Last Post for NaBloPoMo...

...but, like the Mississippi and that Titanic song, I shall go on. I feel a quiet pride, a small satisfaction, a WAHOO! that I posted every day this month. I hope I win a prize, I hope I do, I hope I do, I hope I do.....


But I probably won't, since I'm notoriously bad at winning contests. Even when I enter, I have no faith that I'll win, which is probably not the message to be sending into the universe, I know. I try to think positively. When I'm hitting the send button on my phone Messaging to pick a suitcase on Deal or No Deal, I try my hardest to channel warm and fuzzy thoughts to...to...where? That's the problem. Should I be imaging some NBC minion pulling my name out of a hat? Or should I push my positive energy down the phone lines? Or just cut to the chase and focus on the call to tell me I've won? I can never decide and generally the contest is over before I've gotten my psychic powers in order.

So my reward for NaBloPoMo will have to be small, silent and personal. I can live with that. I've loved this month of posting. I haven't found it tiresome, tedious, tendentious (?) or tricky. As I said at the beginning, I am never at a loss of something to say. So I shall continue posting regularly. I may miss a day here or there, but I'm making December my own BloPoMo. No badges, no prizes, just ByJane every day.

New Badge

Not sure exactly what this Twitter thingie does, except that Toady Joe invited me, and I never turn down an invitation from a friend. Then I invited 150 of my closest friends....no, not that many. But going through my address list on Yahoo was sort of like an architectural dig: oh, there's that person I was friendly with about five years ago...who the fuck is that...my accountant...my old boss...dooce...my niece....a person I was friendly with about three years ago...someone I went to grade school with...my office mate from Lehigh...who the fuck is that.........

To those of you who did make the cut, if you would prefer to be in the 'who the fuck' category, let me know.

The 28th Day of NaBloPoMo and My True Love Gave to Me....

...one drive back from LLLLLL-A.

T'was a good trip. I am well and truly a city girl, and LA is my city. However, when I walked into my house here in Sacramento, the familiar smell was so sweet. I love my house. I am absolutely content in my house.

I'm just not content that my house is not in LA.

I am working on this conundrum.

Stay tuned.

Santa Flying Through the Night Sky at The Grove, Los Angeles

Santa Flying Through the Night Sky at The Grove
Originally uploaded by By Jane.

The Grove is my spiritual home in LA. I was there the first day it opened back in the spring of 2002. Then I had my aneurysm and spent the rest of the summer in intensive care at Cedars Sinai. If I looked real hard and imagined real well, I could see The Grove from my hospital bed. When I was finally unhooked from all the machines, they put me in rehab. I remember the physical therapist who came to do my first interview.

"What are your goals?" she asked. "What is it that will motivate you to work hard and get out of here? Your family? Friends? Your work?"

"The Grove," I answered immediately. I could see I had thrown her a curve ball, and I needed to explain. "My goal is to go shopping at The Grove."

The look on her face was of utter dismay: such an unworthy goal. But I never wavered and I persevered and several months later, there I was, shopping at The Grove.

If I lie on their clothes, then maybe they won't leave me

Molly took up this position and stayed in it through thick and thin. She would NOT be left behind again (once, just once, Molly).

What I Like About Blogging

I just was roaming 'round the Internet and thinking how cool it is that I get to play on it. There are so many places it takes me; so many 'me's' that get spoken to.

I read Avocado8's latest post on dealing with her son's willfulness and I got to think about developmental psychology and how kids' need for autonomy conflicts with parents' need for control. When they're born, we vow to do everything we can to nurture their self-esteem. But then they actually have some sense of self and that's fine, as long as it rears its willful little head only when we want it to. It's so hard to balance that line between necessary boundaries and squelching the kid.

