My Day -- By Jane

Here's what I've done today:

1. Got up early (for me) to drive to Sac's version of the 'hood to open up a community center and sit in an office waiting for my 9 a.m. client to arrive. And my 10 a.m. And my 11 a.m. A hat-trick of no-shows.

2. Read through almost my entire Google list on my Treo. No small feat with a screen that size. Got caught up with lots of people's blogs.

3. Drove back home, listening to Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. A very good thing since laughter is the best medicine, etc. etc. etc. Stephen Colbert was on. He's funnier, I think, when he's not doing a character. Wondered whether he has ever discussed why his ears don't match. For the longest time, I thought it was a costume thing. But I think not. I think his ears don't match. And I'm curious as to why.

4. Didn't need to check my email since I had checked and rechecked it while waiting for the hat-trick of no-shows.

5. Packed up for mailing a blouse I bought at a Tupperware party. Well, not really. But like a Tupperware party, except for clothes. CAbi--heard of it? Neither had I. The blouse was too small and too large. That is, too small in the boobs and too large in the shoulders. This is my fate these days since I've grown these headlights. I don't know what to do with them. I have no experience at dressing them. I wish they would go away.

6. Went to Kinko's to mail the blouse. Got the new boy on the job. The one who didn't know what he was doing wrong so he just kept doing the same thing over and over again. Isn't that the definition of insanity? Or maybe just stupidity. I was a model of patience, I must say. He would never know that I'm usually a fire-breathing dragon in such circumstances.

7. Went to Target to see what new tops they have in. For my headlights. I need something that is not T-shirty, clingy, 1% spandex. If you have wandered through Target recently, you'll know how impossible that is. Tried on one top which fit everywhere except--my boobs. Tried on another which was on a rack labeled Voluminous. I believe this was the name of the garment. Or maybe it referred to the size. Either way, it fit everywhere including my boobs, except--it made me look pregnant. This is, I realize, the current fashion. I believe it has everything to do with the latest fashion accessory: the baby bump. That is, pregnant or not, if you wanna be in, you need to wear maternity clothes.

8. Came home. Decided to bake. Was chagrined to realize that I didn't have a stick of butter and thus, was thwarted in my urge to create.

9. Wrote this post. Lucky you.

Blogstipation....

Yeah, I think I've got it. I know I've got it. And I know why I've got it. All the stuff that's going on in my mind and heart--just can't put it out there. So I'm reduced to photos, and crafts and stuff-- I feel marginally guilty. Okay, more than marginally. But it seems to be a bug that's going around: more than one of my daily reads has bowed out for a period of time or two. I'll just keep on pottering around, and when I really have something to say, I'll say it.

Clothespins

Remember those clothespins I told you about? They're now magnets. To hold stuff. The top and bottom cleverly say MAIL. The middle one is pure design.

As Promised: The Green

I am a person of my word. When I say I'll do something, I do it. Sometimes. And sometimes not. But in this case, I'm making good on my promise to give you Post, The Second. Subtitled The Green.

No, I'm not going to go off on the greening of American mass culture. Although I certainly could. As you well know. Rather, what I'm referring to are my evolving plans for this business I've been dreaming up, on which I've been spending much mental time doing research and development.

Here, and as they say on Dancing With The Stars, "in no particular order" are my ideas: I'm referring to what I want to sell as Eco Arts & Crafts. That is, all manner of hand-made objects that have as a significant part of their materials stuff that has been around the block before. Repurposed, recycled, found objects. Clothing, jewelry, gifts, and objets d'art. Bags made from old sweaters, necklaces strung of antique findings and watchmakers tools. Collages and collections that use the old and the new to create meaning out of discarded whatevers.

Yes, this is maddenly vague, and sure, I know that whatevers is not a proper noun. When I can articulate what is swirling around in my mind, then I'll be ready to begin. You'll just have to bear with me until then. Or not.

Thinking Pink and Thinking Green...

Here's a new why-I-haven't-blogged-recently excuse: the dog ate my homework...no, the dog ate my laptop...no, I can't decide which and what to write about so I just won't write anything. But this could go on for a very long time, so I'm grabbing the proverbial bull by the horns (as if) and writing Two Blog Posts In One....!

Post, The First: a disclaimer is required. I am very pro women, breasts, healthy women, healthy women with breasts and all that is required to keep them that way. I also, as you may recall, lost my best friend to breast cancer. Just saying that makes it sound like she went out in the cancer woods one day and never came home. Which isn't the case at all. She died, people, she died. Ten years after they cut off both her breasts. Okay, have I disclaimed enough to not infuriate all tender souls when I say:

I hate this bullshitty Pink for Breast Cancer month.

It has become a huge marketing ploy. Every company out there has done a pink something or other, which is now being advertised as the Must Have and by-the-way, we are giving .001 percent of our profit on each item to breast cancer research. And the magazines have jumped on the bandwagon. Pages and pages of glossy pink this and pink that. If we can make it in pink, hey, do it and jam it on the suckers in October, which is National Breast Cancer month. Just in time for the lead up to orange and black for National Halloween Month. And green and brown and orange for National Thanksgiving Month. And the all-time favorite, red and green for National Christmas Month. With a soupcon of blue and white for Chanukah and red, green andyellow for Kwanza Months.

Part of my anger is that I hate pink. I hate that pink is supposed to be so girly. I hate that I'm supposed to want everything in pink. I hate that young girls in my family are brainwashed into loveloveloving pink. Even Kayla, whose favorite color has always been black, lives in a Pepto Bismal colored room. Pink is insipid. Pink is but a pale washed out form of red. I hate that when men want to humiliate other men, they put them in pink. Pink is--hey, did you know that in former times pink was the boy's color; it was considered, as a derivative of red, too 'Hot' a color for girls. But I digress...

I am all in favor of corporations major and minor giving large chunks of change to breast cancer research. And I can understand their desire to have people know and appreciate their good works. But wouldn't a simple line of print on the label do? I can't stand they they're making money not only from our pain, but from our good nature and need to fit in (see me! I'm wearing a pink whatever. I'm in favor of women keeping their breasts!)

Pink camo T-shirts? I ask you--what jungle war would they be worn in? Or should they be given to our female soldiers, just to kinda mark 'em in the field? And pink soup cans--I see all those rows of washed out Campbell's soup and all I can think is, "blech! how long have they been sitting in the barn?"

I have quite worn myself out with that rant. I shall save Post, the Second for tomorrow...you lucky people.

Book Review

I've tried and erased a number of snazzy titles for this post. Is it me; am I just not feeling creative? Or is it this book?

Hmmmm.......

I Never Saw Paris, by Harry Freund.

First, a disclaimer of sorts. This book was sent to me by the publisher Carroll & Graf. Well, first they asked if I wanted to read it. I, who have never turned down a free book, said Sure. Therefore, I feel morally bound to not trash Harry's second novel.

I never read Harry's first novel, Love With Noodles. It was praised by none other than Francine Klagsbrun and Gloria Goldreich, two of the matriarchs of Jewish letters. I know some authors get paid for their pull quotes, but I suspect this was more a case of Francine, Gloria, and Harry all being on the board of the same New York shul.

Second, this book does not stink. Despite the fact that I upended a full glass of milk on it, and then just left the milk-soaked pages to swell and ripple on this own. There is no scent of sour about it now, which speaks well for the paper Carroll & Graf used.

Third, I never read Mitch Albom's Five People You Meet in Heaven. Maybe if I had I would recognize that Harry's I Never Saw Paris resonates with lively echoes of Mitch's work. Tell me if this sounds familiar: a group of people, strangers all, die in a freak car accident and have to insure their place in Heaven by...by...by hanging all their dirty laundry out to dry in front of several smart alecky angels. With wings, no less. Obviously stolen from the Angels in America set.

This is the frame, then. Each person has a different schtick, and I used that word advisedly since the Narrator sounds like everybody's Uncle Abe. One is a Holocaust survivor, another a gay prostitute. There's a black Christian lady whose only sin was stealing a diamond from her mean white boss. And a white woman who assuaged her loveless marriages by honing her shopping talents. And the Narrator, who made a lot of money and schtupped a lot of women, even though he was married. Okay, next point.

