the pieces of my life

I wish you people could see the graveyard of abandoned posts I have in my WordPress drafts folder. It’s a very sad folder, filled with half thoughts, nuggets of ideas, and bits of wisdom I wanted to share, but never finished. They eventually became irrelevant or uninteresting to me or just lost. I think one of my new year’s resolutions should be shorter posts that I can finish writing in a single sitting. Not that that’s relevant to today’s post. I just wanted to mention it as I thought of it.

November has come and gone. November brought a fabulous turkey with even better bourbon-cranberry sauce, the remains of my pneumonia (which had me taking a medicine that I couldn’t take within two hours of calcium, which meant a crazed planning of the timing of my milky coffee, which meant I’d often not be human until close to lunch time), and of course NaNoWriMo.

Nanowrimo is done my friends. And, yes, I am a…

I confess, I had extra motivation this year. About halfway through I started experimenting with the program Scrivener. And I am completely hooked. I don’t even use most of the features, but the ability to easily jump back and forth between chapters and even scenes (as opposed to either keeping the entire novel in a single Word doc or opening forty Word docs and scrolling them individually to find my place) was amazing. But I used it on a trial basis. And had to win NaNoWriMo. Because Scrivener promised 50% off for winners (coupon to come soon!). So that was the motivation.

But happily, I didn’t need too much of a motivational push. Because I’m definitely into my new story. I’m loving my visits to the 1930s (the novel takes place in August of 1935). The research has been fun and it’s a new form of escapism, retreating to a world where my protagonist doesn’t even have a phone, never mind an iPad 2. The novel is a mess, in total disarray. I realized midway that I need to restructure it, but that’s what December is for. I need to step back and look at the arc of the plot and figure out how to play with the tension and form to get it where it needs to be. I actually was quite surprised at how the book turned out. I thought for sure I knew what my main character was going to do–if you recall I had actually plotted this out ahead of time–and she completely surprised me! That’s the best part of writing; when things don’t go at all as planned.

Now onward to December! Time to get my hands dirty ripping this novel apart. It’s not that different from all that purging I’ve been doing. Gotta make a big ol’ mess before everything finds a place!

This morning, as I set out on my run, it was a perfect Miami Beach winter morning. It was 57 degrees. The sky was tinged with red and orange as the sun rose. A nice breeze blew in from the sea. It was so heavenly I decided to turn my three-mile run into a five-mile run. The only problem with this lovely, perfect morning is that it’s not January in Miami Beach. It’s November, outside of Boston. Where is my fall weather! I’m longing for all my indoor projects–putting together photo albums, baking bread, making marshmallows for hot chocolate–but the weather stubbornly refuses to cooperate!

Despite the weather, but probably owing to the run, I’m actually feeling pretty good. I’m worried if I’m not cranky that you’ll think that aliens have absconded with me and replaced me with a pod person. I’m tempted to throw in a “bite me” here, just so you’ll know it’s me, but really, I have nothing to be bitten about. In fact, despite the weather that simply begs for me to go outside, I’ve been in a cleaning-house mode, which puts me into a downright cheerful mood.

I’ve been on a HUGE purge kick. I love purging! There’s something so freeing about realizing, “I really don’t think we are the kind of household that needs not one, but two potato mashers” or “Considering that it’s been almost two years since we’ve owned a VCR, I think these tapes can go,” and then actually removing said items from the house. Goodwill. Freecycle. These are my best friends. (Ooh, I have a good Freecycle find, but I’m going to save that for another post.)

I have a DVD collection to end all DVD collections. Okay, not completely true–I know there are more fanatical film folks out there with larger collections. However, as I spent three and a half years on the DVD and Video editorial team of Amazon, you can know that I amassed a fairly decent sized collection, as you can see:

As I’ve mentioned before, about 75% of these are still in wrappers, but one of these days, we’ll be desperate for a movie and happy we have them! True, I thought of this before Netflix streaming and Roku, but I still hold fast to that thought!

It’s a strange assortment. Adam used to bemoan the fact that we had Lethal Weapon 4, but not 1, 2, or 3. It was all a matter of what I was sent from the studios. But we’d also get some oddball ones that I’ve held onto because I didn’t know what else to do with them. For instance, I actually own a copy of S*x Tips with Heidi Fleiss and Victoria Sellers. Why? Who knows? And I’ve had one DVD (still sealed, I might add) that was given to me by a coworker when I got engaged, I believe. I’ve held onto primarily because, to whom do you give something like this (posted in thumbnail size for those of you who are delicate):

I’m guessing Goodwill doesn’t want it. I certainly don’t want the kind of person who would pick this up on Freecycle anywhere near my house. So despite all my “eco” talk, I threw this in the trash. Sorry, folks.