And then I was flipping through Flickr and pulled up Dooce's latest photos and thought how her post about going to her mother's cabin for Thanksgiving made me so envious. And I realized that it provoked the same feelings I used to have when I watched Thirtysomething: I want that life. In my eternal quest to deconstruct blog popularity, I'm now thinking, maybe Dooce is the new Thirtysomething. The attractive family with flaws exposed, yet dealing with life and having fun--goddamit--a beacon for all of us who do not feel attractive or whose flaws seem too raw for exposing or who don't have families or who don't have the talent to write as well as Dooce does.

Then I looked at Andrew Sullivan's blog, Daily Dish and he has posted photos of Mormon undergarments. I was fascinated. I remember seeing someone, I think at BlogHer'06, wearing a little white shirt under her sun dress. As a fashion statement, I thought it missed. Now I think it was her undergarment.

I live on a silent street in a suburb. Sometimes the Internet offers the only life around.

Day 24--A time of corrections and other stuff

First, I have not just celebrated my 19th wedding anniversary. It was my 18th. I figured that out several days after. See how time passes when you're having fun.....

Second, please remind me that I don't like turkey. Rather, I like turkey, but only the dark meat. So the idea of cooking a breast for leftovers was a generous act for D who loves turkey of all stripes.

Third, my NaNoWriMo project is coming along nicely, thank you very much. It will be ready for publication sometime in 2008.

Fourth, we're going to Los Angeles on Sunday. I am so missing living there. I feel, I must say, like a fish out of water here in Sacramento.

Fifth, can you tell that I'm babbling?

Thanksgiving 2006

Me!!!!!
Originally uploaded by By Jane.

Me!!!!! Full of food. On the way home from our Thanksgiving meal with the Bs. We had grand plans this summer, W and I, to rent a cottage at the beach and all the families would come. But my family couldn't come and her family couldn't come, so we ended up Thanksgiving dinner for four at the Club they belong to. Actually, make that three, as W is sick. So D, J, and I had a nice meal and a nice glass of wine, and I didn't have to cook.

But I did...couldn't not, so I bought a turkey breast and cranberries and now we have stuff for leftovers. Should either of us ever want to eat again.

Did I Miss The Book of Rules?

I've been visiting various blogs, thanks to the NaBloPoMo Randomizer, as well as Commenters on blogs I normally go to, and it seems to me that I've missed some rules about what a blog post should be. A number of people have apologized for their less-than-legitimate posts. Is there a gold standard? Or a minimum lineage? Fussy got tons of comments today from people talking about how hard it is to do this post-a-day thing. It is? Am I not doing it correctly, then?

You can see how my insecurities rear their nasty little heads at every opportunity (if I get a whiff of bad car smell when I'm driving, I assume it's my vehicle--how sick is that). I would like to be the kind of person who has the confidence of the gods, who says what she thinks, does what she does and be-damned to those who object. I'd like to have Rosie O'Donnell's balls (although not her mentality). I wish I was fearless about putting myself forward.

The funny thing is, as I'm writing this, I'm aware of a lot of people who would read this and say, what the hell is she talking about. They see me as someone who doesn't know how or when to take a back seat and shut up. They object to my predilection for saying what's on my mind, even when it's not the popular, read polite, thing to do. They should only know how often I squeeze my throat closed, squelch the comment, bury the opinion, repress the anger/annoyance/whatever. I've learned over time to say to myself, "this person doesn't need to know that you're sure they would be better off doing it another way."

I think the difference is (for I can see I'm positing a kind of schizophrenia here) that I can put myself forward in small groups (which, funnily enough, can be large audiences), but I'm timid when it comes to really, really big crowds. Like the world. I'm aware of that in posting on By Jane. I hold back because I fear the wrath of the internet. My Sally Fields mentality definitely kicks in here.

Hunched over in a corner

groaning in pain. I ate something. Or somethings. I haven't felt like this since I did the prep for the colonoscopy. O woe...

Today is...

...my 19th anniversary. Can I tell you how that shocks and scares me. It's not that I never thought D and I would get this far; it's that I never thought I would get this far. And I don't know what I mean by that. I don't think it has to do with the D word, as in divorce. Nor do I think it's that other D word, dying. No, I think this anniversary is another crashing reminder that--holy shit! I must have grown up! Because only a grownup could be married for 19 years, right? So how come I don't feel any different from November 20, 1986?