Fourth, Harry's strong suit is not titles. Nor is it, I regret to say, characterization. I would go into a whole lecture about Forster and Flat Characters, but that would be for Harry's sake, and I hope he doesn't read my blog.

Because, Fifth, I can't not trash this novel. Or--I can't praise it. It's cute, in an annoying way. The way Uncle Abe is at a bar mitzvah when he's had too much schnapps and starts falling into Cousin Ann's bosom. Drooling on it. And spraying whoever he's got in his grip with half-masticated bits of white fish, bagel, and rugelach.

Sixth, I cry for the trees that died for this book.

Seventh, if you like to read anything Jewish, go right out and buy I Never Saw Paris, by Harry I. Freund.

A Newish Viewish - or Blogkeeping 101

I'm cleaning up the flotsam and jetsam of my blog. You know, all those bits and pieces that are no longer relevant. Like old badges from BlogHer and the like. Not that BlogHers badges are irrelevant--no, indeedy. Just that "I'm Going To BlogHer'07" is so, so over for me --and everyone else who went. I think badges should have a shelf life, don't you?

I've also removed my blogroll. I'm so uncomfortable with that BFF Today and Forever Syndrome which seems to be unavoidable with blogrolls. At least for me. Yes, I check to see if I'm on someone's blogroll. Yes, I burst my buttons when I find ByJane listed. Yes, I want to quickly put them on mine to show that we've got a mutual thing going. And, yes, I can't bear to tell this person or that one that I am no longer reading them because...well, just because. So I'm doing away with blogroll. Instead, I offer you the posts from my Google Reader, the ones I read EverySingleDayWithoutFail. This is a truer blogroll, it seems to me since it's not my entire Google reader, just the top of the milk.

I've added a new photo, my daily posting on Crafting365. I swearswearswear I'll keep it uptodate.

And tomorrow: ta dum! the new masthead. Don't get overexcited; my creativity and my ability to code are only in their infancy.

Crafting 365 - day 3

Harvest Wreath
Originally uploaded by By Jane

Harvest Wreath - hangin' on mah front door....

Craft 365: day 2, WIP Eye

WIP Eye
Originally uploaded by By Jane

A real work in progress....! Not quite sure where it's going.

Crafting 365 - Day1

I joined this group on Flickr a couple of weeks ago. The mere act of joining caused me to hyperventilate. A craft a day? Even a bit of a craft a day! Holy moly--that's scary.

Now, here's me doing that Hollywood actress thing and saying--I must do what scares me. (Don't you just love when someone beautiful and famous says that about taking a role where she has to be ugly.) Actually I would say--I must do that which scares me, because the other construction is a bit like chalk on a blackboard to me. So--have I talked long enough that you forget what I'm doing here? No?

Then allow me to present my first entry in Crafting 365--oh, jesus, I'm gasping again............


This is a notebook cover that I needle-felted. The base is gray craft felt and the design (?) is done with three different shades of roving, plus bits of yarn from my stash. You're looking at it sideways because I didn't turn the photo around. Because...because...

Can I please go and breathe now??????

Doglessness: A Report From the Front

If this were truly a WWII story, it might be titled: Sans Chien. However, not only is it not a WWII story, it is being written by someone who, although she is a WWII buff, and carries the complete set of LIFE magazine from the war years with her to every new place she lives, is not watching Ken Burns documentary. I simply don't have the patience to sit through concurrent nights of watching a doc play out. Better, by me, to program it twice a week, or even once a week. Then I'd set my DVR and watch at will. But recording it as it airs means jamming my DVR with Ken Burns--and then what would happen to Survivor China and Dancing With the Stars and Top Chef? So, I'll forego the pleasure, figuring I'll catch it one of the nine million times it plays during Pledge Week. Besides, since I have no water cooler around which to gather with my workmates, why do I need to be au courant???

So what did I do this weekend?

1. Saturday afternoon I sat at Knitique and pulled out the jumbled rows on my rust swing coat (you do remember that one, don't you?). Unknitting can be slower than knitting, particularly when one has ants in one's pants and can't sit still for very long. However, I persevered and I prevailed and I am now once again at the point of the swing coat knitting where the instructions make no sense and I'll probably fuck it up all over again. I think I'll save it till tomorrow, when the wondrous Danielle can figure it out for me.

2. Saturday night I shed a few tears for the missing Molly and then watched the Emmy's. Yeah, I know, they were on last week, but I didn't watch them because...because....I was trying to be a good housemate and not inflict my trashy TV taste on the other inhabitant of the house.

3. Sunday I got up, drank my day-old coffee, read the paper, and prepared to unpack my Fall/Halloween stuff. But I was totally surprised by a phone call from my stepson and daughter-in-law inviting me to dinner. It was really telling how quickly mymood went from stoic Dealing With Life to over-the-top Joyous. Once again, I'm reminded of how much those kids mean to me, that whatever the BS with their father, they are my kids, my family and I need them.

4. Before I drove to the Bay Area, where they live, I stopped in Lodi, to check it out as a place for my shop. I don't think so.... It was dead, dead, dead on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Only one store was open in the area that I was contemplating. Well, two stores, but one of them was having a Going Out Of Business sale. And another store had a For Sale sign in the window, and another was just plain empty. I liked the idea of Lodi because it is close to Elk Grove and I could do the shop and stay in this house. But I know how iffy starting a business is, and I'd like to at least give myself a fighting chance by picking a good location. So, it may be the Bay Area or the Coast for me. Which considering the fact that both sons and daughters-in-law are there, would probably be a good place to be.

5. I spent the night, sleeping in their guest room, which always inspires me to come home and decorate.

6. Which I am doing...and I will post photos and other grand illusions--eventually.

Shared Custody

Molly is going to Oregon with her father tomorrow. I have to send her. When she's here, I'm tied to the house. Because she is the neediest little dog, and never more so than just after D has been here and left, and because, maybe, I can't separate the me from the she in terms of feeling abandoned. Whatever--the consequence is that I don't go out when I want to and I don't go out when I need to and when I do go out, if it is at all possible, I take her with me. I feel trapped.

Sounds like a single parent, doesn't it? And that is something I am not prepared to be. I realized this during the week D has been here. I have been out and about every night--gee, a real social life! Which is good, because the grimness of 250 lbs. of Bad Mood or Depression or Simply Lack of Interest is not fun to be around.

I've got a pretty full life going here, and that pleases me. I've got plans for the near and far future that excite me. But I need to be free of responsibility for a while. And he needs to have it.

Still, I'm sadder than sad. I'm suffering from the Welling Tears Syndrome. But I've got to do it. For my sake. And hers. And his.

Foreclosures, Pot Houses & Bad Architecture

Yeah, I know: this is not the sort of topic you expect from me. But here's the thing. If you've been listening to the news or even reading the headlines, you know that the real estate market is wallowing on the beach. My area of Northern California is particularly hard hit. Elk Grove was, two years ago, touted as the fasting growing city in the US. Hey, I was excited too. I may have given up LA, but I was getting a Happening place in return. And I was getting a brand-spanking new house, where I got to pick each and every piece of tile and trim on woodwork (well, sorta, within the confines of the builder's specs, that is).

I've written before of my shock when I moved here and discovered that my house was one of literally thousands, all painted varying shades of brown. But I've adapted. I love the inside of my house. And I'm one of the lucky ones; I don't have an adjustable rate mortgage that is eating up my income and threatening to bankrupt me. So I'm just an observer in the process which real estate expert Norm Schriever outlines in his blog today.

Norm is writing about the Franklin East Reserve area of Elk Grove. That's my area. I think you'll be reading about us soon, because we're going to become, I would bet, the poster child for the ills, varied as they are, of the US new housing market bust. Several weeks ago, The Sacramento Bee did a feature in the their Business section on just one of our problems: vacant houses, absentee landlords, lawns gone to seed. What follows this in any neighborhood, as the police will tell you, is the Broken Window Syndrome: crime, gang activity, further falling property values. The Wall Street Journal picked up the story, and their version is supposed to run on Friday.

