the pieces of my life

As I was going through my photos and old journals, I called the boy up. “You know how we’ve been talking about Egypt and what’s going on there? These are pictures of Egypt that I took.” We go through, and I pull up a Google map and we talk about Sinai and how it was Egypt’s and then Israel’s and then Egypt’s again. We talked about the pyramids. Then, as I was on a roll, I offered to show him my pictures of Petra. I pull Jordan up on the map, but before I could even get to the first story I had, he said, “Why are we doing this again?”

My kids. Such a fascination with the world. Sigh.

We were watching things off the DVR (catching up with Big Love, which I think has jumped the shark), when the phone rang for Adam. He told me to go back watching, but after peeking at Twitter, I felt I was missing out by not watching the Grammys, so I switched the channel. Adam was on the phone for a while, but he finally came back.

Me: I started recording the show, because Mumford and Sons is on and the girl loves Mumford and Sons.

Adam: Who are Mumford and Sons?

Me: Really? You know, “Little Lion Man.”

Adam: I don’t know.

I search online and find the video. I play it.

Adam: Oh, yeah. That kind of sounds familiar.

Me: Your daughter is more hip than you.

Adam: I expected that to happen.

Me: She’s five.

Adam: Yeah, well… [pause] Wait a minute. How does she know who Mumford and Sons even are?

Me: [Sigh.]

Other than mocking my husband for being a Republican, I like to avoid politics here. You don’t talk politics or religion, right?

But, of course, Egypt is on my mind, as it is on everyone’s mind, I suppose. In 1996, I took a trip to Egypt, and it’s stayed with me all these years. It comes up in my writing, and it almost changed my entire career path. In September 1996, I went to a kibbutz in Israel for a four to six week trip. I ended up staying on the kibbutz for six and a half months, and then traveling through Eastern Europe for a month and a half. While I was on the kibbutz, I traveled to both Egypt and Jordan. When I returned to Seattle in April 2007, I began taking classes as a non-matriculated student at the University of Washington’s Jackson Institute of Middle Eastern Studies. In the fall, I applied for their master’s program. That March, I received my acceptance letter. The very same week I got a job offer from that “little Internet bookstore” (as my friend put it, when she told me of the job openings). I already had two worthless degrees–a BFA in film and an MFA in creative writing–so I figured I’d work for a year and then go back for another worthless degree (in those pre-9/11 days, Middle Eastern degrees weren’t as desirable as they may be now). Of course, that “little Internet bookstore” took off and I couldn’t walk away from the Internet bubble.

I’m looking over my journals from that trip to Egypt. I was traveling with a group, and it’s clear that I really hated traveling with groups. I tended to go off a lot, either on my own or with my friend Amber. At one point I wrote “we go to get our train tickets–2nd class full. Must get 1st although of course others complain because of $$. I don’t care–they can take a 3rd class train & I’ll go w/out them.” Note, I wasn’t just being a privileged American, just prioritizing my finances, as I wrote elsewhere: “It seems ludicrous to spend all the money and effort to get here and then not see anything. Don’t buy the pot (15E£ each) or the cigarettes or the junk and see the sights!”

We entered Egypt at the Taba crossing from Eliat. We ended up having to spend an extra night in Eliat so I could get my visa to cross to Egypt. All of my travel companions were South African, so they didn’t need them. We took a taxi to Dahab where we spent a couple of nights, playing backgammon in the outdoor restaurants, drinking way too much Coke (I made a note in my journals that drugs were easy to come by, but not alcohol. It was [probably still is] illegal for Egyptians to get alcohol, but there are special shops where foreigners could purchase it. We were approached by an Egyptian who wanted us to buy alcohol for him, for his sister’s wedding. I felt bad that he wasn’t able to buy it on his own–what a contrast, the grown-ups asking the kids to buy alcohol for them–but I was too frightened of breaking the law in Egypt to do it for him).

Playing backgammon with Amber at the Green Valley Cafe in Dahab

From Dahab we took a taxi to Cairo, which I remember was a harrowing experience. The note in my journal reads, “Arab drivers make Israeli drivers look like wimps.” Note, Israeli drivers are terrifying. We had to stop at three different checkpoints, where soldiers came and inspected us in the car. It was nothing like the police escort our bus had on the way back to Israel, but it was a little creepy. Although when we had to stop and wait for a herd of goats to pass, I thought it was charming.

The Nile at sunset, in Cairo

I did all the standard things–saw King Tut, took a felucca down the Nile from Aswan to Luxor, visited the Valley of the Kings and the Temple at Karnak. I skipped the Aswan Dam–I’m terrified of heights and when I saw it, I refused to go.