This is the thing about aging that is so peculiar, not to mention wondrous and amazing. You are all of your ages in one and the 22 year old gets to comment on the 54 year old who is sharing a moment with the 42 year old who is amazed that she looks better than she expected when she was 32, but jesus, at 60--at 60, shouldn't I feel different? Except I don't, not really.

It's peculiar and wondrous and amazing to me in the same way that a pregnant woman is. She's standing there, whoever she is, but inside her is another person. Weird. And this too, the fact that I am inside myself all the Me's that have ever been. Weird. And exceptionally fun. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Sari Ribbon Scarf - mid-knit

Scarf - mid-knit
Originally uploaded by By Jane.

I fell in love with this yarn. It's Louisa Harding's "Sari Ribbon". The colors don't show up here, but it's a varigated yarn in black, loden, and cream with a silver thread shot through the center. I'm doing it without a pattern. I cast on 8 stitches and I've been doing a double or single wrapped drop stitch, interspersed with stockinette, and the occasional line or two of garter. Somehow, somewhere the eight stitches grew to nine, but what the hey--the more the merrier when you're making the pattern up yourself. It's $10.25 for a skein, 66 yards, so my scarf is going to be just as long as one skein goes, which probably isn't much more than a couple of feet. So I got the fringe to add on at the end. I'm going to wear it on Thanksgiving, with a white silky blouse (which I don't yet own). I will post my photo (or one of Molly wearing it) on the day.

Another gratuitous post...

...because I'm wiped and it's almost 9 pm. I spent the day shopping with Wendy, and I bought boots and makeup and a blouse and more makeup and then more makeup and a lamp shade. Then we went to a Mexican restaurant where I had White Steak. Anybody heard of it? Here's a hint: it's a favorite at bar mitzvahs in Israel. Now I'm going to bed. I'll be more fascinating tomorrow...

Happy 2nd birthday, Bonji Harold!!!!!!

Day Seventeen...

...and I'm definitely flagging. Not so much as this fellow or Stacy over at Jurgen Nation, who bailed from NaBloPoM in part because she realized that she was losing readers. But I find myself posting later and later in the day, and with much less zest or enthusiasm or whatever the hell you want to call it. It's a tough nut, writing a daily column. Ask anyone who does it. It really is a job, and since this month that's how I'm trying to treat By Jane--hey y'all, I gotta go to work.

I can't say if my numbers are down, because I just got my counter. But really, any above four would be an improvement. In terms of building an audience, I am working counter to all advice, which is to specialize in something. However, I truly, as my header states, have never been able to focus on one thing. My attention is multi-directional (doesn't that sound important). It's the reason, actually, that I became a journalist.

I never could decide what I wanted to be when I grew up--a doctor loomed large until I proved miserable at science. When that became clear, I was already in college and it seemed more important to be succeeding at a social life, rather than any profession. Not, you should imagine, that I was particularly good at that--my mouth has always proceeded me--but I tried, goodness me, did I ever.

My lack of focus was apparent in my choice of majors. I was for three years a Theatre Arts major and then in my last year, switched to Philosophy. I just kinda took the courses I was interested in, without any sense that they were supposed to prepare me for something. So I ended up with a bunch of English courses, a clot of Creative Writing courses (thank you, Monte Culver), all the Theatre courses I had amassed, plus the Philosophy I had to take for the major, and then there was that lump of Studio Art courses. I am nothing, if not well-rounded. That has served me well in life, even if it's meant I never have Fulfilled My Potential. Which depending on the day, either depresses me or pleases me.

Given that history, it is obvious I am incapable, no matter the well-meaning advice, of limiting this blog to one or two topics. I'd bore the living daylights out of myself, let alone the four of you who are faithful readers.

For Your Viewing Pleasure...