I would say the lawns have gone to pot, but that's another problem that's put us in the news. Those absentee landlords? Some of them bought their houses to grow marijuana in. The newly-formed Elk Grove Police Department has gotten more press than it ever expected for their pot busts. Today's headline, above the fold in The Sacramento Bee: "Big pot operation busted in Elk Grove." The major busts several months ago were of houses totally dedicated to growing plants. This time, the growers got smart; they avoided neighbor's suspicions by keeping their lawns mowed, the first floor occupied and only growing the plants on the second floor.

And this is where the third part of my title comes in: Bad Architecture. Our homes were all built so that the living in them takes place in the back. You drive into your garage, and for the period of time that you're at home, you are never seen again. Nothing, I repeat, nothing happens out front. Neighbors? Huh, what are they? Come to think of it, who are they? The days of the front porch, of families watching out for each other, of the village raising the child--these are all non-existent, impossible even, in our area, thanks to the design of our houses.

For the two years that I've lived here, I've wailed about this. The [former] cultural critic in me has tried to deconstruct what it was about society that led to an entire generation of houses where no one was ever home. I know as a [former] cultural critic that the impact on society of culture is in some ways symbiotic. That is, it works both ways: a particular aspect of culture both reflects and refracts the society from which it comes. So these houses where the front yards were manicured, where the garages had trimmed windows that faced the street aping what should be a living room, where the living quarters were all in the far back of the house--these houses gave the appearance of perfect suburbia. But in fact, what they nourished was the underbelly of society: drugs, crime, and a host of social ills.

The Woes of Being a Woman...

...or, Have I Whined About My Hair Lately?

Seems to me that I did an entire blog post on my hair stylist/cutter/whatever they're calling themselves these days. But on checking back, I may have only done half a rant and then ran out of steam. Lucky you.

I will try to keep this terse and pithy.

Finding someone to cut one's hair is, as most women (and men too, if they're honest) will tell you a trauma fraught with wild hopes, much head nodding, followed by some head shaking, followed, at times, by the pitiful thought that It'll grow. Such has been my state over the last two years when I've lived away from LA, mecca of hair people who know what they're doing. I have traipsed from pillar to post, and now from long to short, trying to find a decent hair cutter. I have been to the Alpha and the Omega of Sacramento County hairdressers. The Alpha is not much, if any, better than the Omega. The Alpha, on the other hand, charges by the follicle.

Today I made my third trip to the Omega, SuperCuts. I had the same person as last time. We had a similar conversation, which has devolved to that same pitiful thought.

I would post a photo, but I'm too embarrassed. Let's put it this way: I look like a gym teacher. A transgendered gym teacher. Which, come to think of it, may be because my Omega hair cutter is a person of indeterminate gender.

Not that there's anything wrong with that....

My silence is not golden...

...so for want of any more sterling topics, I've decided to do Sarah Lane's made-up meme. Just because she's much wittier than I am--at least today--I've decided to leave her answers. Mine are in red.

Sarah's Random Question Game, Revisited

A couple years ago, I wanted to know more about all of you, so I created this game. It was fun. Let's have more fun. Per the original rules, please copy and paste the following questions into your comment post, but erase my answers and replace them with yours.

1. What's your favorite color?
Sorry, but that's a stupid question. I don't think that knowing my favorite color is green helps you understand me at all. Although I suppose it would come in handy if my birthday was coming up and you were mulling over the idea of buying me an article of clothing in cobalt blue, which I would accept graciously but then use as a dishrag. Actually, my favorite color is green as well. But not this green, which I find a tad too flurescent. This green. It's British Racing Green (or it was before the color naming people went crazy) and I lusted after a sports car, a Morgan if you must know, in British Racing Green. That particular lust, as were a number of others, went unfulfilled.

2. If money was not a concern and you could pursue a single hobby for the rest of your life, what would it be?
A photographer. With A+ Photoshop skills. I know that's kind of a bland answer, but few things in life give me the level of joy that I feel when I take a photo and it turns out amazing enough to evoke an emotional response in others. Yep, I have to agree. But if I could have any talent, I'd have a marvelous voice and be a singer. Not as a hobby, though. I want center stage, please.

3. What's one physical thing you wish you could change about yourself?
Only one? What kind of brain teaser is this? Ok ok, if I had to choose just one, I'd get my nose fixed. It was broken many, many years ago, not attended to, and the cartilage healed rather asymmetrically. It never bothered me until my mid-20's when my face kind of settled in and got thinner. While I was on TV every day, I would occasionally get comments about my nose looking big or crooked, which helped feed my self-consciousness. But I'd rather spend my paycheck on a trip to Paris, so I think I'm stuck with it. Yes, yes, me too. I broke my nose when I was seven, showing off at parent's day at camp. I am a one nostril breather. Now I would probably benefit more from some facial tweaking.

4. Sweet or savory?
Oh my, savory, though that's only in the last few years. These days I can do without ice cream, but not without soy sauce. If you cut me open, I'd probably be 65% salt water. And that's an unpleasant visual. Let's move on. Actually, I must have both. Preferably in the same dish.

5. What's the dumbest show on TV that you try to watch regularly?
"The Hills" on MTV. Now I'm humiliated. I hope you're happy. Name your least favorite reality show. Except the ones where they give roses. Gag me....

6. Do you have a favorite Bob Dylan song?
Gosh, you're playing hardball here. Once every few months, I'll dedicate some audio time to Bob, and a song that I haven't been paying much attention to will kind of stand out to me and I'll think to myself, "wow, this is a really fucking good song." See, I'll actually be cussing in my own head because I feel so strongly about it. At this moment, my favorites are 1) Idiot Wind, and 2) Abandoned Love. I think it's the lovelorn Dylan I enjoy the most. Don't Think Twice. Is that the actual name of it. Wait a minute, let me get my Bob Dylan CDs and I'll look...oh, screw it. You know which I mean.

7. Red or white wine?
Is it warm outside? Then white. Is it after dark? Then red. After a bottle of either I will no longer care. I have recently become more conversant with both red and white, thanks to my inert social life. Last night I had a lovely Toasted Head Chardonnay, thanks to the Friday Night Wine Tasting at Raley's. But last week a Jennings, some over-the-top guy gave my friend Susan and me an $80 bottle of Salus Cabernet. It was gooooooood.

8. What profession would you absolutely not want to try?
Aren't you ripping this off from Inside the Actors Studio? Anyway, I've thought about this at length already, and I definitely wouldn't want to be a city sewer worker. Proctologist. Which isn't much different from Sarah's answer, is it.

9. How do you like your eggs?
Fried, over medium. Once served, they must immediately be placed on top of two slices of sourdough and punctured with a fork so that the slightly-hardened-but-not-fully-hardened-yolk seeps into the bread below. Then they must be eaten with great gusto. Gee, this is a toughie. Isn't it interesting how the easiest questions provoke that most thought. How do I like my eggs? It depends, actually, on what mood I'm in. Do I want to sop up yoke, in which case I'll need them over lightly and a side of Wonder bread toast. But maybe I'm in a scrambled state of mind, in which case I want them well-done.

10. What, in your expert opinion, is the best word ever?
Since I discoverd wordie.org, I have a million new ideas, but my new favorite favorite is syzygy. That's a badass word. You can't even play it in Scrabble! My favorite Scrabble word is smegma. I tend to win when I can get the letters for that one. You know what smegma is, don't you? People I play Scrabble with often don't, and then it becomes my really favorite word because I get to define it for them.

So, there you have it. Hope you enjoyed Sarah's Random Question Game. And here's a question for you: Who is she, anyway?

And A Happy New year to you too....

L'shana tova. Etc. etc.

I am not, obviously, in temple, reading responsively and getting ready to cast my sins into the waters of--um, the American River. I am at home, in my office, at my computer, feeling only marginally guilty.

This is the first year since I've been back in California (was it only 1996 that I moved back?) that I haven't done the whole bit at the High Holydays. The whole bit meaning: spent some time during the month before reading and thinking and doing whatever to prepare for the New Year; then spending erev Rosh Hoshanah as well as THE TWO days of the holiday in synagogue; then going to a body of water to cast my sins with other similarly-observant people. Most often this all included family or friends. Never D, who is anti-religion, although he does enjoy eating the apples and honey which we serve so as to ensure a sweet year.

