Spokane, WA

This afternoon I was struck with the strangest urge. An urge to traverse Flickr for photos of Spokane, WA.

Photo Credit: RDEshadow

So bizarre, these random urges.

Photo Credit: Taminsea

Let’s see, what could be the reason.

Photo Credit: kla4067

The weather?

Photo Credit: Heather Stokes Photography

The mountains?

Photo Credit: Chrisnyc

Water so clear you could see your own happy, “we’re in Spokane!” smile?

Photo Credit: sagebrush_photography

The soon-to-be-residency of two people you happen to adore?

Nah. That can’t be it. Dammit, this is going to bug me all day…

The Numbers in Novel Writing

Last night, I sat down in front of my computer and stared at the page number of my new book (I love saying “my new book”. I would say that’s my favorite aspect of having finished the first book, this ability to talk like this is “just something I do now.” That and say more things “in quotations.”)

I sat and stared for about five minutes. I’ve hit 170 pages. I’m in the dread middle now, yes sir. I’m Michael Corleone in Italy and I’ve got to figure out a way back to New York. I wish it was as exciting as that. What it’s really about is procrastination. The end is nowhere in sight, not for a while. With no deadline, with no one waiting to read it, typing The End is sometimes all I have to go on. And it’s just too damned far away to be an incentive.

Finally, I grabbed a post-it and a pen and wrote down a bunch of numbers, a few rough calculations. If I write three pages a day, three nights a week (which is what I’ve been doing), I will finish the book in six months. S.I.X. Months. Now faced with that number, I immediately turn to my calendar. I look for days, for time. If I do eighteen pages a week instead of a paltry, pathetic, INEXCUSABLE nine, I can finish The Witches Sib in three months. February. The light will show up in the middle of winter. I can do that, I think. I have to do that.

I stuck the post-it up on the screen, a jumble of numbers and 6 mos in the corner. The number is too big, far too big. But it just might be the right size, the one I need to get me home.

In Which I Risk Alienating You Forever

Cal: Okay, okay, it doesn’t matter if you’re ugly as f***, or you’re ugly as s***. It’s about talking to women, and I know how to do that because I observe, because I am a novelist.
Andy Stitzer: What? You never told me that before.
Cal: That’s because I’m not an arrogant prick, Andy.

Let’s talk about how judgmental I am. Or observant, depending on your take of the situation (I like you already, People Who Think I’m Just Overly Observant).

Match.com has made me come face-to-face with something I already sort-of grapple with on a daily basis- the snap judgment.

I’m not proud of this aspect of my personality. Nobody, including me, likes to think that they can be sized up completely based on a few random observations. It can make me catty and mean. It can make me WRONG. Oh, so wrong. So wrong that I want to crawl into a hole somewhere and be comforted by no one but my wrongness.

Usually, though, I happen to be right. And those moments of rightness just spur me on. And so, the cycle continues.

Last night, I posed a question to my Facebook page. Namely, is it wrong to dismiss a guy you’ve been talking to because of his frequent use/misuse of LOL. And exclamation points.

Out of roughly fifteen comments, half of them said “Yes” and the other half said “Ditch him. LOL!” (Basically. I worded the question wrong so I spent thirty minutes deciphering what the “Yes” and “No’s” meant) And now I’m more unsure than ever.

Other things that have made me want to run in the other direction, in the week that I’ve been doing this online dating exercise:

- A hefty guy who goes on and on about how he wants a “healthy” girl. Technically, I’m an extremely healthy size 9. Technically, he is NOT. Is it wrong to say, “See ya”?

- Writes sonnets. Plays guitar. Would play guitar TO ME.

- Badly worded sentences, makes me think English might be his second language. Then see “born and raised in Illinois.” Some people are just not word-happy. Is that so wrong? (Yes. No. I don’t know. My head hurts.)

- Doesn’t watch TV. Is that really that big of a deal? (Yes. Oh God. WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT ME?)

- Is young and divorced. I really didn’t know what to make of this one.

I don’t even know where to leave this post. Except to say that the list goes on and on. And I know we joke about “dealbreakers” but what if we’re too dealbreaker-happy? What if I’m too dealbreaker-happy, so worried about another classic case of Fruit Blindness?

Oh, help. Help, help, help.