...on this, the fifteenth day of November, I submit: my Flickr badge. Consider this as fulfilling my commitment to NaBloPoMo today, as well as my promise above that By Jane will offer Amateurish Photography.

Eyes right, ladies and gentlemen--

EDIT: Okay, it was late, post Grey's Anatomy and I got the date wrong. Any fool can see that it's the 16th of November!

Gone--one well-crafted rant

I was mid-rant today on a topic of great interest to me--aging and ageism--when, poof! my post disappeared. This verily pissed me off since I had gone to great lengths to do links. In fact, it was a link that caused the loss (I'm on a roll of Ls here). I was searching my LJ archive for a post I thought was on it, only to find it wasn't. And when I finally accepted that, my well-crafted, albeit unfinished, rant was gone.

What to do what to do what to do????????????????? How about a little soft shoe? Or a few bars of My Yiddische Mama, a song that never fails to make me weep. Oh--you'd rather have something a bit lighter, appealing to a wider audience, a little more commercial?

How about my report on NaNoWriMo? Do I have anywhere near the 25K words I should if I'm to make the deadline? Have I posted anything I've written? Have I written anything? No, No, and yes.

Here's the deal--commitment I believe we were calling it in an earlier post--I made to myself about NaNoWriMo. I never intended to even try for the 50K word count. I know myself as a writer too well, and that kind of a goal is certain writer's block for me. Instead, I promised myself that I would work on my NaNoWriMo project every day. I would make no judgments about it--the quality of the work or it's potential or even whether I was interested. I would just keep on writing every day for thirty days and at the end of that time, then I'd see what I have.

This I have done. And a funny thing happened on the way to Day 15. Something is taking shape here. There's a story that I'm telling that I had no idea I wanted to tell about people I've never thought about before. It's wonderfully weird this feeling of sitting back and reading what happens next.

Pomegranate-glazed Turkey Whatsits

Actually, you can call this dish whatever you want, as I made it up. Today I went shopping at the Co-op and they had on sale turkey pieces. I guess you'd call them cutlets, or maybe tenders. I call them turkey pieces, from the breast. Because they were on sale, I had to buy them, but what to make with them? I saw in my mind's eye (and tasted in my mind's mouth) a Middle Eastern-ish dish, with some sort of dried fruit and couscous. I went to the Buy by the Pound section and got a little of what looked good: dried cranberries, pepitas, and goji berries. I can't explain my choices; they just seemed right. When I got home, though, I found that I didn't have any couscous in the cupboard; but I did have brown rice.

So here's what I did: sauteed chopped red onion and garlic until soft. Cut the turkey into bite size pieces and browned them with the onion/garlic. Added the berries and pepitas and doused the whole lot in about a cup of pomegranate juice. Then I waved a bottle of pomegranate syrup over the whole thing, maybe a couple of tablespoons (maybe more). I'm big on pomegranate these days as IT IS EXCRUCIATINGLY HEALTHY AND I NEED ALL THE HELP I CAN GET. Cook the mess for a while until almost all the liquid is gone, the turkey is cooked and it looks all caramel-y. I cooked the brown rice in a broth made of pomegranate juice and water. Serve the Pomegranate-Glazed Turkey Whatsits on the rice. It is delicious: sweet, savory, crunchy, meaty...and excruciatingly healthy.

Did I Not Promise You Mediocre Art?

I give you (in an order that is obvious only to me and Blogger) Exhibits A, B, & C. On the left is A, a tile on which I have done a freehand ink and colored oil pencil drawing of a row of houses. I like this just as it is. But then I think--what's the point?

So to make a point, I laid down a green wash on the small canvas board and using the same media, did a field by a stream. I kinda liked this, but it still looked unfinished. As in, again, what's the point? Clearly something was missing that would pull it all together.

The tile is a three dimensional object and stuck out on the canvas, so I decided something was needed to balance it. That's when I got the idea to do a kind of mosaic using seed beads. I had a hank of multicolored green/brown beads that seemed to me to be perfect for simulating grass. So I attempted to artfully scatter said beads on the canvas.