The first years I was back in LA, I went with my niece et al to their Conservative synagogue. It was okay, except that since most of the service is in Hebrew, which somehow I never learned beyond the alphabet (aleph, bet, gimel, daled....), the depth of my comprehension was somewhat, shall we say, limited. When we moved into the city, my mother and I joined a Reform Temple, which just happens to be the one, I'm not name-dropping or anything, where Eddie Fisher and Liz Taylor were married. Truthfully, if you're a Jew in LA and go to synagogue on the High Holydays, you'll probably run into a movie star or two, because as you know we run Hollywood and we're everywhere and the Holydays brings us out of the woodwork like, well, like whatever.

For the past two years, since I've been in Sacramento, I've had to go to services alone. This is every bit as woeful as it sounds. The Holydays are the time when Jews come out in mass and it's a big homecoming, how ya doing, look what I'm up to now. Which is meaningless if you know no one at the synagogue. Also, and I know this sounds somewhat anti-Semitic, but I've never found Jews particularly welcoming in the same way that good Christian ladies know how to make a person feel at home. So the past two years, I've made the necessary arrangements, donned my High Holyday finery (traditionally one's new fall outfit, which then one can sweat in because it is so f...in' hot), and traipsed off to services by myself. Where I more or less remained alone, except for last year when I fell in with a couple of converts who remained at heart good Christian ladies and remember how to do the Welcome Wagon thing.

This year I couldn't do it. I could make all sorts of excuses but the reality is that I couldn't face going to synagogue alone. I'm just starting not to feel like that Grecian Formula commercial--"Rejected!"--and I don't want to be inscribed in the Book of Life this year as some nebbishy, woeful loser.

So I'm staying home, eating my apples and honey by myself and hoping that this year may be sweeter. For you, too.

My New Life, by Jane

So I'm cogitating, planning, and cooking up my new life. Eureka! At last I have an ambition. I have been without same for ages and this, my friends, is what has made me such a woeful little lump. But now, now I know what I want to do, what I was meant to do, what I'm going to do.

It came to me in a flash yesterday afternoon and by bedtime, the whole thing was mapped out in my head. Like it was just waiting in there, ready to come out when the gates opened. Of course, it is something I've been wanting to do since, oh, the early 80s. Something I planned to do if we moved to Central California. Something I intended to do someday when....

I first got the idea (nb: do you think I don't know you don't know what I'm talking about? Ha! Patience, kiddies; it's a virtue, you know) when I walked into a yarn shop in Brentwood. I don't even remember the name of it, but it was a house with three rooms, one of which at least had a fire going in the fireplace. As I recall, but this may be my imagination (or future planning), each room was devoted to a different yarn-related craft: knitting, needlepoint, crewel and crossstitch. I think there was a dog in there somewhere, and the whole place just struck me as the most wonderful way to spend my life. I've held that vision for some 25 years.

When we were looking to move to Visalia in the Central Valley, my plan was to take that concept and open a gift/craft shop. I even looked at real estate there, but we decided not to move then, so I put the shop back in my dreams where it had lived for so long before.

Segue to current moment...yesterday, in fact, after a conversation with D in which he mentioned that he had seen a nice little shop somewhere in that state in which he is still wandering. We used to have a shop ourselves, in Pine Grove, a melange of antiques and collectibles that we took over from his brother and his wife. We called it The Junkman, and it was moderately successful --for two people living on social security. Which we weren't, so we took our junk and went on the road, and that was the end of the shop. But I remember it with great fondness. It wasn't my fantasy, but the lifestyle suited me. So when D told me about the shop he had seen, I said, truthfully, "that sounds appealing." And when I got off the phone, I felt so sad that I would not be a part of this shop. Bereft, you might say. And thinking, why does he get all the fun...

And then I thought, why, indeed? The answer came to me instantly: because he's doing it. He's doing the research and making the plans and acting. So, what's to stop me from doing that, was my very next thought. And again the instant answer: nothing. Nothing's stopping me. So I pulled that dream shop out of the back of my mind, where it's obviously been sitting and growing, and started making plans.

It's evolved somewhat from my original vision, but the gestalt of it has not: a place where people who love things that are original works of art, be they knitted or paper or glass or bead, can come to buy them and/or learn to make them and/or just drink cofffee, eat homebaked cookies, and hang out. I think I'm going to call it Jane's Place. Or maybe I (or you) will think of something more catchy.

I am, as the kids would say, so stoked. Do they still say that????

Today's Blog Is Brought to You By....

...What I Read In Bed At Night.

Last night, and the night before actually, it was Living in the Light of Death and The Northern California & Nevada TourBook. The second was a function of the first and, obviously, they have very different authors and completely different subjects. The former (the first, that is) is a book by Larry Rosenberg on breath awareness meditation or, as the subtitle says, "On the Art of Being Truly Alive." This is so what I'm needing to foster in my life: breathing, being alive, and a knack for taking the piss out of topics that I really do believe in. Ooops. Can I suck that last sentence back? Or at least the final clause--or is it really a phrase with an adverbial in it?

But I digress. The TourBook is the AAA's tome on where and what to visit in--hey!--Northern California and Nevada. If you belong to the AAA, you can go to one of their offices and slide your card in the appropriate slot, punch the appropriate buttons and--woila!--maps and tourbooks come falling out. Sort of like the candy machine at a Motel Six (not that I'd know what that's like, since I foreswore motels with numerals in their names about a decade ago).

I got the TourBook (I hope you're noting the unique capitalization) several weeks ago when I was looking for a likely spot for Molly and I to visit. I found one, but we didn't go; we knitted instead. That is, I knitted at Knitique, my LYS, and Molly veered between greeting the customers and sweeping the floor searching for and finding all manner of crumbs, a task which leaves the floor cleaner and a black low water mark on her chin or beard or muzzle or whatever you want to call that curly white hair that grows on her face.

But again! I digress. I had the TourBook in bed with me because there are three practice centers for Insight Meditation in California, and I wanted to see which was near me. Instead, I got caught up the first chapter of Rosenberg's book: "Aging Is Unavoidable." That's a contemplation, and Rosenberg says it's one people want to avoid. They accept it intellectually--oh, sure, big deal--but to actually take in the real fact of it, of the eventual disintegration of the body--? Nope, that's for someone else. Part of it is a question of self-image, he says, and that, that point is where I got nailed to the wall.

"Self-images are a problem. They are designed to help us feel adequate and secure but also often cause a great deal of suffering. We all have them, and most of us aren't aware we do. We spend enormous time and energy and even money creating and protecting them, trying to keep them intact while our daily experience is chipping away at them. Then when someone sees us in a different way, we are shattered. They mention a senior-citizen discount, and suddenly we see ourselves in Bermuda shorts and canvas shoes, wearing a funny little straw hat. That isn't the image we want to present at all. The pictures we have in our own head are way out of date."

I've been thinking on that. It's a gendered description, so I'm not caught by the Bermuda shorts and funny straw hat. Except--except, the image in my head of a senior citizen is my mother. Short little Libby, who loathed being called cute. Who wore Bermuda shorts and Keds in matching colors. And berets--she was famous for her berets (in fact she was buried in one). There is a whole world of negative images that I have attached to aging, not only clothing, but behaviors and attitudes and ways and means of being that come from watching my mother age. Things I vowed I would not do or feel or say. Except...except...well, you know what I'm going to say, don't you.

Miss Molly at The Shore....

Back to School, Back to Business--Back to Me

I hate summer. Always have. It's hot, and I get sticky, and body parts that were never meant to be revealed must be, for sanity's sake, on show. When I was in college, my parents had a pool. An in-ground, azure blue beauty. This was in Pennsylvania. No one there had a pool, but my parents were kind of reverse snobs, I suppose. They didn't want to join a country club, they did want to swim, so they put in a pool. I spent most of the summers inside, with a book.

I tell you this because it suddenly--d'oh--occurred to me on Monday night that Labor Day was over. The summer was over. And though I didn't have a school to return to, I could stop mooning around acting as if the world owed me a living. So I poste haste made a To Do list and Tuesday morning, I Did. As I am, again, doing today.

Here's what I'm doing:

1. Writing. Something I call, for now, The Night My Brain Burst & Other Stories. I don't know where it will go or what it will be. I do know that the fear of starting something that doesn't have a form petrifies me. Which seems good enough reason to do it.

