NaBloPoMo - Day One - The Alphabet

I know you've been staring at that badge on the right ever since I put it up there last week. The marker that I too, along with some 3,000 other bloggers, have vowed to post once a day for the month of November. NaBloPoMo: National Blog Posting Month. Or is it, November Blog Posting Month? I dunno; you'll have to ask Fussy, whose brainchild this is. Whatever, I've committed myself to dribbling on this page daily. And to make it more challenging, I've decided to play a little game with myself. I'm going to follow the alphabet (which I keep typing as alphabetH, as if some superior person named Beth). That is, each day's post will be brought to you by another letter of the alphabet.

When I was a kid, we played a game called, "A My Name is Alice...." Sometimes it was jumping a rope, sometimes bouncing a ball--but the object was to make your way through the alphabet singing the following ditty:

"A my name is Alice
And my husband's name is Albert.
We come from Atlanta,
Where we sell Apples."

It got really hard when you got to X: X my name is Xena and my husband's name is Xerxes....except as young as we were, I don't think our vocabulary ran to Xena's and Xerxes'. More likely we collapsed in a giggling heap at some made-up quasi-syllabic name, like Xerpituitous.

Now I know that you're wondering how this is going to work, considering that there are 30 days in November and 26 letters in the alphabet. My studied solution: there will be four Wild Card days. They will come somewhere along the way, at my discretion and my disposal.

So--what's in it for you? Other than the sheer pleasure, nay, joy of knowing you will have a fresh ByJane to read every single day. I've been thinking about some sort of contest, but I'm not sure what it would be.

Hey! The contest is: you come up with the contest. I give the prizes. This can be a really interactive event, with extremely cooooooool, desirable prizes (not your usual shit). The competition begins now! On your marks.......GO!

Oh, and by the way -- A is, today, for Alphabet...of course.

Party Time

I'm going to a party, tra la. I've done my toes and I've done my fingers, and by this I mean I've painted the nails on the digits and, okay, some of the flesh too. But if you can tell, you're too damn close.

As I search for the correct Label for this post, I see that this is my problem: I have no label for Party. Allow me to correct that...

Me, Alone

This is not a post in which I'm seeking sympathy. It is merely a stating of the facts of my intercourse with the world over the past several days.

Friday: Talked to checker at Raley's when I bought groceries. She wished me a nice evening. I echoed her wish.
Saturday: Wrong number. Asked for Phil. No Phil here. Caller apologized.
Sunday: Talked to barista at Starbucks when I went for morning coffee. She wished me a nice day. I echoed her wish.
Monday: Talked to dentist's receptionist about my October appointment.

I have not included my intercourse with the internet because I am not sure that that is intercourse.

PS - This post was written about 4 pm, but Blogger was down. Not my fault. Not my fault at all.

My DayThus Far: By Jane

Molly and I got up relatively early this morning and hit the road for Starbucks by 8:30. We do the Starbucks trip every other day. When D is in charge, they do it every day: Grande Drip with room for cream and a Maple Nut Scone. They share it. Me, I'm not so generous. I do the Grande Drip, but not the scone. And the reason I go every other day? I only drink half the coffee. You know, there is really nothing wrong with heated up Starbucks the next day. You can trust me on that.

First stop: gas station. No problem.

Second stop: Starbuck's drive through. Very, very crowded. I listened to a program on organ harvesting on NPR. Very, very interesting. Gave my order, and decided to treat Molly to a shared Maple Nut Scone (she is definitely missing D). Waited for my order. Took my order, put the cup in the Very Inadequate Cupholder that my VW offers. Drove away. Stuck my hand in the bag to break off a piece of Maple Nut Scone. Broke off a piece of Oat Nut Scone--gag! Dry, tasteless, not worth the calories.

Third stop: Drove back to Starbucks and exchanged the scone. Drove away, again. Heard a popping sound: the coffee cup had flipped out of the Very Inadequate Cupholder and all the coffee was now sloshing around on the floor. Said fuck.