But not before I truly fucked up the whole thing by drawing a big yellow sun. Why did I do this? I am so not a big yellow sun type person. I think I felt for a moment that as the houses were stylized, the sun would be stylized. But it wasn't. It was just big. And yellow. And it had rays, for christ's sake. Something had to be done.

So I glued gold E-beads to the sun. I hoped this would miraculously pull the entire thing together. It did not. I still had a tile with a freehand drawing of houses stuck on a small canvas board on which were now patches of glued on beads. I fiddled with some green wire, thinking perhaps some simulated grass would do the trick, but even I knew it wouldn't.

Then I spied some fancy pale blue very thin paper in my stash. And I decided, for ill or not, that I would cover the whole canvas with this. But because I wanted the tile, which I still like, to show through, I would wet the paper in the hopes that it would go translucent on the tile and give only a glimmer of the rest of the shit I had wrought beneath. On top of it all, I stuck some of the green wire I had been playing with

My hopes, as you can see by Exhibit C, to the upper right of this post, were dashed. And here's where the analysis begins: how long should one continue working on a project that obviously isn't working? I wrestled with this for a while, before deciding that I would let the Internet decide.

When do you say, enough is enough?

NaBloPoMo - What Day is This????

This is a gratuitous post, just to satisfy my commitment to the cause (think I'll win a prize????).
Spent last night at a MoveOn.org party to celebrate The Victory. A lot of happy people. Got up very early this AM to go to the monthly flea market in Sac. Very tired. Goodnight.....

Wysocki's Cats - or how I spent my Friday night

Wysocki's Cats
Originally uploaded by By Jane.

I bought a jigsaw puzzle as part of my tool kit for playing with kids. Actually, I bought a thousand piecer, but the one client who was interested in working on puzzles suggested I get the hundred piecer. She and I did that one, and I liked it so much, I made myself a promise to do another on my own. Not for any reason, just because I enjoyed putting the puzzle together.

It's actually quite therapeutic--if you have to spend time with a prepubescent girl who is angry and refuses to talk, jigsaws are the way to go. And it's also a diagnostic tool, at least as far as I myself am concerned. I like small projects that I can finish handily. I like the process of figuring the pieces out, as long as I'm feeling competent. Once I get frustrated, however, I want to pound that piece into place willynilly of whether it fits or not.

The only problem, as far as I can tell, is--what do you do with the thing after it's finished? I know there are people who pour some glue substance on the puzzle and then hang it as art. Ummmm, I don't think that's my style. I could throw the whole thing away, but that seems so wasteful, especially when I know there are legions out there dying to do Wysocki's Cats. I did what I always do in such cases: saved it. I broke it up, put it back in its box, and shoved it in the back of the closet. When I find one of those legions, I will gladly give it to them/him/her/it.

My Front Door

I made this wreath, and I'm quite proud of the fact that I used stuff I had bought for Fall decor last year. I'm trying to curb my art supply buying habit, which I last spoke about here.
The only new items were the grapevine wreath itself ($3.99 at Michael's) and the ribbon ($1.50 at Michael's). I am so thrifty...

Odds & Ends, Bits & Piece, Thoughts & Meanderings

Today is one of those days where my mind is all over the place. Okay, more so than usual.

1. I just did a tour through my new and revised blog roll and learned that Dooce is probably picking the person of the year . Jeeze, why isn't that me? Okay, never mind that I'm years past the tall, blonde, beautiful stage--and Esquire's "Thirty Under Thirty" will never toll for me again. Still, I have opinions. Ain't that worth something?

--Sure, Jane, and who would you like to see as the person of the year?
--Um, um, um...
--Exactly.

2. M. Kennedy aka Mrs. Kennedy aka Fussy was a philosophy major in college too. And it did her every bit as much good as it did me.

3. I loves my little Counter. Not that I'm real clear on what the numbers mean. Every day I get to go and see where My Readers are from. Plano, Texas. Serbia & Montenegro. Atlanta, Georgia. Fleurieux-sur-l'Arbresle, France. Hey, guys, give a shout out for the smallness of the world!

