Saturday, May 31, 2008
Very Cool
I'm not typically a flash fiction (or even terribly short fiction) sort of girl, but I've made a few attempts recently - and elimae was cool enough to accept one of my experiments in brevity for their June issue.

If you've never been there, it's a great place to go for quick fiction and poetry that still feels polished and purposeful, though short.

I'll let you know when it goes live.

Also, I've updated the "About Me" section on the links up top. It's not like this blog is particularly anonymous anymore, so I figured, why not? (For someone who has been writing about herself on a blog for years now, I actually hate to talk about "me" - so you'll have to let me know: too cheesy?)

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Friday, May 30, 2008
Working
I received another acceptance yesterday for a story I wrote in a hurry and then submitted simultaneously to three markets, without allowing myself a waiting period to go back and reread the thing for clunks. Apparently, it was ok enough for at least one of the journal's - hopefully it will be for me as well (I still have not gone back to revise...)

I'd say 2008 is going fairly well, publication wise, so far. Five months in, four stories on their way out to the world. With my resume slowly building, I feel an itch to start working on something larger again.

I think it may be time to return to Grace.

At least, that's what I'm attempting to do this morning, with the blank page open on my desktop, begging the question - where to go from here?

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Thursday, May 29, 2008
Reason #9342 Why I Love My Husband
On the way home from an amazing event last night (a gala put on by his work), our car hit/ran over something on the highway. It lodged itself under our front right tire and smelled like burnt rubber as we pulled off the road.

Vin got out to get it out and get us up and running again. After ten minutes of him maneuvering things outside, and my carefully putting the car in reverse, he removed the object.

A Kayak of all things.

A kayak, who'd of thought? I said as we got back on the road.

I know, he said, you never expect a palindrome.

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Tuesday, May 20, 2008
S I X
Random things, courtesy of Phx.

1. My feet shrunk a size after having kids. A side effect I was pleased with.

2. I hate the telephone. I hesitate to answer it (and yes, I always check the caller ID). I get stressed over making calls on it. Why can't everyone operate via email?

3. When the doorbell rings I will rarely answer it. If we are expecting a delivery, I'll take off to the bedroom and let my husband deal with it.

4. I wonder if I have undiagnosed social anxiety disorder?

5. I let my kids watch PBS until I've had at least two cups of coffee.

6. When I was little, my sister and I decorated toilet paper tubes with markers, cut three holes on the top and then sold them door to door around our neighborhood for 25 cents a pop. We called the trumpets. My mom was not amused and made us go back to return the money.

If I've inspired you to be random yourself, please, consider yourself tagged and let me know.

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Friday, May 16, 2008
Watch out world
As noted by Phx on the video post of my daughter doing a face-plant off of a slide, she's a tough cookie.

And I admire the heck out of her.

At the park again the other day, she found herself between a couple of "big" kids who were jumping on one of those bouncing bridges that usually connect two slides or ladders or poles to slide down. So, while wobbling between the kids, trying to get her own little legs to lift off, she falls down, this time smacking her face on a metal rail. Ouch.

Of course she cried, but even as I reached to pick her up, she was clamouring (rather indignantly) for me to put her back down so that she could master that stupid bridge.

Even after the other kids left, she kept going back to it and jumping, very purposefully - as if to say, you're not the boss of me.

Yesterday, I made the mistake of leaving the ladder to my son's bunk bed up in their room while I walked out to grab the laundry. Of course, within a minute of my leaving, she was climbing it and, according to Alex (and the loud scream that came from their room) - she fell from the top. I panicked, tried to look her over for anything broken, bleeding, bruised...nothing. And then I realized she wasn't screaming or crying out of pain, but out of frustration. She wasn't begging for Mama, she was yelling "Ladda!" and pointing. Not because she was telling me what happened, but because she wanted to get back at it.

Of course, I moved the ladder this time, brought it out to the kitchen with me, leaned it against a wall while I went back to trying to switch over the laundry. Two seconds later - CRASH. She had followed me and managed to climb up it and fallen backwards - again, this time, taking the ladder with her.

And again, she had no visible marks, nothing wrong, just bruised pride.

Unlike her brother who was born with apparently more common sense (though, he's also the one who found poo to be an source of entertainment, so I guess it's a draw), who approaches everything with an touch of caution, and avoids things completely if they've hurt him in the past, Lila is like a steamroller. Don't get in her way.