Fourth stop: Another Starbucks, closer to home. No drivethrough. Went in and ordered another Grande, etc. Mentioned in passing that it was my second of the morning and the barista handed me back my card. "It's on me," she said.

Drove home thinking warm and fuzzy thoughts about Starbucks. Pulled into garage. Exited car, carefully placing second Grande, etc. on a safe surface. Picked up clot of coffee-soaked napkins and keys in hand, went to throw them in the garbage.

Threw something in the garbage. Something that made a metallic sound when it dropped. Clot of coffee-soaked napkins still in my hand. Peered into the garbage can. Saw my keys lying in the garbage soup at the bottom.

Garbage can very, very big, i.e., deep. Not to mention very, very stinky. Can't reach keys. Curse D for not being there with his long arms to fish them out for me. Go into garage to see what is there that I can use to get the keys.

Passing by car on right side, see that I never refastened the gas cap. Have done all this motoring with it dangling outside the car. Flash on what might have been if I still smoked. Yeah, right....flash, indeed.

Get a wire hanger, open it up and, breathing through my mouth, lean into garbage can far enough to fish out the keys. Pretend I am doing it on Survivor. Get the keys. They are coated in something white. Don't look. Dump them in sink and run hot water. Will disinfect and think about them later, at Tara.

---some time later--

Clean off desk. Find bill for health insurance--due July 1. Wonder if I'll have to beg, or if I'll be forced to endure Kaiser. Blue Cross, bless their heart, is amazingly understanding and cancels my cancellation. I love Blue Cross. I tell them so.

It is now 3:06 and my day is only half over. What next, I ask you, what next?!

Written from a fog somewhere....

I am groggier than hell, so forgive me if I babble. Sleep, as the commercials kindly put is, is eluding me. I fall off okay, but then I wake up about 3:30 or 4 a.m. and I AM AWAKE. Eyes open, brain twirling--I feel like I'm back in college and just pulled an all night on uppers. I'm having conversations with everyone, with D and my cousin and my nephew and my friend. They're good conversations and bad, about sweet things and sour. I'm superbly articulate, of course, and say exactly what I need to to convince said person to see the rightness of my ways. And they do, or at least they fade from the stage, and then the next person appears to lure me into my nighttime dialogue. Or blog posts--I'm writing entire blog posts in my mind. Incisive, deeply moving, wittier-than-shit blog posts. And you're not reading them? How can that be?

Last night I finally got up and had some toast and a glass of milk. And read Time. (nb: Time is a much better magazine than Newsweek; have you noticed that too?) And did not fall asleep upon my return to bed, so that's the old drink-a-glass-of-milk theory down the tubes.

This morning when I finally dragged my sorry ass out of bed (thanks, Sondra Jean, for the colloquialism), I was shakey and--hmmmm, hungry. Like when I was in college and would wake up with a hangover (and though I sound it, I wasn't one of the biggest stoners around) and had to shovel bacon and eggs into me toute suite.

I pulled the bacon and eggs from the fridge, lucky me to have stocked up last week. And put the bacon in the microwave for 10 seconds--what, you thought I was making it fresh? Puhleeze, don't you know there is pre-cooked bacon on your grocer's shelves. I pulled open a drawer to get the little yellow plastic ball in which I nuke my eggs only to realize it was in the dishwasher. Dirty. So of course I hauled its sorry ass out of there and peered into it (kinda like I would peer at the crotch of dirty underwear to see if they would stand a second wearing when I was in college--are you sensing a motif here?) and saw, much to my regret, too much schmutz to be able to ignore.

So I returned to the freezer where I pulled out another tasty treat: a frozen gluten-freeze organic buckwheat waffle with some sort of allegedly wild, allegedly berries. I fried that in the toaster, since the microwave was occupied reheating the almost full Grande Drip that I got yesterday morning at Starbucks but didn't finish. Finally, as the chefs on the cooking shows say, I plated my food, pouring Real Maple Syrup on my waffle, and sat down to eat, with a napkin no less.

In all fairness, I must finish this culinary expedition exposition by telling you that the absolute best of all the dishes before me was the day-old coffee. Hey, wanna come over for breakfast tomorrow?????? I'll wash the yellow egg ball.....

In Search of a Title which expresses the meaning of t his post...

...which is actually a compendium of topics, or--as I prefer to think of it--a bunch of shit that has occurred to me which I am sure you need to know.

• Award for the Dumbest Name of A Business: a local massage/spa type business called Massage Envy. This is not a massage parlor in some seedy backwater stripmall whose offerings are euphemisms for blow jobs and the like. Which is definitely what the name references for anyone in the Western world who has heard of penis envy. But maybe that's the problem. Maybe the owners are not of the Western world. A lot of the businesses in our area are small operations run by Asian immigrants grabbing onto the American dream, and that, at times, has led to some strange names for businesses. Like ChopSuey ChopSuey Bar. Or Get Your Hair Cut Beauty Shop. I imagine, when I come across such names, that the owners have translated from their own language to English and aren't comfortable enough (a euphemism of my own) with American vernacular to know that their well-thought-out business name is just, well, dumb. Or, as in the case of Massage Envy, is a really loaded piece of language, a word bomb of sorts.

• AP reported today that the CBS Evening News last week had its lowest audience since at least 1987. ABC's World News is, as Nielson likes to put it, the ratings winner. The AP report that the numbers "add to the sense that Charles Gibson is eclipsing Brian Williams as the nation's favorite network news anchor." My kneejerk construction of the results was--and listen to all of the pundits who fling their legs in the air with me--that Americans prefer an older male giving them their news. But then I thought of what Evening News I watch and why: ABC, because (and I'm about to shout now) I CANNOT STAND the local news leadins on my NBC and CBS affiliates. The NBC affiliate in Sacramento has a news reporter who has clearly gone to the Geraldo Rivera School of Journalism, and this would seem to be the same place that spawned the entire news-team of the CBS affiliate in Sacramento. They so offend me that I want to throw sharp objects at my flat screen television, and that has only ever happened before when Cheney is on the tube. I can't afford to kill my TV, so I simple refuse to watch these two local news programs. And I'm wondering if there are others in other cities who feel the same about their local news? Is there a Sense of The News vibe that is ordained by the networks? Is the local CBS news so inane because it is following in the Katie Couric happy news programming?

In the past I have called these kinds of posts "Potpourri", but really, that's pretty lame, not to mention dumb and etc. Some people call them "This and That", which is equally ditto, IMHO. I tag these posts as Yadayada, which really says it to me--but what about you? Can you come up with a snappy title for posts of this ilk? There is a prize in it for the best entry....

OCD & Me

I am cleaning out my filing cabinet for reasons that shall remain private, but not the least of which is because it overfloweth. With shit that I've saved. Or, in some cases, that my mother, now dead these past six years, saved. Which also included stuff my long emparidised father (which is how he referred to his father at his Bar Mitzvah) saved. But I've told you all that before, haven't I. Or some of it, anyway.

So I am cleaning out my filing cabinet and here's my problem: file colors. What should they be? Or, actually, should they be? I have a masterfiler box of those army green ones that are ubiquitous. But at some point, I got a tad daring. And went with color. At Lehigh, I had red. My psych stuff is in dark blue. And sometime between those colors, I bought a box of multi-colored. For no reason. Because they were pitty, pitty, pitty.

[A Note: what's with all these phrases, these non-clausal clauses? Can I not. Write a Full. Sentence. With correct, like, ah, punctuation.]

Consequently, my file drawers are a mishmash. They are a color catastrophe. They make my retinas hurt, and they confuse my already beleaguered frontal lobe.

Any suggestions????