4. Last night I had a dream in which I gave the following fully realized explanation of why I am not on a diet: Understanding the psychodynamics of overeating as I do, I know that artificially restricting my intake of calories is useless until I understand and deal with the issues that lead to the overeating.
Don't you just wish you were in my dreams.....!

5. Understanding dream analysis as I do....I realize that this dream is a reworking of yesterday's post on commitment.

6. Um, um, um....

Exactly.

On Writing - Advice to Myself

Yesterday's post was a neon sign flashing !!!Alert!!! Blockhole ahead!!! I hear the sirens and know that if I don't act now, I'll slide down that fog-filled tunnel into a very familiar place. So I'm picking at the knot, as it were, of my writing issues.

Two words came to me yesterday after I posted, and I was trying to figure out what was different when the words and ideas flowed. Commitment....Courage. When the writing is going well, I am committed to whatever it is I'm working on. And when I'm committed, I have the courage to say it my way, willy nilly of censors in my head.

Courage can be forced, I think. It can be as chain mail that one puts on, an act that enables one to go into battle. But commitment? How is it possible to make a grim determination to be committed? I must, I must, I must increase my...commitment. This is what I've done in the past, stayed at the computer, glued myself to the seat, hoping to break through. I can't bear to go through that again. It only works intermittantly, and it leaves me feeling such a failure.

So, how else to get 'round this commitment issue. Are there breathing exercises I can do? Yoga, perhaps? I've tried the gamut, it seems to me. I've done Morning Pages from The Artist's Way and zen sitting from Writing Down the Bones. I've taken Bird by Bird as my mantra, used it as a screen saver, in fact. They all work as well as they work, which is to say that they can't infuse commitment. It has to be there or the writing just fizzles out like a day old soda.

Or--can it be that one can fake commitment until it's real? Is it possible to commit intellectually and wait for the emotion to follow? Isn't this how arranged marriages work? Isn't this actually where the grit and hard work of any relationship lies?

I'm still trying to figure this out...

NaNoWriMo Journal

I can't get into my writing these past few days, and I'm not sure why. Which makes it difficult to solve the problem. I'm impatient with creating these characters because they've lost a lot of their luster for me. Not for any reason, probably, other than that I'm actually writing them, rather than thinking about them. I'm always better and more eloquent in my mind than when I have to put the thoughts into words.

But even with my blog, I'm not totally there. I'm pushing the writing. And second-guessing myself. And erasing/deleting a lot.

What's going on? Here's what I think. Getting invested in the writing is too scarey for that part of me that always wants to be in the future, about to happen, all potential. That's why I would lie in bed at night thinking great thoughts, planning great deeds--only to wake up in the morning and forget the details. That's why last week, before I stopped working, I was full of energy for my NaNoWriMo project. Now it's put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is time -- and my defenses are in full sway.

You will not write, Jane. You will not have another interesting idea. You will not come up with that perfect turn of phrase or that on-spot metaphor. When you sit down to write, a hazy brown smog will float in front of your computer screen. Your back will hurt. You'll be hyper-aware of the heat your laptop is emitting. You will write through all this, hoping to break the spell, but to no avail. You will write in shortish, bluntish, tedious paragraphs. You will bore yourself. And ultimately, you'll give up. You'll wander off to do something else. Pay bills. Clean house. Pluck your eyebrows.

Cheney Next?

If only.

Victory is...

...not as satisfying as I'd thought it would be. But that's because it's not victory in 2000 or victory in 2002. Victory in 2006 means the people rose up, yes, but maybe a little late. We've still got that thing in the Middle East going on. We've still got most of the world hating us. We've still got a National Debt that is insane. We've still got, in short, all the shit that Bush and Co. foisted on us over the past six years.

I'm thrilled that the Dems took over the House. I'm ecstatic that Nancy Pelosi will be the Speaker, and I'll be fascinated to see what happens when a strong, gutsy woman runs the place.