In my cleanse, I Freecycled old speakers, a monitor that was used two computers ago, a bed tray that we’ve used exactly once. I did hold some questionable things. Anyone want to guess why the heck I have four packages of doilies:

And, yet, I couldn’t part with them. How could I? I mean, I could have a dire need for a doily any day now.

To reward myself for all my lovely purging, I took a trip to the Container Store today, and bought all sorts of wonderful things to use to contain all my nice, new purged belongings. Nothing makes me happier than an organized space (okay, maybe my children and husband, or the hope of getting my novel published, or an evening free for reality TV, but work with me, folks).

Now, if you’ll excuse, I’m going to go stare at my shelves. They’re just so lovely!

I’m thinking it’s time to rename this blog to the “Bite Me Blog.” Because that’s the sentiment I seem to be expressing the most here.

I’ve been in a mood. Why am I in a mood? It could be so many things. But let’s start with (a partial list of) what it’s not:

It’s not that Adam was out of town the entire week, leaving me alone with two children, who have yet to learn how to get me a cup of coffee and who can smell my desperation, using my un-caffeinated weakness to their advantage…

It’s not that I’ve been looking forward to a whiskey sour all week, and when Adam finally gets home (late) tonight, I can’t even have a whiskey sour…

Because I finally got something new. What did I get new? Monia. Put it together, folks. Got it? And it’s not even the kind of pneumonia that I can lie in bed moaning about. It’s “walking” pneumonia. Which means I can carry on everything I’ve been doing, it’s just I’ll do it while continuing to hack up a lung. And at least if I’m not going to get my whiskey sour, at least I get Robitussin with codeine. And I figure in a couple of days, it won’t even be medicine, just recreation.

It’s not that the medicine I’m taking for the said pneumonia is tricky as all get out. It must be taken with food. But not within three hours of any dairy, calcium in general, or iron. Yet I can’t take it right before I go to bed, because I cannot lie down within an hour of taking the medicine.

It’s not that my IT guy left town (again, that’s Adam), just in time for the electronics in my life to go haywire. I’ve been relying on my DVD New Yorker archive to help me with my 1930s novel, only I upgraded my Mac to Lion, which no longer has whatever program it was that ran my New Yorker archive. I tried to put the program on the one PC in the house, but keep running into some kind of database error. And even though all my other family members subscribe to the New Yorker and therefore should have free access to the online archives, not a single freakin’ one of them can figure out how to get into said archives.

It’s not the my son has decided he needs to type his homework, yet the pdf he’s typing on to won’t print out properly and did I mention my IT guy is in Florida drinking fancy drinks–probably whiskey sours–on an expense account?

No, would you like to know what put me over the edge? Someone e-mailed me and asked me if his company could do a guest post on my blog or buy some ad space. For what, you might ask? Is it for the Algonquin Hotel? Is it for Woodford Reserve Bourbon? Is it perhaps for a writing tool, such as Scrivener?

No. It’s for minivans. Yes, people, minivans. Because apparently that’s how exciting my world is.

Cranky, people. Cranky. You might want to keep your distance until the whiskey sours are allowed back in.

The hubby is out of town. So it’s time to get crazy. Tonight, I pulled out all the stops. After the kiddos were in bed, and I was all alone in the house, I did the one thing I can only do when Adam is out of town. Oh yeah. You know it! I watched a chick flick and ate kale. Yep, your read that right: kale. Oh, I love kale.

WE’RE GETTING WILD HERE, FOLKS! This might be too much for some of you to handle. If you need to look away, I understand. Tomorrow night we may go even bigger. Tomorrow night, I’m thinking… eggplant!

My man goes away and suddenly the house goes veggie. (If you’ve ever wondered what Camp Carnivore is a reaction to, this would be it.) All those yummy foods at which everyone turns up a nose are coming out.

Let’s talk about the chick flick for a minute. First of all, why does NO ONE look both ways before crossing a street! I kept thinking this movie was going to end up with someone dead, because people get out cabs, run off crying from men, come home late drunk and they all plow across streets and no one EVER looks both ways. If those people were my kids, I would have smacked them silly by now and told them they aren’t allowed to leave the house again until they are 32 and know how to properly cross a street.

And second of all, why were all the love choices in this movie total d-bags? Everyone should have ended up single. And what is with that actor who looks exactly like Tom Cruise. It’s distracting and he should do something about it.