2. Focusing on myself, rather than other people who shall be nameless. Everytime I think a thought about the Nameless One, I substitute my own name and cogitate on that. As in, The Nameless One is playing games with this not calling business becomes I am playing games with this not calling business. True. I am. I don't want to be out there dangling at the end of an unanswered I Want. Better to pretend that I don't want. Yesterday I returned my cousin's call. We had a funny, loving conversation that went on for exactly the right amount of time. She was delighted that I called her back. Small steps...small steps....

3. Isn't 1 and 2 enough? You want 3, already. Okay, here's 3. That little girl with Molly in the photo? She's my granddaughter. I'm choking as I say it.

4. Do I really think that all of you thought I wasn't old enough to have a granddaughter? You should know that my fear--you don't have to tell me it's nuts--is that you'll say, Oh, my, can't be your friend anymore. Didn't realize you were that old. That much out of our league.

5. Trying to unpack and deal with the shit I have about age. Be prepared: you'll be hearing a lot more about it, because--just because I'm working at not hiding any more. A long time ago, someone said to me, "You talk a lot, but you don't say anything." Weeeelll, not exactly true, but close enough. I am a BS artist, I know. I can sling a phrase and wield a pen well enough to provide my self with cover. I'm trying to stop that.

How I am and am not laboring...

First, a photo: This is Molly and her niece*, K. K is not riding her aunt; she is guiding her gently down the street via her leash. K does this incredibly well, especially considering she is only 4. But then she does most things very well, including--are you ready for this!--flossing her teeth. I couldn't believe it. My niece and nephew barely brush and K flosses! Wow! This is a testimony to her daddy who is a bit of a tooth care warden.
[*Quiz: what is my relation to K?]

We went to the beach--Molly got her feet wet. She is not a water dog, despite being half poodle. We sat in the sun. We collected shells. We did not get burnt because we were careful with sunscreen. Except for the tops of our feet. However, the Sacramento sunshine has already done it's job on this aging person. I have never been this brown before. I am freckled and age-spotted and--what the hell--my boobs have dropped too. Ah youth--would I have you back? Nope. No way.

Today I am laboring: varnishing clothespins. Yes, you read that right. I am creating, dollinks, and when done shall show all of you, not to mention the world of Etsy, the fruit of my labors..

Late Night Ambition; Day Time Lassitude

I get fired up at night. Plans are made, creative juices flow, and vows are taken to realize in the morningthe greatness thought of the night before. When I get up. Around 7 or so. If not earlier.

And then............in the morning, my bed becomes a huge float, bobbing along in the daytime sun. Molly pushes up against me (and sometimes on top of me) for her morning belly rub. Together we're a coccon, rubbing, dozing, bobbing along. In the daytime sun. Until--holy fuck!--it's much later than 7. It's probably later than 8. If I can rip myself from this womb before the big hand is on the 12 and little one on the 9, I consider myself successful. If not, well, so what. I can't remember the plans of the night before anyway. Or if I can, they seem silly, fruitless, or nigh on to impossible to achieve.

Last night, in an effort to harness at least one good thought, I took a pad and pencil to bed. Here's what I wrote:

• There are the thing I know and then there are the stories I tell myself about the things I know. Stories I imagine to be true, but cannot possibly say for sure. Stories in which sometimes I'm the victim and sometimes the hero.
• If you could see this page, you would know for certain, as I do, that one of the lasting effects of the cerebral aneurysm is that my penmanship sucks.
• I am ruled by inertia. And always have been.
• A friend tonight started spinning the story of D's and my early relationship. Her tale was so full of passion, and it made me laugh to think how little resemblance it bore to reality. But maybe her version is true. What do I know to say it's not? The stories we tell ourselves are, after all, simply narratives. They aren't histories."

This morning I sat down, as I do every morning, hands poised over keyboard, ready to write the Great American Blogpost. And this morning, as has happened every morning for a week or so, I am faced with the Great Meh! I can't get inspired. I don't feel clever or witty or even willing to try. I'm just not really that into it. My ambition is on the waning side of the tides. It'll come back. It always has. But until then--talk amongst yourselves. Enjoy the scenery. Eat an apple. Bake a scone.

BlogHer 07 - One Month Later

Call me Little Miss Timely--or say that I wanted to give the whole experience a chance to shake down. Whatever--this is my entry in the Whadja Think Of BlogHer This Year stakes.

1. It was much much better than '06. There seemed, while it was going on, much less grumbling about cliques and in-ness and A-List bloggers. But the latter may have been because they, them of the A list, were absent this year. No Dooce, no Maggie, no Erin. It only occurred to me after the event that maybe they were gently uninvited this year. To allow the lesser folks to shine, perhaps.

2. I knew people! Yeah! And people knew me! Double yeah! So good for the ego.

3. I met people, I networked, I handed out and was handed cards. Here are some of the people I talked to...and liked...and did stuff with...and wanted to get to know better

Marie Drennan www.badbudhistblog.com

Grace Duffy http://quietlyshoutinginside.blogspot.com

Faye Anderson www.andersonatlarge.typepad.com

Birdie Jaworski www.lapajaro.com

Rachel Kramer Bussel http://lustylady.blogspot.com

Shannon Entin http://phatmommy.com

Susan Getgood http://getgood.typepad.com

Lori Shapiro www.spinningyellow.com

Maria Niles www.consumerpop.typepad.com/fizz

Susan Mernit http://susanmernit.blogspot.com

Kristin Henderson http://cribceiling.blogspot.com

Valerie Brown www.infovirtuoso.com/blog

Mary Tsao http://marytsao.blogspot.com

Cynthia Samuels http://dontgelyet.typepad.com/dontgeltoosoon

Elana Centor http://funnybusiness.typepad.com

Heather Sanders www.ohmystinkinheck.com

Catherine McNiel http://catherinemcniel.blogspot.com

Lady M (Monica) http://nupboard.blogspot.com

Pam Mandel www.herseyeview.com

Jody DeVere www.askpatty.com

Breanne Boyle www.askpatty.com

Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood www.craftsanity.com

Laurie Smithwick www.sk-rt.com

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah www.sarahandthegoonsquad.com

Lizarita http://oopsdidisaythatoutloud.blogspot.com

Robyn Tippins http://sleepyblogger.com

Judy Coates Perez www.judyperez.blogspot.com

4. I learned stuff that I wanted to know about this thing called ByJane. Technical stuff. Some of which you're already seeing; some of which I'm still trying to get a grip on.

5. The W was--all that you've heard. Loud, insistently in-your-face cool (2 way mirrors in the bathrooms, for god's sake), and did I mention, loud. Oh, and expensive. I'm not sorry I stayed there, because it was an experience and I do like my experiences. I am sorry I stayed there alone and had to pay for the whole shebang by myself.

6. During the conference, I was overwhelmed with feelings of, I dunno, sisterhood. Now, post-conference I've got a not-so-warm taste in my mouth. This is the year that I'm feeling BlogHer itself is a closed shop, or at least closed to me. Now admittedly I am not all that I might be these days, and Sturdy Girl would tell you, and me, that it's just a question of my perspective, but--some of the BlogHerettes, that is, the Poohbahs, seem a mite, oh, Kappa Kappa Alpha to me. Not that there's anything wrong with that....

7. Will I go next year? I dunno. I'm feeling little blogged out at the moment.

A Girl and her Phone[s]: A Sad Story

This is a sad story about a girl and a telephone and how she misused and abused it and how it eventually did her in.

Once upon a time there was a girl who had several telephones, none of which she liked to use. She simply didn't like to talk on the phone. This was rather curious seeing as she was intimately related to someone who had a telephone permanently attached to her ear. But perhaps the particular gene pool from which these two arose only allowed for one telephone person. Perhaps that was why the girl didn't like to talk on the phone.

Or perhaps it was that when she was a teenager, and harnessed all her courage to call a boy and ask him to a party, when she said, "Shelly (yes, that was his name), this is XY" and paused waiting for him to respond, "Hi XY," instead he said "So what." Perhaps she always hears "so what" when she announces her name to the person she's calling.

