the pieces of my life

My husband can’t even remember my middle name.

“You know,” he said this morning. “Your middle name is ‘difficult.'”

Um, no it’s not, It’s Sue. And he can bite me in the butt.

(Because Verbosity Is Good is just three words.) Word count: 16, 216. Finds of the day: awkward? Nope. Ill at ease. Three words. He doesn’t? Nope, he does not.

Hey, this thing is starting in 1998. What the hell did we do in 1998?

An odd sense of déjà vu creeps over me frequently these days. Surreal moments of complete displacement. For instance, I’ll be driving up Fresh Pond on my way home, and the reception on the car radio will go hazy. It’ll be dark–because it seems as if it’s always dark these days–and the road curves a bit. And for a moment, I’m sure that I’m on Market Street traveling from Fremont to Ballard, in that one curvy spot headed down to 3rd Ave. where the radio would also fritz out. It’s not that I’m reminded of Ballard. It’s that I think that I am in Ballard. So it’s a jolt when I look up and I think, “Hey, this isn’t Seattle,” but it takes a few moments for me to figure out where exactly I am. This happens frequently, like when I went to meet Kara for brunch in Cambridge, and I drove around and around for parking and I just kept muttering, “I hate going to Capitol Hill,” and was surprised when I realized I wasn’t in Capitol Hill. I’ve been there before, but I haven’t. Buildings will look similar in the dark, Storrow Drive will feel like Aurora.

If you go to the Amazon.com site, you can’t help but notice they’ve launched apparel. But my favorite part is that while looking up the movie L.A. Confidential, I was advised: “Customers who shopped for this item also wear: Clean Underwear from Amazon’s Gap Store.” No shit? (I didn’t mean that literally.) That’s just so good, I don’t even know what to do with it.

Up to 8,551, which has me pretty much right on track (and how did I get so much done, you might ask? Easy! Adam’s off at a section event tonight). This is a lot easier to do this year than last. I don’t know if it’s because it seems like I have more time to write, or just if it’s because I know that it can be done. I find I’m able to write without too much of a problem… but what I’m writing has got to be some of the driest stuff ever written. It’s as if I’ve completely forgotten how a novel is supposed to read, as if I’ve never read a fictional book in my life. I have a plot, but really no idea of how to get from point A to point B and my character is terribly boring (which is especially devastating, since she is supposed to be based on me), and I probably should work out some sort of outline on where the hell this is actually going. Work is a little slow right now as I wait for my newsletter to get back from design, so maybe I can think about the outline there. By the way, my novel is temporarily titled Learnings. I’m open to suggestions for better titles (and more plot ideas).

Speaking of work, I spent half of today obsessing because I forgot to spellcheck an e-mail before it went out, and it went out with a truly horrible typo (and no, I won’t tell you what it is). It was horrible enough that I turned on automatic spellcheck, if though it’s incredibly annoying since 95% of my e-mails are going to friends, and I don’t cap or punctuate or really even care so it just slows me down. I can’t help it. I obsess about these things. (And how is it that spellcheck doesn’t recognize the word “spellcheck,” and it surely must be one word although Microsoft Word has the following forms listed: spell check, spell-check, spellchecker, spellchecked. That’s wrong. I hereby declare “spellcheck” to be one word. And in future dictionaries, when the etymology is described, I’d like credit for it, please.)

Okay, the yellow’s gone. Now no more complaints from you people (I’ll fix the archives another time)!

Didn’t work. Adam remembered that he had to go vote today.

Kara had a friend in town so I went with them and one of her other friends to the House of Blues this morning for the Gospel Brunch. It was one of those things where you had to go in with the right frame of mind. The cheese factor was extreme and had I not been totally game, it could have been horrible. But, that said, I had an absolutely amazing time, and I’d definitely go again. The food was fine–I don’t think anyone’s going for the food. The greens were made sweet, which I’m not a fan off. Good collard greens with vinegar. Mmmm. I think I could live off that. But the prime rib was yummy and there were lots of breakfast options as well (although folks that know me know that I’m really not a breakfast-food kind of person). The highlight, of course, was the singers. The Spiritual Soul Sisters. Wow. Talk about energy. They sang and danced and had us singing and dancing (“gospel aerobics,” they called it), and when they told me to clap for Jesus, well, this good Jewish girl clapped right along with the rest of the crowd. The whole event made me long for my Jazz Fest trip to New Orleans, where I always spend lots of time in the Gospel Tent. Praise the Lord.

5,086. It’s amazing how much I don’t remember from my early days at my former job (not that that’s what I’m writing about. No siree. Not at all. No way!). I’m e-mailing loads of folks saying, “What was this?” or “How did this go?” If anyone has anything interesting for me to insert into my novel, let me know! I take advice and suggestions from everyone for this thing.

And just a couple of months ago, I thought a big tree in a big backyard was a good thing!