The view from our hotel window in Aswan

The felucca had no toilet, so when we needed to pee, the boat pulled over. Amber and I brush our teeth in a field of buffalo.

Amber and I tried to do as much as we could, learning how to take the Egyptian city buses, finding the souk, of course visiting the Egyptian Museum.

Me, in a souk in Cairo

The rest of the folks I was traveling with were more interested in finding the sheesha pipes and shopping. I ended up going some places completely alone. I have a very clear memory of going into the Egyptian Museum of Modern Art. Not many people were there. When I walked in, the man at the counter said to me, “Ah, American.”

“Yes,” I told him.

“What do you think of your Bill Clinton?” he asked me.

“He’s all right,” I said, not interested in getting into a political conversation.

He looked me straight in the eyes and then asked, with a little smile, “And what do you think of Hosni Mubarak?”

I paused, really not sure what to say. So finally, I looked at him, trying to fake confidence, and said, “What do you think of Hosni Mubarak?”

He laughed at me and said, “Smart girl!” and let me go on into the museum.

Egypt was marvelous. I still dream of the food I ate there–the fatir and koushari and the ful–and the things I’ve seen. I am very happy for Egypt and I look forward to returning there some day, with my kids.

As you may recall, my daughter chooses not to walk with me to school. Walking with me, she says, makes her sad. So she goes across the street to walk with Beetle and her kids. Every morning I send her off across the street. Every morning she walks happily with them. Sometimes she’ll see me–I still walk the boy, after all. But she just smiles and waves, unless I make the suggestion that I walk her to her classroom, which then sets her little face a quiverin’ and Beetle quickly takes her by the hand and whisks her away from her mean old mother.

Except this past Wednesday. On Wednesday, the girl decided she didn’t want to go to school. She really, really did not want to go to school. Refused to go to Beetle’s house. Refused to leave the front door. I finally sent the boy on his way himself, and I took the girl by the arm, and I pretty much dragged her the entire two and a half blocks to school, with her screaming and crying the entire way, “No, no, no! I don’t want to go to school!” I find it amusing how little notice this gets from anyone.

The school has a single crossing guard (the rest were all cut due to our dismal town budgets). She’s a fantasticly cheerful woman who stands on the corner we cross, and she greets everyone with gusto. I really like our crossing guard. She can make you smile on a bitter morning. She can make the boy smile on a bitter morning. That’s a feat.

This Wednesday, I drag the girl across the street to the school. She’s wailing. Our crossing guard cheerfully says, “Oh, you have someone new today! Is this a neighbor?”  Yes, that’s right. We’ve been in school for six months and this is the first time I’ve been seen with my own daughter. All I could do was look at the crossing guard and say, “I wish.”

–I’m not sure why my family doesn’t see it as an act kindness that I am willing to eat all the expired gummy bears by myself? What if they’re poisonous now? Why don’t they understand I’m simply taking one for the team?

–I don’t like to think of myself as a fair weather environmentalist, but I officially declare a hiatus on composting until the first thaw. If we could even get to the composter, I don’t think we’d be able to pry the lid off (sorry for the haze–the only way to take the picture was through the window screen):

–Yesterday was a snow day. A sleety/frozen rain/snow-covered snow day. The boy simply stayed in his pjs the entire day (the girl went on a playdate,so she had to dress. God FORBID there is a day without a friend in it!). But when he woke up in the morning, the first thing he did was go to his math workbook, where he has extra math that he requested from his teacher, and he did a few pages of algebra. “I need to warm my brain up,” he told Adam.

–My car got stuck in my own driveway today. Wheels spun. Wouldn’t move. “Move it up slowly and then hit reverse fast,” Adam advised. Um, there is no forward. Forward is only a giant snowbank. I did get it out eventually. “Maybe we should make our driveway double wide,” Adam said. “Maybe we should move our driveway to Miami,” I replied. “Um,” he said, “my way’s cheaper.” Yeah? So?

–I love that when I now use my “Can’t talk; noveling” mug, I no longer feel like a fraud about it.

–I think those gummies were poisonous! I definitely feel nauseous right now. I guess you shouldn’t eat gummies that have been expired for a year. Or maybe it’s that I ate all 3.5 servings in one sitting? And how is it possible that that one little bag could be 3.5 servings? No, it must be because they were expired.

I know everyone is tired of hearing about the snow. I was briefly enchanted when I heard the snow was being carted off to snow farms–I imagined a red barn and perhaps a petting snow area, tiny snow animals frolicking (because any snow farm I’m imagining is cage-free)–until I learned that snow farms are merely huge lots where they dump the snow. Not so very exciting, is it? And, according to Boston.com, we’re expecting up to 21 inches more. 21. That’s right. On top of all the other snow we’ve got (I assume that everyone has already seen the Shaq/snow comparison?).