Too, this girl is a master at reading faces so as to move in sync with the mood of whoever she's with. This is a tactic that enables her to maintain seemingly precarious relationships. But the telephone does not allow for this mastery, and thus, she is awash in a sea of insecurity when she is on the phone with someone. Do they want to get off? Are they bored? Am I bothering them? Or, at times, My God, what does this person want from me? Is it too soon to say goodbye? Have I missed much of that program? The girl has a horror of evoking such thoughts in a person she's called, and thus, she calls few people.

In fact, she has a syllogism of sorts that rules her calling people. It is this: If X wanted to talk to me, X would call me. Since X hasn't called me, X doesn't want to talk to me. Since I don't want to talk to anyone who doesn't want to talk to me, I won't call X either.

This syllogism, while definitely not valid (or even really a syllogism) from a logician's point of view, is, the girl realizes, SICK from a psychotherapeutic point of view. Especially since the girl is hyperaware of who is and is not calling her. And what they are or are not saying, when they do or do not call her.

The girl is sick of herself and her telephone-phobia and is appealing to all and sundry for HHEEEEEEELLLLLPPPPPPPPPP!

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...

Sage Advice on Publishing

This post is for Les Becker of Where the Walls Are Soft.
She just got her first copy of the 2007 Guild to Literary Agents, and she's all eager and sassy to send her stuff off. When she ordered it, her excitement was palpable, and provoked me, veteran of the publishing wars, to promise sage advice. In today's post, I said

Okay, here's my sage advice:  What your writing is to you has nothing
to do with what it is to the people in that reference guide.  To them, it
is A Business.   Nothing more; nothing less.  They may like to read; they
may appreciate Great Literature; but at the day's end what they want is
sales.

And her response was: "Ouch. Almost sounds as if the advice is to trash the reference guide."

No, that's not at all what I'm saying. Rather, I'm suggesting that she (and you, if you're in a similar position) try to keep your writing mind separate from your publishing mind. They are two different minds, after all. One is focused on sales; the other on self-expression.

What I'm saying is to keep the agent business in perspective. They're trying to do their job, earn a buck, pay the rent, whatever. They are not your best friend, your confidante, or, especially, your mother who loves everything that comes out of your mouth. When an agent gives an assessment, it is not the word of God handed down from the Great Font of Literary Publishing. It is, rather, one person's take on whether your manuscript has, in their humble (ha!) opinion that day, sales potential. That means different things to different people, and often is dependent on who had what for lunch or whether the kids acted up on the way to the train. In other words, it's a subjective opinion which is guided by knowledge and experience, but, bottom line, it carries with it all the vagaries of any human interchange. You should remember that when you are getting a host of different responses.

You should also remember why you write in the first place. I have a friend who is very successful, and he says he writes to entertain. Me, I write because I can't not write. My friend has to tailor his stuff to the marketplace; I don't. Different purposes; different goals; different strategies.

Why do you write, Les? And you, over there, who are also reading this with interest, why do you write? My sagest advice is this: work on that until you can answer the question clearly, cleanly, and--um--honestly.

A Cup Half Full? A Life Half Empty....

Let me introduce you to Love Monkey, or Sturdy Girl as she's now calling herself (for reasons best, I guess, kept to herself.) She is my new BBF, best blog friend. More than that, I want to be her when I grow up. Sturdy Girl is the reason the internet in general and blogging in particular are so fucking fantastic. How else would I know her, if not for our blogs? She knits, she bakes bread, she cans, she writes like a demon and, man, can she say exactly the right thing that I so needed to hear but didn't know it.

She also is one of several people this summer who made me see that, hey, I'm not such a happy-eyed child after all. I used to think, quite proudly I must confess, that I am the eternal optimist. I always think life is going to go my way. I never question whether I'll get the job, the promotion, the whatever. My mother brought me up with a mantra--if you want something, you'll work hard for it and you'll get it. I believed her. And for a long time it was true. Or so I thought. In fact, one of the major bones of contention between D and me is his predilection for seeing failure looming while I allow myself to envision nothing but utter success.

I'm now beginning to question myself, however. Am I really such a perky Pollyanna? Then why the following:

• Sturdy Girl wrote in yesterday's post that she is now

  "very productive in my knitting of late. I am making great strides in the toddler pullover (cardigan) and the socks and working on two scarfs, one classic and one lacy. I am starting to "get the hang of" the yarn shops and I have decided just to pick yarn I like (to make small things like scarves) and in this way learn the way different yarn knits up. I think this in itself is an education in knitting. Besides, I can now understand why knitters have a stash. We love the feeling of security it gives us - all these yarns we have to look forward to knitting."

Whereas I say: I cannot stick with one knitting project long enough to complete it. I bounce from scarf to sweater to purse to fill in the blank. I have Knitting ADD (along with the other kind) and I am riddled with guilt over the projects I have on needles from FUCKING YEARS AGO....THAT NO LONGER EVEN FIT ME!!! And my stash, my stash, my stash! like my bra cup, it overfloweth.

• Item #2: when reminiscing with my BFF1 a couple of weeks ago, I was struck that our memories of our early years in school were so different. She remembered the teacher she loved, the playground (okay, I'm making this up because I can't remember all the good stuff that she remembered), while I remembered every slight or failure or bad day I had in Elementary School. I remember that I used to come home from school crying every day over some tragedy or other. I remember my mother telling me that I had to get a "shell" and not let people hurt my feelings so much. I remember the teachers who didn't like me, the kids who made fun of me, and the signal traumas that are with me still today.
• Item #3: There is the stuff I know for sure, and the stories I tell myself about the stuff I know for sure. Those stories inevitably posit me as the victim. I became aware of this as I have worked at various times this summer to pull myself back from the brink of whatever. I will stop the story and pull out of it just the stuff I know for sure. When I do that, I see that inevitably I've chose the road not only less travelled, but the one that leads off the cliff.
  

What is this about? Is it a Jewish thing? Some say that part of our DNA is a perennial feeling of never fitting in, of seeing the world splintered in pieces, in need of healing. Or was I a depressed child, even back then in the first grade--and I've been more or less dysthymic all my life?

I don't know the answer, and I'm not sure it's really relevant. What does seem important to my present and future sense of well-being is that I CUT THIS SHIT OUT RIGHT NOW.

Oh, now that's a positive way to begin, Jane....

Me, The Sex Expert

Did you know that I used to write about sex? Have I told you that already? That I was that person telling you how to have better orgasms or twiddle his diddle more efficiently in, oh name the woman's mag I didn't write for. Okay, Cosmo, I never wrote for them, but the rest? Yep, that was me (writing under my married name, Jane Patrick, or, when I got more liberated, Jane Gassner Patrick).

I thought of this today when I was reading one of my favorite daddy bloggers, Childs Play x2. He's got the most adorable fraternal twins (or dyzygotic, as we call them in the psych biz) who could be monozygotic for all that they look exactly alike. But (in my effort to show off), I digress. His post today was about being contacted by someone out there in the Great Wonderful World of Let's Make A Dollah Offa These Bloggas starting up a start-up and trolling for writers to create copy that would attract many reader hits to said start-up which would, in turn, make hay with the advertisers. [Another aside, this one worthy of brackets: I don't know why I've got my tongue so firmly in cheek about this practice when I recently bit on one such trolling myself (and may you, G-D willing, see the results some day)]. ChildsPlayx2 was marvelling in his post about being considered an expert on childrearing. And that, dear reader, reminded me of when I marvelled at being considered an expert on things sexual.

"Jane Gassner Patrick is an expert in psycho-sexual issues", read the bio blurb in one magazine. Ha! Better it should have read, Jane Gassner Patrick hasn't had sex in years. Because that was the funny, nay, the ironic part: during that period of time when I was doing my dance for the women's magazines, my shop was shuttered. Which just goes to prove that old adage: those of you who can, do and those of us who can't, teach.

I thought to write this in a comment to ChildsPlayx2, but why should he get all the love? It's my life, and I'm gonna own it. And if you want a copy of one of my articles, just ask....

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.