What? What’s that you say? I’m merely sitting here typing a blog entry to keep from doing Nanowrimo, for which I am approximately 3,000 words behind? Eh, bite me people. I’m going to have some more kale. Yes, you wish you were me. Get over it.

My lovely hubby just made me the most lovely whiskey sour to put me in the appropriate (non-suicidal) Dorothy Parker state of mind for my Nanowrimoing this evening (she may have written about martinis, but she was a fan of the whiskey sour, which I think is my new drink).

It’s good to be me.

“I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I’m under the table,
after four I’m under my host.”
–Dorothy Parker

My boy has an e-mail account. Today, he decided to write himself an e-mail:

Dear Me
Hello
I am doing this as a test to see how fast a email can go.
be you in a little while.
From,
Doodles 12:33 pm Sunday
ps.you lucky dog whats it like in the future.

…Senior, Senior ’86!

Yes, I’m that old. Yes, my 25th high school reunion is this Saturday. Bite me, people. I’m 43. Get over it. Anyhoo, I’m not going to Miami Beach this lovely weekend in November, where the drinking is hot and so is the weather. I had planned on it, but life got complicated, and instead, I’m here in Massachusetts, most likely working the elementary school rummage sale. You may envy me now.

I know that lots of people had unusual high school experiences, but I truly feel that my high school was different. I’ve discussed it before. I’ll do it again. Because it’s my blog. So I can. If you don’t like, you can bite me. (Are you sensing a theme? It’s possible I’m a little cranky tonight.)

I went to a school known as Beach High. Yep. Beach High. Short for Miami Beach Senior High. But Beach High is a more fitting name. Even our mascot was odd. Hi Tide Harry. Did you get that? Hi Tide Harry. No, not “high.” “Hi.” Wonder why the scores at our school were never very good? But at least I had Hi Tide Pride. And open lunches. Where we could go wherever we wanted, which generally meant going to the corner sandwich shop for a colada of cafe Cubano, which pretty much meant we spent all of 5th and 6th period literally jumping out of our seats (and until I just read that Wikipedia description, I never realized a colada of coffee is meant to be shared! We simply called a colada of coffee “lunch.”). And driver’s ed where the teacher yelled at us for not going fast enough on the highway. A school where being Jewish meant you didn’t take gym (because there were a rash of us kids who were “allergic to grass,” [let’s not comment on the other lunch time activities] which conveniently meant I could still play badminton. Yes, badminton! Again, bite me, people!). One of our assistant principals–the disciplinarian of our school–was arrested for solicitation on Collins Avenue, back when Collins Avenue was not the Collins Avenue we know today. Your high school might have had snow days; my high school had “riot days.” Our school has been featured in Porky’s (the old building) and blown up in Band of the Hand (the school I went to; it’s been remodeled since). Where at the pep rallies the cheerleaders recited a cheer–complete with motions–that went:

Go bananas, go go bananas
Go bananas, go go bananas
You lean to the left,
and you lean to the right,
you peel your banana,
and UNNGGHHH take a BITE!

How is that an acceptable high school cheer? The parking lot was filled with Mercedes and even a Porsche. We dissected cats. We had teachers who said things like, “Too bad, so sad. Got a dime? Call someone who cares.” Our school graduated Baba Wawa, Mickey Rourke, Andy Garcia, Ellen Barkin, all alums. Ah, Beach High.

Yes, I’m going to miss out drinking and partying with the kids I drank and partied with 25 years ago. Not that I remember all that many of them. But a few I do. And I’ll miss them. But then I’m pretty sure that the other luminaries from my class aren’t going either. What you ask? Which luminaries, other than myself, are there?

Oh, we had quite a class. And in the illustrious class of 1986, we had some shining stars. Like Nevin Shapiro. The man who singlehandedly brought down the Miami Hurricanes. Oh, I’m sorry? Not enough for you? How about Brett Ratner. The man who singlehandedly brought down the Academy Awards this year. Let’s just say, not much has changed since high school. The Class of ’86. A classy bunch.

Oh yes. I’ve got Hi Tide Pride. I’ll just be displaying it up here in the almost-frozen North. If you’re at the reunion, have some Boone’s a mojito for me.

I feel so big time! So, not only is my essay live on the Bellevue Literary Review site, but there’s actually a study guide for reading my essay!

Bellevue Literary Review posted my piece online! Read “The Codeine of Jordan,” if you care to know more about me than you ever wished to!

I saw this originally on Rachelle Gardner‘s blog, but it was too good not to share: