesday from my editor. My publisher is picking up my second manuscript and THEY LOVED IT. I couldn't believe how enthusiastic she was in the email. It was awesome. Did I mention that already? She words like "Stupendous" and "Pulitzer Prize" and "Nobel for Literature" and "Stephenie Meyers who?" or something like that. Anyway, we had an impromptu family dinner celebration at the Cheesecake Factory that night and it was fabulous.

You'd probably guess I'm in a swell mood now. You'd be right. This week has been full of all kinds of Christmas cheer and fun so I figured I'd spread the wealth a little. This past Friday I went to the cutest party. The idea was to bring your favorite things but the whole gift had to be less than $6. You brought five of whatever your favorite thing(s) was and got five different things from other people. I ended up getting earrings from Forever 21, cool little kitchen gadgets, candy bars, lip gloss, a couple of nail polishes, etc.

I gave:  a Hershey with almonds bar, a black cotton headband, cherry passion Tic Tacs, a homemade mini-pumpkin loaf, copies of my three favorite recipes and a list of all my personal favorite things: books, TV shows, local restaurants, etc., all in a cute little snowman bucket from the dollar spot at Target.

I'm so delirious with excitement over having my second manuscript picked up, my embarrassment of riches from the Favorite Things party, and the general punch drunkeness of Christmas that I'm going to pay it forward with a small give away of a couple of my favorite things.

There's a catch, of course. If you want to enter, it's all about a little quid pro quo. You must answer the five following questions in the comment trail so I can get some good ideas for new favorite things. The questions are:

1. Your favorite book (that's been published in the last ten years)
2. Favorite album of the past year
3. Favorite beauty product
4. Favorite store bought treat
5. Favorite all time TV show

You can't skip any questions or say "I don't know" if you want to be eligible. I'll choose the winner on Sunday using the random number generator and this is what the winner will get:

A box of chocolate covered candy cane Joe Joes from Trader Joe's AND
A palette of lip glosses in all kinds of colors (I haven't decided from where yet)
Some of my favorite candies

And I'll send it out next week so it arrives in time for Christmas.

All right, hurry up, join the party in the comment trail. Whoo hoo! And Merry Christmas!

Are you looking for me?

For the first time in a long time yesterday, I checked my Google Analytics. I'd like to present one of the search terms that brought someone to my page recently:

"g*nital warts + blogspot"

I'm just going to bask in that today.

*This OBVIOUSLY edited to avoid future such searches.

Dinner en fuego

I didn't actually see him but I know Wile E. Coyote was in my kitchen today. There's no other explanation for what happened to dinner.

It started off normal-ish. I grabbed a roast from the freezer and dropped it in the slow cooker. That's what we do every Sunday. But when I went to turn it on, something looked amiss. That's when I realized that the bottom of the crock had fallen completely out, totally in intact, in a perfect oval.

You know, like when Wile E. Coyote is standing on something and then falls through it to the canyon far, far below, all the while on his perfectly circular piece of earth that helps him not at all.

My crock pot has been crosshatched with a fine network of cracks for well over a year but it's never showed any signs of giving up. Today all of a sudden, it did. Maybe it was the weight of the frozen roast. I don't know. But then I got a migraine and went to nap it off, figuring inspiration for dinner would strike when I woke up.

When I came back downstairs, the house smelled of . . . roast. My intrepid husband had decided to try the roast in the oven. Smart man. "I wonder why the crock pot got all those cracks in the first place?" I said. "Maybe I rinsed it in cold water while it was still too hot." He theorized that it had to do more with maybe having it on when nothing was in it.

A few minutes later, I was playing with the boys when I heard the most fantastic crash/explosion/yell from my husband/loud hissing steam/I don't know what-all kind of cacophony from the kitchen. I rushed in to find my husband staring at the open oven in disgust. "I'm an idiot," he said. "We just talked about this." Apparently, he had decided to add a little water to the casserole dish while the roast cooked. It was cold water.

Everything blowed up.

In an effort to still save the roast, Kenny decided to grill it. It was a beautiful tri-rip and would have been a terrible waste. That went well until, unbelievably, he ran out of propane.

Still not to be defeated, he decided he would cut up the roast and give the pieces a quick pan fry. It looked promising.

But I had already opted out of roast for dinner, declaring it cursed. As he cleaned the tiny shards of glass out of the oven from the casserole dish, he decided that he wouldn't risk it either just in case there was glass in the meat that he couldn't see. So it went in the garbage after all.

But I know Wile E. had something to do with it.