California Slick

Yesterday's post had a comment from Denise of Not-What-It-Seems. She noted my vague attempts at updating my reading list and asked whether I had started Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love--and didn't I just love it. The answer to that is yes, and no. I am not finished with the book yet, having just begun the Love part, so I feel it unfair (hah!) to offer an opinion, a review, a critique, as it were. Because who knows what the author will manage in the last section. Suffice to say, the first two sections brought to mind an experience I had when I too was an ambitious writer looking to break into the NY publishing scene.

My career was more than promising then. I had by-lines in respected publications and a reputation as someone who worked with words as well as ideas. Somehow or other I got hooked up with a NY agent who had A Great Idea For A Book. He'd met one of those beautiful women who waft through Los Angeles, providing the look of A Scene, but little else. Her name was--let's call her Lisa--and she was gorgeous. She also had a personality defect; she was boring. Not in a Paris Hilton way, but in a maybe-I've-done-too-much-dope and my-voice-is-a-nasal drone manner. But she had a helluva a story to tell, which included big Hollywood names, big money, big drugs, big drama. So the agent had this terrific looking woman with this terrific story--and an inability to get it down on paper in anything that resembled a coherent or, even, interesting manner.

This is where I came in. I was the writer on the project. Not a ghost, because I negotiated for an AND credit, but certainly I would not be the one appearing on the talk shows. Certainly I would be the one doing all the work. We signed contracts with Random House and got down to work. Hah! Work for Lisa consisted of lounging on her bed, recounting her past exploits in a voice that was just this side of soporific. I would appear at her Benedict Canyon house three or four days a week and--little would happen. There was a manuscript floating around behind her story, a diary written by one of the principles, but I could not pry it out of Lisa's hands. You see, she wanted to be A Writer. I believe she once told me that her destiny was to be a writer, one she had prepared for by reading just about everything she could. She knew this story of hers was her big chance to be A Writer, and she didn't want me taking it from her.

The thing about being A Writer, though, is that you have to be able, physically and mentally, to put instrument to paper, and Lisa couldn't get a grip on that. Her best efforts, those that resulted in several consecutive sentences, were done under the blankets with a pillow over her head. Automatic writing, perhaps, but certainly not productive enough to get the draft for Chapter One that I was supposed to present to Random House in several weeks.

I recall an impasse and several phone calls to the agent. Finally, at last, Lisa handed over the diary and I worked at shaping it into something that would grab the editor. Our contracts, you see, depended on the first chapter being approved. So I winnowed and edited and spun dross and winnowed some more. Then I presented the chapter to the editor. We had lunch, as I recall, and I was certain that this was only the first of a lifetime of lunches with NY editors. He took me back to Random House and loaded me down with free books. Lunch! Free books! Hog heaven for a freelancer! In return, I handed over Chapter One. I don't remember being particularly enthralled with it, but then I never am until I've seen my stuff in print. I wasn't embarrassed, either however. It was what it was, considering the life grip Lisa had maintained on the material almost to the last minute.

The agent called me several days later. The editor had read it. He was still interested, but--it needed revision. It was, in his words, California slick. What was California slick? A genre born of glossy magazines that originated on the West Coast, which meant that they were, by definition less than anything produced by an East Coast writer. Random House needed this memoir to be, I don't know, more New York literary? I sensed that I had fallen down that rabbit hole labeled Coastal Rivalries, and this allowed me to break the contract Lisa and I had had, gracefully as I recall, but maybe not. California slick was the best I was going to be able to do, tied to this pony in a three-legged race. I packed my pages and went back to LA, never to see Lisa again. I don't know what happened to her story; I certainly have never seen her on the book-selling circuit.

So why does Eat Pray Love bring to mind this story? Because the writing is awfully familiar to me. It's the writing of someone in a hurry to get a piece of work done. It relies on quirks of personality to carry the story, on the writer's cuteness and flirtation with the reader. It's a big subject, written small. It's California slick.

But then I'm not done with the book yet, so I could be wrong.

Interview With A Blogger: The Official Version

Whit, over at HoneaExpress, didn't start this, but he's the one who caught my attention. These are the rules, as quoted by Whit:

That's it. According to the rules, which I am a stickler for, I am to post this information: Interview rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with a post containing your the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

And here are the five questions that Whit asked me:
.

1.� You've bitten me twice, turning me into a vampire and a zombie, respectively.� What's up with that?
There are many responses that come to mind and tongue here, but the truth is--I thought you bit me. The fact is that there aren't that many kids in my sandbox, so you get picked a lot. I would spread the wealth a little, but having freelanced, I know a needy soul when I see one. There is nothing quite like looming deadlines for shit that you don't want to do to make one pump up the effort in other arenas. When I was freelancing, I had perfectly plucked eyebrows. Used to keep a little mirror and tweezers by my computer and groom away when the writing got rough. So, consider my bites as invitations to play when you're so inclined.

2.� I've had dogs my whole life and I have never seen one in a carseat until your Molly. �Did you come up with that?
I wish I had invented carseats for dogs; I'd be rich if I had. I just googled it and got 3,120,000 hits for dog carseats. We got ours when we travelled a lot with our Yorkie, and she would slip and slide all over the place. Perhaps your dogs have all been on the larger side? Perhaps they are used to riding around in the back of your pickup?

3.� You said that you have a lot of books by your bedside.� Do you always have that many, or do you dwindle the list down before building it back up?
I neither dwindle, nor build. I just haven't edited the list...because I would have to figure out the code for strikethrough, and that would be a pain. But since you bring it up, I will revise my list. And update. And maybe even annotate. I cannot go to sleep without reading in bed for a while. Milk and chocolate helps as well.

4.� Did you ever feel bad that you didn't include me in your list of people you met at the L.A. Blogger Party?� It's because I teased you about the apron, isn't it?
I didn't?! Well, now I do feel bad. Maybe it's because I went straight from meeting you to putting you on my Google Daily Reads list. That's a pretty big deal, you know. Not many people are on it.

5.� The URL for your site is one letter off from a site full of naked men.� Did you do this on purpose?
Are you going to make me guess the letter? And how do you know?

And who's being interviewed here, you or me? Or is this a case of, enough about me, let's talk about you--what did you think of what I just said??????

Well, that was enlightening, wasn't it. If you want me to interview you, follow the rules in green above.

Wedding Rings

Here is the post I intended to write, complete with illustrations. Actually, due to a fit of sheer laziness, enertia, and for-chrissake- it's- sunday, you are getting the unillustrated version.

First, a color photo of my hand on my wedding day wearing my wedding rings. They were a sapphire engagement ring that D bought for me and a gold band with invisible diamonds that we traipsed around Sacramento an entire day to find. The engagement ring was white gold, so to "match" (and what's a Jewish girl if her wedding rings don't match), we had to find something in white gold. Except white gold wedding bands look like plumbing pipe, and I was having none of that. The invisible diamonds on the gold band we found made it sorta kinda look like it had an air of white gold about it.

Second, a closeup of my hand sans rings. I took them off, wrenched them if you must know, in a fit of pique round about the second week of the current story of my life. I'll show him, motherfucker, I'll take my rings off--and then he'll be sorry. Don't know if he noticed or cared or what he actually felt. But there I was with my nude left hand, sort of dangling in the air, as it were. I thought it just needed some time to get adjusted to the light of day, but it turns out that the rings had some sort of permanent effect on my third finger, left hand. There is a line there, not of suntan, but of something within the actually flesh. Talk about a fucking metaphor.

Third, a closeup of my new, bought-by-me ring. I got it in Seattle. It is a sterling band, about tenth of an inch wide, brushed metal with the following stamped in cooly-wonky letters all along the ring: IT'S NOT THE DESTINATION, IT'S THE JOURNEY. Another metaphor, true, but this one at least is of my making.

The Weather Report: Sunny & Calm

Hey, I'm in an immeasurably improved mood today. 'Cause guess what: my garage walls are being torn apart while an electrician looks for "the worst kind of short you can have," the one that knows no name or place.

When I got home from my Travels With Molly on Wednesday, after I freaked out over some shit about D, I went to cool my parched throat with a Coke and found the garage refrigerator dead. Dead, dead, dead. As were all the lights and garage door. And there was zilch power is the laundry room next to the garage. You can imagine, particularly if you've experienced my creative way with bad words, how I cursed the missing man of the house. The one who knows what to do when bad stuff happens construction-wise. Because he spent 20 odd years in construction. And because he's a man, goddamit, and knowledge of such stuff comes along with the penis. So I called him, and I left a message along the lines of: "if you care anything about me at all, you'll call me back and tell me what to do..." He did and he did, but really fixing electrical problems when you're 700 miles away is a tad difficult.