But can we ever repair the damage internationally that the Republicans have done???? I fear not.

Revising My Blogroll...

I'm about to do it, and if your blog isn't on the new one and you want it to be, let me know and I'll put it back. Is that clear, at all? I don't want anyone's feelings to be hurt, and that I even think that way calls into question my notion of a blogroll.

So let me deconstruct it: Blogrolling: A Meta-analysis of the Psychoanalytical Constructs of the Uber-literary Weblog List.

1. The Blogroll as Popularity Contest
2. The Blogroll as Identity Construction
3. The Blogroll as Advertisement
4. The Blogroll as Paybacks
5. The Blogroll as Recommendation

Respondants may offer their own chapter subheadings. All papers will be available for analysis before the conference.

What I'm Doing...

...I'm sitting here munching oatmeal and mulling over what to write.

1. Why should it be 'what to write' rather than 'what to right'? What makes write right and right wrong in this context? Is this not what makes English neither wrong, nor right, but difficult?

2. Artificial flavoring sucks. My oatmeal has something in it that I think the manufacturers assumed would make it 'buttery'. My ass!

3. Yesterday I did my civic duty for my country and travelled to a nearby town in California to make phone calls to Maryland concerning their choice for Congress. I was not particularly successful as my cell phone got almost no signal and kept cutting out just as I was about to begin my spiel. I sense a conspiracy: Sprint must be a red cell phone service.

How do you blog?

By which I mean: what is your physical stance. By which I mean: what the fuck do you sit at, on and where is it?

I ask because I am, even as we speak, twitching and twisting and writhing. Adjusting my pneumatic chair (which has lost a lot of pneu, if you ask me, since my 255 pound husband started using it). I don't ever remember having such difficulty getting comfortable. Is it because I'm getting old??????

In one room of our house, the one known as The Office is the family PC sitting on a glass-topped dining table from Pier One. In another room of our house, the one know as The Third Bedroom is my above-mentioned office chair and a laptop deskie thing. I give you Exhibit A and B, above.

The dining table is too high. I tried to get a keyboard slider to put under it, but they all need to be screwed into something, which is a wee problem when the something is glass. The laptop desk does adjust but manually, which is awkward to say the least. There is something about this arrangement that forces me into a troll posture, all scrunched up like a player on the Yellow Brick Road. It is painful. And not conducive to creativity.

I imagine that all of you are quite comfortable and therefore effortlessly pouring the prose on the page, so to speak. Where are you doing it?

In Which I Confess...

...that I've been unfaithful these past months. To ByJane, that is. I have another blog. But I've only posted twice, I swear. Does that make me bad????

It's called Looking For Libby. I started it right when I was looking for a job and there were whole bunches of things (tell me that's not articulate) I was feeling that I didn't want to put in ByJane. It think I explained why in the first post of LFL, so if you're interested, you can read it there. So why am I now coming clean? It has something to do with the level of comfort I now feel revealing myself here. And that's a function of my sense that I'm part of a community of women doing the same. And part of it is a function of my having gotten to that age where "I give a fuck" is a more ready response.

LFL is the place where I'm going to talk about two things: aging and mothers. If you're interested in either of those topics, check it out.

Jane's Award-Winning International Best Pecan Pie

The awards were all self-given. But truly, this pecan pie is the best ever. I make it every year at Thanksgiving and every year, people go nuts (!) over it. It's truly easy and almost foolproof. I tried to find a photo of it from T'givings past, but I think it disappears too quickly to be memorialized. One year I made two, but that was the year an alleged gourmand came and inhaled the second one all by himself (gourmand = pig, as far as this fellow is concerned.)

Okay, gather 'round while I give you the secret to Jane's Awarding-Winning Best Ever Pecan Pie: it's in the pie plate. Don't use a regular pie plate. You have to use a fluted tarte pan with a removable bottom.
and you'll need
1 unbaked pastry shell (You can make your own, if you like, but Martha and I, we prefer the Pillsbury pre-made dough.)