Wordsmithing

Words that I don't know:

What's the word for that click of rightness that tells you when you've found exactly the right gift for the right person? I need to know that word.

What about the word for the feeling you have when you love your kids but you need a little time away from them?

What's the word for the feeling you have when you finish reading a perfectly written story and experience a small moment of reading induced-bliss?

What's the word for perfect chocolate?

What's the word to describe a child who is so stinkin' cute that right now, you're reduced to using "stinkin' cute" because there's no other phrase which expresses the absolute degree of cuteness that child achieves?

What's the antonym for that word, for those occasional moments when the same child is temporarily possessed of....well, "the devil" might be putting it a bit strongly, but it's close?

What's the word for a song you hear and then immediately love so much that you have to hit "repeat" at least a dozen and a half times in a row?

What's the word when "delicious" isn't a specific enough adjective to describe something sublime, like a perfect creamy soup?

What's the word to describe a quiet, fleeting moment where for just a brief snatch of time, everything is exactly right in your life?

I need a bigger vocabulary.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary

I need a mom.

I was reading all the online stuff yesterday about how my baby is 24 weeks along now and she's as big as a (giant) mango and she can blink her eyes in Morse code if only I could see it to interpret what she means and she now has very strong opinions about the rompers she sees me buying her and the dinner I ate last night.

I realized that because my babies come early (two and five weeks early so far) that she's going to be here PDQ. We're prepared, mostly. She got stuff in the way of clothes and we're good with a crib, etc. We'll have a larger stroller by then and I'm switching our travel swing (which did nothing for Baby G) to one that goes back-and-forth AND side to side. I'm going to raid one of our retirement accounts next month and stock up on diapers and wipes. I figure if we live on nothing but Ramen the year Kenny turns 72, we should be able to afford the first month of Pampers Swaddlers, no problem.

So she's all set, or nearly.

But I'm not.

When Little J came ten years ago, I had just moved into a new place the day before. Nothing was unpacked. I didn't even have a working phone. I had to roll into the grocery store belly first at 2 a.m. to wake my doctor up and find out that yes, dummy, that was your water breaking. Go to the hospital.

My mom was on a plane within two hours of me calling her and at the hospital by the time they started my epidural. She was there through the delivery and when Little J and I got home, she had unpacked my whole house for me. It was a little house and I didn't have much stuff, but it still made it easier to breathe.

She put off work for an extra week to stay with me because (as she told me later) I wasn't exactly into picking the baby up to do anything besides feed him at first. But then everything was okay.

When Baby G was born a couple of years ago, my sister happened to be here on a fluke visit so that she was ready to jump in even though he was five weeks early. My sister is a very, very good person to have around if you're ever in the hospital for any reason from a tonsillectomy to open heart surgery. She was nearly as good as having my mom there.

But this time...

I don't know. I just need a mom. I need someone who's going to show up for a few days in a Mary Poppins-ish manner and play with my kids and either

1) Ignore the fact that some of the messy spots in my house have been neglected since before I was pregnant and either
      a) pretend like I do that they don't exist or
      b) clean them and never say a word to me about it because um, yeah, my  mom would know exactly who taught me to keep house that way

2) Scold me for having certain messy spots in my house but somehow manage to not judge me in the least and then either
      a) ignore them, like I do or
      b) clean them and never say a word to me about them

She would warm up the meals the Relief Society brought over for me and change Tiny E's tenth diaper of the day like it's her greatest delight because she can clearly see after the first nine, I've lost my enchantment with the whole process for the day.

She would take the boys to the park while I slept with Tiny E, knowing that Baby G thinks my naps mean I'm prone so we can start wrestling. She wouldn't care that Baby G gets a couple of Nickelodeon marathons while I stare into space, sleep-deprived. And after a few days she would realize I'm gaining a little traction and she'd go home, knowing that I've rejoined the land of the living and I'm child-cuddling and bum-wiping abilities have been fully restored.

My aunt, who is more my aunt even by marriage than she could be by blood, flew out from Illinois last time for a weekend a couple of months after Baby G was born. There was just something about knowing that she was willing to do that for me that made everything bearable, filled the gap a little. But she is kicking butt and taking names in  her new nursing program and I'd put her right back on a plane and ship her back if she tried to come out this time because she needs to be there, not here.

I miss my mom. Do you think if I tore this blog post into small pieces and threw it into the fireplace that the wind would whisk it away and suddenly she would appear in a smart coat with a carpet bag the morning I go to the hospital? Because I need her.