— One thing I’m not unsure about- Dear Straight Men, if you are on a dating site like this, do NOT take a picture of yourself with your camera in a darkened room. You ALL look like murderers. I don’t care if your mom is on the couch in the corner, cuddling puppies with a rainbow shooting out of her face. You look like you want to eat my insides with an oaky Chianti. —

 

 

5 Things

5 Things They Don’t Tell You About Writing Novels

1. It is far too easy to give up. The rigors of work, the possibilities for a richer, more fantastical personal life, the opportunity to close your eyes for a few hours… writing is far too easy to give up.

2. The hardest part about a rejection letter is getting one right before you’re about to start writing for the day. Sometimes, it makes it harder and sometimes, it makes it easier.

3. No, actually, the hardest part about a rejection letter isn’t the rejection you get from the form letter you sent. It’s the one for the first few chapters you sent. The letter you sent is no longer to blame. I imagine the letter after someone’s read your whole manuscript would be even tougher to bear. So far, I haven’t had the pleasure.

4. Some of your friends, no matter how much they love you, won’t want to read your book. Don’t push. You have to be ok with that.

5. This last one I’ll leave you to find out for yourself. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.

The View from Here

28: A Still Life

Calcium chew, multi-vitamin and aspirin for caffeine deficiency/hangover. All that’s missing is the handful of mini-Milky Ways that I had for breakfast.

“They Win Halloween”

Halloween makes me cranky.

I’m sorry but it does. Some of my negative feelings toward the Day O’ Candy & Mirth are personal (at the tender age of 12, we moved from New York to Boston on Halloween Day. I think ‘wrenching’ would be an adequate word for my feelings about that particular Halloween) and others- well, the blame belongs to the masses. Basically, anything you find at a store called “The Spirit of Halloween”, plastic masks, “sexy pirate” costumes, the racks and racks of unoriginal, uninspired ideas. Cheap, cheap, cheap. That’s what makes me especially cranky about Halloween. I feel like my mother when I used to complain there wasn’t a Kids Day. “Every day is Kids’ Day,” the patented response. Well, every day is “Unoriginal Day.” Can’t you put in a little effort?

But. BUT. It had never occurred to me before that, just like discounted candy and costumed-walk-of-shame stories, the best of Halloween can be found after-the-fact. Like this.

From Towleroad

And these- lovingly, achingly handmade by Wood over at Sweet Juniper for her munchinkins. “What a cute owl” doesn’t cut it, indeed. These are incredible. I want Martha Stewart to call her and say, “Props, my dear.” And I hope she records such a call so I can hear Martha Stewart say “Props” before I die.

Any other cute ones you’ve seen? I’m talking cute like “Will restore Judi’s faith in Halloween” cute. Link in the comments if you’ve got one and I’ll add it here. We’ll have ourselves a little Best Of gallery. Or we’ll stick with ogling these three, I’m ok with that too.

Oh, well, ok maybe ONE more. Since you asked so nicely.

Joan from MadMen, with a special appearance from Dog Draper.

 

 

 

Game, Set…

I signed up for a popular dating site last week. Can you guess which one based on the title of this post?

Some things I’ve learned about this newfangled online dating situation (hi, apparently I’m writing this from the year 2003) and it’s only been a couple of days:

1) Getting your PROFILE rejected by hugely popular dating site isn’t the best way to start things off. And they don’t tell you WHY you need to rewrite it, they just list reasons that range from You stupidly listed your home address to You are a prostitute in disguise. It turned out to be rejected because I said the word “shit” in my profile which I was all defensive about until my sister was like, “WHY would you talk about ’shit’ in your profile?” I conceded her point and then let it go.

3) My coupled-up girlfriends are really excited about this endeavor. Probably more excited about it than I am because they get to pick over profiles with me and I actually have to go out with people.

2) Well, HELLO defense-mechanism-based-humor. It’s been so very long since we’ve seen each other. Had I known that by putting myself “out there” so publicly, that seeking this very vulnerable position would cause you to erupt from within me like the old dragon in Gringotts Bank*, I would’ve chained myself to a radiator before hitting “Submit Profile.”

3) Alarming: So many of these guys’ profiles look exactly the same. Dude in backwards baseball hat. Likes sports bars, “diet and exercise” and Seinfeld reruns. If you lean toward Bro-town for your dating needs, run, don’t walk to Match.com. (Did I ruin the surprise? Sorry about that.)