Wednesday is pretty much guaranteed to be a snow day. There’s been speculation around the schools that tomorrow could be an early release day or even no school. And if it doesn’t stop early enough on Wednesday, we could have a snow day on Thursday. Without these snow days, school is already in session until June 24. Legally, they can only go till June 27, which is just one snow day away. I don’t know what happens after that. And, more importantly, I’m not sure how I’ll keep my children alive one more snow day. I’ve run out of activities. Scratch that. I haven’t run out of activities. I’ve run out of the will to supervise such activities. And it couldn’t come at a worse time because my agent gave me a ton of suggestions for my novel and I’m supposed to be working on a rewrite. So shoveling snow is not at the top of my priority list, nor is making snow forts, snow shoeing, throwing snowballs, or even making hot chocolate.

Hey, did you see what I did there? How cleverly I snuck in the “my agent” part? You probably didn’t even notice. So I’ll tell you again, a little louder this time: HEY, EVERYONE! I GOT AN AGENT!

That okay? Not too subtle?

For all of you people out there who do not toil in the world of publishing, I will tell you that this is A Big Deal. I know a lot of folks think, “Hey, you write a novel. You give it to a publisher. They publish it.” But unfortunately, it’s not so easy. First you write your book. That’s pretty much the only given here. You write and you write and you write some more. **Then you submit it to your friends, your neighbors, your family, to anyone who will read it and give you feedback. Then you rewrite. And rewrite some more. **Repeat from here as many times as needed, generally at least two times, but it can go on for seven or eight times.

And now you have your novel. But the thing is, so do, oh 30 zillion other people out there. So publishers won’t look at anything you send directly. Once upon a time they did. And people still try. Manuscripts sent blindly go into what is called the slush pile. And once every blue moon, some editorial assistant might go through it. I know. I was once an editorial assistant. Slush was always the last priority. But, as I said, most publishers do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. (From the Random House web site: “Like most big publishers, Random House only accepts manuscripts submitted by an agent–the volume of materials we receive is just too large to accept unsolicited submissions.”)

So you need an agent. Ah, the agent. The agent is, in a sense, the gatekeeper. Instead of publishers being flooded with manuscripts, agents are. According to former agent Nathan Bransford, “Most agents receive between 5,000 and 20,000 or more submissions a year.” Writers create a query letter–no easy feat, summing up your years’ of work and hundreds of pages into a single, one-page description that includes any credentials you might have. Then you send them out to agents you’ve researched (are they accepting submissions? is your book similar to something they’ve already done? do they represent the type of books that you write? You don’t want to send a sci-fi manuscript, for instance, to someone who only represents romance). The query letter is as important–maybe more so–than your novel itself. Then you wait. And wait. If they like your query, then they ask you for a partial, which is about 50 to 100 pages of your manuscript. And then if they like your partial, they’ll request a full manuscript (some agents just simply start by requesting a full; my agent requested the partial first).

And then, I got what is referred to as The Call. I actually thought I was being called to be told I was *this close.* Occasionally, an agent will call to give you suggestions and ask you to resubmit to them in the future. This agent who called me had tons of critiques for me. Really good suggestions. My fingers were itching to get started as she was talking. And then I waited for the kind let-down. But it didn’t come! Instead I got an offer of representation! Whoo hooo!

So now, it’s back to work. I have revisions to do! Lots and lots of excellent revisions. Once I’ve revised and submitted again to my readers and then revised a little more, I’ll send it back to my agent. At which point the process, basically, starts all over again, but with my agent doing the submitting. She’ll send it to editors she thinks will like the work and she’ll try to sell it to them. By no means is this a fast process. And there’s no guarantee the agent can sell your book. But the process is started and that’s all I needed for now. Not only that, but having an agent justifies the hours I spend writing. Today I spent a couple of hours in my “office” (my office being the cubicle in the back of the third floor of the library, where I’m not distracted by the crumbs on the floor nor by the siren call of the refrigerator), doing revisions. I am legit!

And I can’t wait to finish my revisions. You know. When the snow stops. In July.

(Did I mention I have an agent?)

I can’t do another snow day. It’s not that the kids are making me crazy (they do that even when it’s not a snow day). It’s not that there’s snow to be shoveled (Adam actually took care of all the snow himself this morning, with the help of a neighbor’s snowblower). It’s not that I’m tired of the snow (I’m looking forward to some good snowshoeing this weekend).