Now, take your pie dough round and lay it on top of the tarte pan. Gently, gently pat it down in into place, so that there is dough in all the flutes. Cut off the excess bits all the way around. Place the tarte pan on a cookie sheet for ease of handling.

Now, go forth and make the pecan stuff.

Ingredients

1 C granulated sugar
1-1/4 C dark corn syrup
4 large eggs
1/4 C butter, at room temperature
1-1/2 C pecans, broken
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt

1. Oven gets preheated to 350.
2. Cook sugar and corn syrup in a pan until the sugar dissolves.
3. Beat eggs lightly and pour into syrup mixture gradually and keep on beating while you do that (or else the eggs will scramble in the corn syrup).
4. Add the butter while beating (I cut it up before hand into bits so it melts easily)
5. Stir in the pecans.
6. Stir in the vanilla (did I mention that you should never ever use anything but Real Vanilla as the Imitation stuff tastes like shit and why would you want to spoil your cooking thusly?)

Here's the second part of my secret: You're not going to use most of the syrup. Yes, it will pain you, as it does me, to throw that which you have labored over away, but that's the trick of the trade. So, to continue

7. Use a slotted spoon to transfer all the pecans to your waiting pie crust.
8. Ladle the syrup onto the pecans until it just tops the crust.
9. Balance carefully on your way to the over and bake for about 45 minutes or until set.

Cool pie. Remove the pie on the removable tarte pan bottom and place on a serving plate. Maybe put a doily under it. Maybe not.

Serve with whipped cream (the real stuff, not the aerosol shit). Portion numbers depend on how big you slice it, but this is an 8 or 9 inch pie.

Whew! That was not easy. My hat is off to cookbook writers. It takes less time to make the damn pie than it did to give the instructions. Next year, photos will accompany each stage.

Fixed it...

T'was a gizmo in the whatsit that quite plainly said to block all photos from Blogger.com
Now why the hell would I want to do that? So I hit 'unblock' and, voila!

What's Missing?

Pictures. Or as my old friend GeorgeAnne would have said (before she got her M.A.): pitchers! She also used to pronounce wreath, wreaf, and never knew where to stop with alumininininininininininium.

But I digress. As is my wont.

Something happened to either my computer or my template or my blog or (pick another)about a week ago and graphics that I upload from Blogger are not appearing. Or at least they're not appearing on my laptop. Which does seem to indicate that it's the problem of this Toshiba laptop, doesn't it.

Day One - NaBloPoMo

...and day one of NoMoWriMo...and day one of my back-to-being-my-own-boss life.

I'm curious to see how the six month (six month?!) stint of regular employment has affected my freelancer sensibility. For one, I got up at 7:30 this morning, and it's now 9:30 and I've started my NoMoWriMo stint, read some of my favorite blogs, stripped the bed, and here I am, both fingers and brain at the ready.

I don't anticipate a real problem with NaBloPoMo (except getting my fingers to untwist when I type it), since as everyone knows I am never without something to say about anything and everything.

It's the NaNoWriMo that I'll have to push my nose to the whetstone about. (Yeah, I know, that'd give me one helluva sharp nose.) I have deliberately ignored the word count as too intimidating. When I did it last year, I spent half of my writing time figuring out what my word and page count had to be. And when I fell behinder and behinder and behinder, I just mentally hung myself and gave up.

In my defense, I must say, however, that I only learned of NaNoWriMo last year at the end of October. So I'll remove the rope from my neck and admire my courage in throwing myself into a freakin' project that called for writing a novel in a month. As if I haven't been trying to write a novel in a lifetime.

This year I come to the project prepared. I have characters, I have plot (ish), I have tone, I have setting--and now I have some 300 words already. My goal is to write every day. Not to rewrite. To see if I can use the deadline to quell all the critics in my head. If I end November with a first draft that I may or may not want to revise, I'll be happy.

And if I end November on NaBloPoMo with an Audience that justifies the capital A, I'll be happy there too.