Boy With Baggy Pants

I am soooo soooo mature.....

I could watch this over and over again, if I didn't have to keep running to the bathroom so I don't pee in my pants.

With thanks to Dooce.

Things About Which I Might Write

Christ, my grammar is good. No dangling participles for me, nosireebob. (Picks nose, shuffles feet, clears throat)

1. I sent two--count 'em TWO--job apps on Monday, faxed them that is, and I have not heard from either. Such is my job search and thus it is going. D. posits that I might be a trickle or two hasty in expecting to hear back from them, but jesus, if they aren't dazzled by my resume and stunned by my letter, then what gives????? I expect major responses when I speak, people.

2. I signed up for BlogHer'07 today. I'm not eager or anything. Such is my social life and thus it is going, or not, as the case may be. I booked my hotel (the W) ages ago and got a double should anyone want to share (please send your Slam Book from high school as No Creeps Allowed. Just Nerds.)

3. This time I'm bringing cards. And t-shirts, the ones referencing Descartes: Blogito Ergo Sum that I'm having made up. I'll put them on the site when they're ready.

4. Blurbomat has a great photo on his blog, a sky shot, about which I commented, "Fan-fucking-tastic!" I am not only a grammarian of exceptional note; I am also articulate and well-spoken. If you like his, I refer you to mine on Flickr, which are pretty fan-fucking-tastic too if I say so myself. Which I just did.

5. I traded a necklace for a felted purse on LeahPeah's Trade A Craft site. This was our first trade, and we all shuffled around in corners fixing our hair and clearing our throats. Till one brave soul told me she liked mine and did I like hers and I did and we did and it was good. Go look. Join. Post photos. Be good.

6. Speaking of which, sort of, anybody else out there watching Work Out on Bravo channel? I'm trying to figure out what the demographics for the show are: gay women? straight men who like gay women? workoutbuffs hoping for a tip or two? Me, I watch it because it takes place in West Hollywood and makes me feel like I'm still a part of the real world there. I also like Jackie, although not in that way. Not that there's anything wrong with it. She's really brash and out-there (which I mean in the most non-gay way), but there is also a sweetness about her, a vulnerability that makes her seem like she'd be someone I'd want to know.

7. I have just drained the dregs of my morning coffee. And it's only 3 p.m. About tea time, yes?

Fortuitous Friday...

I don't know what it's fortuitous for, since I'm still feeling crappy. But it's Friday and fortuitous is just the alliteration I happened to come up with.

Population explosion

My cousin Ratphooey had her baby boy this morning. Now if only MissB would pop hers out, my family would be all present and accounted for.

Logging Hours...

I am logging my hours for the BBS so I can get them signed by past supervisors so that when I finally have 3000, I can take yet another impossible exam. You probably didn't understand any of that except for the last bit--unless you are a marriage & family therapist, counselor, clinician, whatever--take your pick. So let me translate: The BBS is the Board of Behavioral Sciences which is responsible for California therapists licenses (not psychologists, however, that's another board) In order to get licensed in California, one must have an MA in Psychology at least AND 3000 hours of various kinds of experience, training, etc. which must be supervised by a licensed BBS MFT supervisor. Or some such thing. I haven't paid all that much attention because it seems to me that by the time I have the 3000 hours, I'll be dead. Currently, I am pre-licensed, which, although it makes me sound like a used car, means I can do therapy under the supervision of a yadayadayada.

If you are still with me, it's probably because you're either bored at work or have a friend/family member who is going through the logging of hours business. In which case, you must send them to this nifty site, which offers, for a nominal fee, software so one can do the whole thing on the computer. Which is a vast improvement over doing it by hand, a task that always includes much stress over my post-aneurysm crappy handwriting ("She used to have such lovely handwriting...almost calligraphic in nature...sigh...").

This logging of hours means I am going back over my calendar for the past two years. And finding addresses. And phone numbers. And the license # of my supervisors. And lots of other shit that I should have done at the time. My friend Marlene has a spreadsheet of her own going. But then my friend Marlene is well-organized. Her friend Jane is not. Her friend Jane has bits and pieces all over the place, which I mean to file and sometimes I do file them but then I forget that I've filed them or where I've filed them. In LA, there were only certain places where this detritus of my life could be lurking, but here in Elk Grove--sheesh! all the world's a stage.

Baby, It's Cold Outside...

...the subheading for the post being: "Walking Your Dog When It's Friggin' Freezing."

For those of you living in the balmy NorthEast, be it known that the central western part of the states, or at least central California, is having a rare cold spell. So rare that the newscasts are leading with it. So rare that the Governor opened up many more Warm Shelters. So rare that we're being instructed in how to protect our pipes and our lemon trees and our rose bushes from the frigid air. So rare that we haven't seen the like of this weather in this century. So rare that the last time we descended to these depths of farenheit it was way, way, way back in '92 or '93.

I don't mean to make light of it--well, obviously I do--but really, one man's subArctic freeze is another guy's sunshiney day.

I just came back from walking Molly in this subArctic balm. The temp is, oh say, 40 or 50--and yes, there's a wind chill. But I, being a former Pennsylvanian, insist that January in California should be shirt sleeve weather. My winter coat is stored for trips to New York. I make do with a $10 hoodie sweatshirt from SaveOn and my LL Bean downvest. And earmuffs. It wasn't, I regret to tell you, enough.

Or perhaps the walk was too long. I have a short round-the-block version for Molly's poop walks and a much longer, down-by-the-Slough-I'm-Exercising-My-Dog walk. I intended to go on the former. But Molly--poor Moll had a weak belly this morning. It is, I'm sure, a consequence of ALL THE HUMAN FOOD THAT HER FATHER FEEDS HER! Which is what I'm silently screaming as I crouch on the sidewalk trying to find and contain each dribble. She assumes the position here, there, and everywhere trying to get that last little drop off her asshole. Have you ever tried to wipe up soft shit from a lawn? Let me rephrase that: have you ever tried to wipe up soft shit while you had your hand inside a thin plastic bag which is all that is between you and the doggy diarrhea--in subarctic conditions? It feels like exactly what it is.

And then my ear muffs start to slide off, but I have no free hand with which to readjust them. And thanks to Molly's bowels, we're far from the short round-the-block walk. I think of it longingly as I trudge home. But I have miles to go before I sleep--and piles of dog shit to dump when I get there.

Down For The Count

Out of commission, bonged over the head with a virulent not-yet-super-snotty cold. What more can I say?

Yadayadayada Day

I'm having one of those Yadayadayada Days. You know, the kind where you stay in bed too long, read too many spam letters, listen to too many E-OnLine news videos, and when asked any kind of specific question, can't think of a better response than yadayadayada.


I'm blaming it on an incipient bout of the flu. Feel sorry for me.

There are many things I could be doing. But, eh....yada, etc.

Paying Bills...

I am sitting here with that vague, pre-frontal lobotomy headache that I always get whenever I manage to fasten my butt to the seat to Pay Bills (I wanted to put that in a huge purple font, so it should scream as it does in my head, but I've spared you, holding myself to a delicate cap initial letter status). I believe I have mentioned this state before. Like every month or so, when I can no longer avoid the shifting pile of envelopes that have accrued since the last time I paid 'em. And I believe I confessed that it isn't not having the money to pay that bothers me. And it's not having to write checks, because mostly I do on-line (bless you, BofA) banking. It is just the fact of these fucking people wanting something from me. Leave me alone, goddamnit.