It’s that all this snow is making me fat. Because there’s nothing like a snow day to make you want to cozy up to a warm oven or stove. So now that we’re on our fourth snow day in three weeks (three weeks that also included one early release day and one MLK day), I’m desperate to cook but my waistline can’t take any more. What have I made in those three days? Well:

Bread. Oh so much bread! Both “artisan” and hallah, multiple loaves of each
Cherry chocolate-chip cookies
Whoopie pies (when I asked Doodles if they were as good as the ones from Wilson Farm, he looked at it, looked at me, and looked at it again and said, “This isn’t from Wilson Farm???” That’s success!)
Candied orange peel
Chocolate-covered candied orange peel
Marshmallows. Lots and lots and lots of marshmallows
Onion Soup
Peanut-butter chocolate-chip cookies

We need sunshine. Fast. Before I start baking/cooking again!

Today was snowshoeing with the Daisies day. Eleven girls. Four older siblings. Seven grown-ups. A wide open field for clomping across. What could wrong? Oh, I know. My kids could be royal pains in the tush. Everyone else seemed to be doing fine. But mine? Not as much.

Remarkably, despite the 20 degree weather, it felt great out (this isn’t just me being masochistic–everyone agreed it was a beautiful day). No wind, pristine snow, sun out. Perfect winter outside weather.

The boy was happy… for a while. When he was off on his own, he was as happy as could be. But then I made him stick with the group. And he was sad. So very sad. And a wee bit angry. Just one Garbo moment after another: “I want to be alone!”

The girl snowshoed. And enjoyed it. For five minutes. And then she was tired. And thirsty. And. She. Wasn’t. Going. To. Walk. Anymore! Thank you very much.

Almost everyone was happy to stop. Well, just about everyone. The other leader and I brought hot chocolate for after and I made cookies for all the Daisies. The boy ate one. He asked for another. He got another! But then halfway through eating it, he overheard someone asking me what kind of cookies they were. “Cherry Chocolate Chip!” I said. The boy looked at that half eaten cookie, handed it back to me, and said, “I don’t like it.”

“But you ate one and half of them!”

“That was before I knew what it was. Now I don’t like it.”

I know, you’re jealous. Sorry. They’re all mine!

I thought the whole point of New England was that the folks up here are rough, rugged. Snow? What snow?

So what’s up with another friggin’ snow day? Seriously. It’s the folks in Seattle who aren’t supposed to be prepared for snow. But we have snow plows up here. And ice melt. And shovels. Why is this our third snow day in two weeks (two weeks that also included an early release day and MLK day)? I mean, we have community schools, so there’s no reason not to bundle up and walk to school (okay, I know, the teachers don’t live nearby, but hey! Don’t go bursting my bubble)!

The kids are happy. And I don’t mind, except that I had a pretty long to-do list for today that’s now a to-don’t list. The boy, though, is happy because we just checked out a bunch of books from the library and I printed him extra math worksheets to do (this is a boy who turned down a playdate the other day because he preferred to stay home and do extra math). The girl is happy because she has a stack of papers and is sitting next to me talking to herself. And, truth be told, I’m pretty happy because I (and the kids) got new snowshoes this week and we’ll have a chance to use them later today. And in the meantime, I’ll bake some bread and make some marshmallows.

But really. It’s just snow folks.

Every year, we mail home a box from Miami, filled with all the stuff we don’t have room to pack. The presents for the kids, the after-holiday stuff we buy. But this year, the box had something special for me. And I plan on using it the first quiet moment I get on this snow day.

It was a Yankee swap prize. Not my prize. Adam’s prize. But I stole it (post swap) because it was too much of a treasure to let him have it, with his uncouth ways.

I love this Yankee swap. We have so much fun. It’s always a challenge whether to go fun or serious. This year I went serious. A nice spice sampler from Penzey’s that was on sale for $7.95 (our limit is $10). But it just didn’t… feel right. I kept second guessing myself. And then I realized I had a whopping $2.05 leftover. In a Yankee swap, that’s like an entire new gift! So my spice sampler transformed itself into a Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner, complete with potato, peas, and 75 cents for .63 pounds of chicken. Done!

The swap was good. I ended up with a musical magic wand that has been hotly contested between Doodles and Pie. I’ve had to declare it “shared” and it lives in the playroom.

But Adam. Oh Adam got a gift of which he was unworthy. It was a timely gift, as my friend, Simon, had just posted on Facebook a link to the proper way to make tea. But the instructions lacked something. A certain je ne sais quois. Until. Until. Until we got this for the Yankee swap:

How beautiful is this? It takes the tea bag, it let’s it sit in the tea, and then it removes the tea bag at the designated time! No more weak tea because I took the bag out too soon! No more overly strong tea because I started making my tea only to be distracted by a screaming child. This is the ultimate tea-making tool! I don’t understand why I’ve never heard of it before!

Forgot Calgon. Tea-Boy, take me away!