4) For the girls out there- if you looked at a guy’s profile and he listed “cuddling” as one of his favorite activities, do you automatically cough “ass-kisser” or is that just me?

5) Really? You’re 37 years old and your range for a girl starts at EIGHTEEN? Was that merely an oversight? Because ew. And no.

As you can see, this is going to be a disaster. And I would apologize for the uncharacteristically cynical tone of this post but see #2. And just for a dash of hopefulness, I will say that a couple of guys actually made me clasp my hands in joy as bird twirled and sang overhead.

 

*It’s time to play “Count the references that make me still single!” Winner gets s custom-made Spinsters Forever kit and a very used copy of Bridget Jones’ Diary.

Yellow Kind of a Girl

A few weeks ago, I had to get keys made.

This post will be riveting. No, really. Stay with me.

So, I go to one of those old hardware stores, the kind that look like they’ve been around since The Dawn of When Man Declared He Would Need A Place to Buy Nails. Everything inside is cluttered and dusty, there’s a strange coo-coo clock on the wall that sings when I push open the 80 lb door.

The little shop is narrow and filled to the brim with Things, keys and business cards and nails and ancient, yellowing advertisements. The man behind the counter is old, lean and purely no-nonsense. He gives me a grunt from behind the counter and when I smile and tell him that I need a few keys made, he grunts again and holds out a hand for the keys.

He takes them and I notice the little index card that’s hanging over the register. CASH ONLY. I wince as he leans over the key-maker and I say, hesitantly, that I need to come back with cash. “I’m going to the supermarket,” I tell him and I point across the street to the massive supermarket, like maybe he never leaves his store and didn’t realize there was a jumbo-mart- right there! The whole time! Well, snip my whiskers!

He grunts again and just hands me back the keys. I do a major food-shop, remember the Cash-Back option and hurry back to the store, this time laden with bags.

The man doesn’t acknowledge me. He’s hunched over the counter and scowling at nothing when I walk in. Still, I smile and say, “Me again!” And I hand him the keys.

He makes the keys and starts to ring me up. $15 for six keys. Inwardly, I wince and wonder if the new dog walker could just climb through my 3rd story window every day instead. I’m about to hand over my $20 when I notice the key tags for sale in the display. I point to them. “Can I have two of those too please?”

He grumbles, “What color?” And I shrug and tell him to choose, it made no difference to me. He scowls down at the array of multi-colored key tags and then grabs a yellow one, saying, “You look like a yellow kind of girl to me.”

I’m so surprised that I let out a little laugh. He rings me up and hands me the bag and says gruffly, “You keep smiling now.”

I thank him and leave. I’m sorry if this post sounds like something your aunt would forward you but I’m just still amazed how somebody, anybody can surprise you.

All photos from this collection. Scroll through and be amazed.

Most Improved Female

It’s a funny award. I mean, it just SOUNDS funny. “Which of the females has most improved? JUDI. Yes, I agree. Most improved female, indeed.” That’s out of context, of course. When we’re right smack in the middle of Context Town, it’s for soccer. We had our last outdoor game yesterday and this award, lovingly crafted by our captain, was my own personal highlight.

Once I, you know, got over the initial, “This means I was absolute crap when we started” line of thinking. But whatever. It’s Monday and cloudy AGAIN so the office is incredibly dark and I feel like we now live in Norway and no one told me. How do the people of Norway get anything done, I ask you?

Nilly Landao

Greetings from my lunch hour. Have you missed me? Don’t feel bad. Since I started New Job on Monday, I feel like I haven’t spoken to anyone in my personal life.

Conclusion: transitioning back into a full-time work schedule is a teensy bit more complicated than I thought it would be.

[Needless to say, if you called me over the last few days to see how my first days have gone, may I just say- a) I love you and b) I'm retarded and will you call you back I SWEAR]

ANYWAY, one of the benefits of New Job is that I get to find stuff like this. I GET PAID to find stuff like this.

Meet Nilly Landao. She’s a designer from Israel and I. Love. Everything.

Enjoy.

This On Top Of That

Settled Here

A Very Slim Table

12 X 9 Meal

Airy Cocktail