Makes me want to bubble wrap her whole world to keep her safe.

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Wednesday, May 14, 2008
And then some nights
The hotel business surprises you.

Tonight, for example, instead of drunk business men lingering at your front desk while you try to count your quarters - you look up to see someone you've seen many, many times before. Someone who makes your face almost instantly burst into a smile of recognition - of "Hey! How've you been?"

But you don't. Because, if you're like me, you realize before you can even get that stupid grin off your face that
this man is someone that you only "know" through your television screen. He's a sort of periphery actor - the kind that reminds you of someone you think you might know, or of a place you think you might have been.

Or, at least he is for me. This is probably because he must've been embedded in my subconscious at an early age with his guest starring roles on shows like Growing Pains and 90210. And, of course, he later was the awesomely bad, drunk, pot smoking, poet bully in Grosse Pointe Blank (a modern classic, in my opinion.) And most recently he was Ana Lucia's partner (and the detective interrogating Hurley) on Lost (my favorite guilty pleasure.)

Apparently, he's in town working on a new Disney production with Bruce Willis. And he and a couple of other actors walked, rather than taking a cab, the mile to the Chili's down the street for dinner. Good for them.

Of course, I'm still here, counting quarter's, waiting for my shift to be over.

But, a two minute brush with 'fame' sure beats spending a night listening to a drunk story...or worse, five hours of nothing.

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Tuesday, May 13, 2008
And How Was Your Day?
Mine started with a 7AM game of soccer in my bedroom. No balls involved, only a dead bird that my lovely cat brought in with him and plopped at my feet.

After lunch, I took the kids to the playground where my potty-trained son became frantic over the the poop he was about to (and did wind up having) in his pants before we got home.

Had to wash the very wet sheets of my other child after her nap.

I was an hour late for work.

All in all, a good day.

The thing is, I'm not even being sarcastic.

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Monday, May 12, 2008
Weee...
Even though she sometimes ends up, well, bottoms up, my daughter loves slides.

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Saturday, May 10, 2008
Now Available
The Spring/Summer issue of Fifth Wednesday Journal with my story "Leaving Altoona"


Thursday, May 08, 2008
My Boys


A little shaggy, but what's not to love?

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Friday, May 02, 2008
Status
So here's the shape of things. It's nine-thirty on a Friday and I'm working. And by working, I of course mean binging on dark chocolate (PMS), playing Scrabulous online and occasionally hunkering down and taking out the red pen on the never-ending editing project I (stupidly) accepted for way too little money.

Oh, and I check people in. Four so far tonight. No interesting customer's tonight though. No one lingering to talk about anything more than where they can get the best pizza locally, and how late do they deliver?

My son stuck his head in the toilet yesterday, after peeing.

I have no idea what goes through his little mind, how it brings him to these conclusions. I just don't see how, even a preschooler, can come to the conclusion that yes, absolutely, dunking my clean little face into a potty of pee is definitely the most logical thing to do at this moment. And then I'll go and climb up on Mommy's lap and hug her with my damp little hands and tell her all about it.

So yeah. Work isn't so tough. Aside from that editing project. I haven't spoken of it much, won't go into the gory details. But it's there. And it's a beast.

My alma mater is writing a profile about me for their quarterly publication. They contacted me a couple of months ago to ask if I'd be willing to be interviewed, as someone who is successful in their given field. I agreed, quite flattered and feeling a tad like a sham. I gave them the names of several of my close friends, fellow alums, who are just as creative and successful with their gifts than me. Moreso, even.

Still, they emailed the questions yesterday and I spent last night at work agonizing over how to best explain myself and my work. I'm very uncomfortable in the spotlight, much more now than I was when I was a student at this same school.

Even doing this whole 365 photo project on Flickr, I'm having trouble with having self-portraits up there. It's too much focus on me. I toy around with the idea of shutting it all down, daily. This blog too sometimes. Not that I update it nearly as much as I should anymore, but still. It's shadows of my life, out there, open to the eyes of the world. Very vulnerable, I think. Much like those pictures I keep taking. Not that they're all of me, because they're not. I would never do that sort of challenge (though many, many Flickerites do) - but even taking just "a photo a day" often leaves me scrambling at the end of the day for a subject to snap.

And when in doubt, there I am.

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