So today, I looked up E for Electrician and a very nice man is now banging away. I'm not sure how much it will cost me, but at least I'll be able to wash my clothes. Which is a good thing, as Martha says, because I was running out of underwear (I have to use that word every once in a while because it makes my Google stats go up).

But that's not what I want to talk about today. You deserve something cheerful and light after my dirge yesterday, so I've got some Molly photos. She seems to make everyone smile; she's just that kind of a dog.

Lookin' out the window at a rest stop, somewhere near the California-Oregon border.

On the road again. She's in her carseat, which is fixed in the backseat, which offers not a lot of room because it's a little sporty VW convertible, but that's okay with her because she's a sporty dog. The carseat was bought originally for Pupi, our late, great Yorkshire terrier. Molly doesn't mind it being a hand-me-down. Nor does she mind that she is three times Pupi's size. She fits, somehow. Sometimes she leans on the front seat like this, and sometimes she looks out the window. I don't know what she's looking at, but I'm fascinated watching her because she seems to be taking in all the sights and scenery just like a human would. What can be out there that would merit such attention? If there's a dog in the mix, then she goes bananas, but otherwise, she's a Quiet Watcher. She's such a good traveller that I'm thinking of buying a camper and going on the road. Too bad I'm not a guy; she'd be a great chick magnet.

The Astrologer Daily: Mercury trine Jupiter. | BlogHer

I started reading KT, BlogHer's Astrology Contributing Editor, just about when she first started posting on BlogHer. Which was just about the time that my errant husband decided he didn't want to be married anymore. KT's daily readings just seemed to speak to exactly my situation, and to give me hope, and whatever else I needed to get through the day.

Which just goes to show how the stars can fool you.

Today's reading is: "Today is one of those great times when we can see the trees as well as the forest. Mercury, the planet that rules thought, logic and communication, makes an easy trine to Jupiter, the Big-Picture Planet. Details and grand plans merge in a delightfully complete scenario. Both planets are in energizing Fire signs. We feel optimistic and hopeful for the future. At the moment, words have more impact than we can imagine, so choose yours carefully. Humor, jokes and games go well now.

Today's moon:
Today the Moon is in Cancer all day. It's in the Balsamic Phase, closing in on the New Moon in a few days. It's 11% of full today."

Today I woke sadder than sad. Then I had to cut short Molly's walk because I was crying in the middle of the street, forchrissakes (fortunately I was wearing sunglasses, so other than the tears streaking down my cheeks and the snot blubbering out of my nose, no one could tell--I don't think). And then I got all weepy over Barbara Morgan, the teacher-astronaut, finally making it into space. A dream not so much deferred, but long in coming.

Shall I tell you why? Aw, c'mon, you already know. Why flog a dead horse, as the Brits say. Or try to shore up one's faith in a lost-cause marriage.

"Optimistic and hopeful for the future" is exactly what I don't feel. Able to see the Big Picture? Nope. Just a bunch of days and days and days ahead. The Moon is in the Balsamic Phase. Would that be, as in vinegar? And since four of my moons are in Cancer, not to mention my natal sign, would I be one big old vat of the stuff?

Phooey, I say. Phooey. And a pox on all their houses.

Still Wandering...

...and not sure when I'll be back. I could go home tomorrow. Or I could take a sidetrip to the coast. Molly's up for whatever, and me--I think all these hours alone in the car are....probably good for me. Maybe.

I had great intentions to blog along the way, but tonight is the first time I've actually achieved an internet connection. Perhaps the drinks and wine at dinner on the nights I was in Seattle had something to do with it. Here we are last night:

Liz and I haven't seen each other in--oh, decades and decades and decades. Our last memory of being together was a week we spent at Lake Candadhota with two other friends, Ellen and Karen. It was the summer before our senior year in high school. Liz and I made our own bathing suits. Hers was a red and black plaid with white piping, a two piece. Mine was blue-green silky print, fully lined, in the most daring of styles, a "hiphugger". I was always the girl with the shortest skirts, even in those days. I left after that weekend and started my freshman year at Pitt; my mother, who was in a hurry for me to get going, shoehorned me into college at year early. I never had a senior year. I never saw Liz and Ellen and Karen again. Do I sound bitter? Well, regretful, no doubt.

Despite the decades and decades and decades intervening, Liz and I picked up as if it had only been days. We marveled at that, and I, ever one for deconstructing every happenstance and emotion even unto death, tried to figure out what it was about us that created such an unbreakable connection. We met in First Grade; our mothers fixed us up, in the days before Playdates were so common. And we just stuck, I guess. Liz is the reason why I'm such a good Catholic: whenever we had Saturday night sleepovers, we had to go to Mass the next morning. She taught me to genuflect, to cross myself, and to bob my head at "Jesus" when I sang Christmas carols.

We didn't go to Mass this weekend, but we spent hours talking and laughing and catching each other completely up to date on our four marriages and her three children, where we've been and where we still want to go. It was, in a word, amazing.

Travels With Molly...

...and apologies to John Steinbeck, but I'm such a fan, and he did do Travels With Charley, and I am about to hit the road with dearest Molly.

We're driving up to Seattle to meet my BFF from the First Grade, henceforth known as BFF1. She's from the East and I'm in the West, but she's got a wedding or something in Washington, which is only about 750 miles north of Elk Grove, so what the hell, why not just load Molly in her carseat and GO!

We leave early tomorrow AM, and I am, of course, taking all electronics with me (I feel so ungrounded without them, doctor, do you think that's a problem?), so I expect to blog and Twitter along the way.

I'm excited. I'm also exhausted--from all the running around and cleaning of car and buying of snacks and washing of dog.

Here she is after a first towel off and then a mad shake and then a rubbing of oneself all over the quilted bedspread. The thing about dogs, or animals in general, is that they do make you laugh. And they do keep you warm in bed. And they are such willing travelling companions.

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?!

Randomness from BlogHer'07

I should have live-blogged myself throughout the entire conference, because I was so full of wit and pith, little of which I can now remember.

If you read my post from the airport, you can imagine what a woeful camper I was on arriving in Chicago. There were two beautiful beds in my room at The W and just one beautiful me to sleep in them. But I hooked up for dinner with my old friends, Sueb0b of RedStapler, Karl of SecondhandKarl and Celeste of AverageJane. Drinks were had and food was eaten, and soon I started to feel a whole lot better about life in general and me in particular.

Still, when Elisa, Lisa, and Jory welcomed us at the General Session after breakfast, I got all teary. And at different times during the sessions. And then at the conclusion of the conference, when Cooper & Emily made their pitch for the power of us in BlogHer's community activism initiative. Here's why (aside from my admittedly 'iffy' state of mind): I felt bathed in a huge tub of support, caring, hey-I-like-you, what-do-you-think, all from hundreds of women who valued the things I think are important and who "get" what I do, immediately, organically, thoroughly. That kind of support for each other, particularly from such a wide range of women, is not merely feminism as usual. In fact, I'm from the Second Wave, so I go back to the early days of the women's movement, and I can tell you we have not always played so well together in the sandbox. Even last year, there was a pervasive feeling that many of us left with; Leahpeah calls it oogy. There was no oogy at BlogHer07. I don't know why. I don't think it much matters. I do think that Elisa, Lisa, and Jory have managed to created a huge (11,000 plus) grand group of women who are now a force to be reckoned with, both on the micro and the macro level. This is what we wanted back in the 60s and 70s. It took this long, and these particular women, and this communication tool for it to happen.

The sessions I went to gave me exactly what I wanted, generally speaking. I came. I saw. I laughed. I learned a bunch of technical stuff. Even the session on branding when I was told in no uncertain terms that I could not blog about politics and knitting did not dim my lights.

I met tons and tons of women. And got tons and tons of cards. And I'm not going to even start now naming them or linking them. I'm going to save that for tomorrow.

To Be Continued....