Starting a Knitting Frenzy, I fear

Today I bought on-line the yarn for this coat, pattern a freebie--hooha! I got it in this color, or something similar called Burnt Orange. I probably should have gone for a darker color as those who know my record of knitting Finished Objects are aware that I may be knitting this as my shroud. Still, I couldn't resist. The pattern just called to me--it's so weird, and throw-y and I'm sure I'll look just like the model in it. Ha! Seriously, I spent some time remembering that I won't look like the model and considering how all those pleats and folds around the middle will work with my already-pleated and folded middle. And I decided, since it already looks like it could be a good coat for a pregnant woman--go for it, Jane.

EDIT: I fixed the link, so it should go to the Elann site for this coat.

When Your Words Catch Up With You...or, My Face Is Red, but My Heart is Full

Yesterday was Wednesday, and Wednesday night is late night at Knitique, my LYS (knit-speak for local yarn shop). Knitters have a propensity for communal activities. It's part of our DNA, so to speak, from the days long ago when no woman worth her salt or not would be found with empty hands. Women's work in all those Jane Austen novels was needlework, and if you recall, they could always be found in front of the fire somewhere with work in hand. But--I digress.

So, yesterday was Wednesday, and Wednesday night is late night at Knitique, when a revolving, evolving group of us gather around the table in the back of the store and knit and talk and eat pink M&Ms and knit and talk. Most LYSs have something similar; I've been to a number. Never have I found one where I went back again and again. There's a Yiddish word, gemeluchkeit

I wrote that a couple of weeks ago, got tripped up on how to spell that Yiddish word and never posted it. I was going to tell the story of how embarrassed I was when my friends at Knitique greeting me after a post in which I had lamented the lack of hard-core, graduate student, jargon-laden BS in my life. They just hooted and hollered and yelled at me in faux-yokel dialect. At first, I was confused. Then I realized--omg, they read my blog! I was pleased, embarrassed and then, perverse though it may seem, felt an overwhelming love for this group of women who have become my friends. One of my core issues has always been that I'm not being truly seen, but these women--they see me.

I'm writing this now because I spent New Year's Day with them and it couldn't have been, I feel, a better, more propitious start to 2007. Danielle, the owner of Knitique, has started a New Year's Day tradition: a 6 a.m.-2 p.m. deep discount, wear-your-PJs sale of everything in the shop. I didn't get there at 6, but at 12:30 everything I wanted was still there. So, I went 'round the store with two shopping bags and loaded up. I bought yarn and books and felting needles and more yarn and...and...and... You'll see everything over the next months, I promise.

But it wasn't the sale that made the day so special. It was the women there. Danielle, of course, and her sister, Lisa (we discovered we were kindred souls!), and Teresa and her daughter and Kim and Shirley. There were some Knitiquers missing--Mary and Susan (who was home with her week old baby) and SJ and Nancy and....and....and...you get my point. After the shop closed at 2 p.m., we went to On The Border and had margaritas and dessert and then dinner.(Yes, you read the order right.) We laughed and talked and shared stories and made plans and...and...and--if this presages the best of 2007 for me, it promises to be a fantastic year!

I'm back, and I'm grumpy...

Pissed off is more like it. Something strange happened to my email and then to D's email and it took me almost an hour this morning on the phone with a terrific Comcast techie in Winnipeg to get the strangeness undone. Both of our Comcast email accounts had been forwarded to some unknown ISP with rr in the address. It took that long to figure that out and it took two seconds to uncheck the forward, please command. But now I'm thinking--how the hell did that happen? Were we highjacked? How? By whom? And now what do I do about it?

This was not how I intended to spend my morning. I have mucho chores to do, not the least of which is sending the state some tax bullshit so they don't charge me $500. Yes, yes, I should have done it a couple of years ago, but--that's the way it goes.

I was also going to take Molly on a nice long walk and then work out at the gym for a while. And then I was going to finish my novel and sign up for that new PhD program and then I was going to take a bubble bath, paint the tub, and do my nails. And then I was going to...what an utter load of whatever you want to call it.

The thing I hate about being away is that it puts me off my schedule. And when I'm off my schedule, I'm cranky. Blame it on my mother. Blame it all on my mother.