A Delicious Artlessness

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It rippled through Twitter carrying the scents of sea air, spray-on tan and designer perfume.  You could almost see the MFA flop sweat splattered on the screen.

A friend posted it on Facebook.

Drydiggins emailed me the link and stood back to watch my head explode.

Snooki, of Jersey Shore fame, is going to publish her first novel next year.  Actually, Simon & Schuster’s Gallery Books is going to publish it.  I assume she’s going to write it.  Although…..the article on Gawker, not even the quoted part of the S & S media release, never actually mentions who will write the novel.

A mental reservation?  Who knows.

The reception of this news has dripped with derision like Snooki drips of silver jewelry.  I’ll admit, my first reaction was Why am I bothering to even try?  Why didn’t I just try to cash in on my bad decisions, bad taste and bad behavior?  Chelsea Handler, who wrote a book about sleeping around, has a huge following, book deals, and her own TV show.  I feel like an idiot twice warmed over.  I slept with an astonishing number of people.  How irritatingly stupid of me to not have turned those (mis)adventures into a revenue stream upon each transaction.  Even more irritating is the fact that I haven’t figured out how to make any money off of it since!  (Note to a special Senator, that does not mean you’re off the hook.  I still have those photos.)

I’ll admit, I’ve seen the show Jersey Shore only once.  I was walking through the living room and the genius children were draped across the furniture breathing through their mouths, eyes glued to the tanned, accented drama playing out on the flat screen.  I stopped and stared, too.  Then I looked at the TV.

What I saw there was not entertainment so much as it was compelling.  It was a front row seat into the details of lives, loves, and betrayals put on display for mass consumption.

Hey – maybe Snooki is qualified to write a novel.  I mean, isn’t that pretty much what a novel is?

In today’s world, the crossover from “reality” TV celebrity to novelist, to talk show host, to infomercial MILF isn’t that much of a stretch.  Not really.

She’s got fame.  I assume she’s growing wealth.  Here in these United States, that makes her smart and worthy, right?  She’s worked hard to develop her persona and to latch on to her celebrity to work it.  Like Chris Rock said in Ken Burns’s The Tenth Inning regarding steroids:  “Who, in the whole country, wouldn’t take a pill to make more money at their job?”

Snooki, however, is a bitter pill for the writerly world to swallow. I understand the pit in the stomach of MFAs when they hear news like this.  Heck, I don’t have an MFA. I’ve considered it, but that just seems like another bad investment when Snooki can get a publishing deal.  I assure you, the novel I’m working on is never going to wear the label literary.  If it gets published, it will likely be straight to paperback.  The most I can hope for is a cool cover.

I don’t mean to downplay the disillusionment of people who take their writing seriously.  I’m a Jenny Come Lately to writing.  This hasn’t been my life’s work.  While writing has always been a passion, it was definitely deferred, mostly forgotten while I got busy living life, raising a family, working.  Had I spent the last twenty-five years writing, yesterday’s announcement would have had me snapping pencils, too.

But what if this young woman “Snooki” is a clever invention.  Maybe Nicole Polizzi is, in truth, a smart, well-read, deep thinker who is playing a role.  She’s a modern day philosopher who’s savvy enough to recognize that if you really want to reach the masses and spread your message, you have to make people listen to you first. You have to get their attention.  It also helps, when dealing with the masses, to shed the elitism and pretend to embrace the anti-intellectualism.  This way people believe that you understand them, you’re one of them, you are of them.  And they should care what you think.

Perhaps, just perhaps, Snooki is a genius.

I have to wonder – are any of us really what we seem?  Especially here, swimming among the internets, do we really know each other?  What if, instead of this foul-mouthed, broke, overweight, founder of the parenting school of benign neglect, I’m actually an old money southern belle helicopter mom who is overweight?  I have to throw the overweight part in there because some of you have seen the videos.  I could fake the accent, the attitudes, the gestures.  But I can’t fake that double chin.

Just last night, Betsy Lerner asked how phony are we?  I actually left a sincere comment.  I said I’m phony pleasant more than I care to admit.  Stop laughing. It’s true. I’m the woman standing under the tree, shaking the paper cup of dry cat food, trying to coax down a kitten who was chased all the way to the tippy top by a neighbor’s dog who got loose.  Instead of telling my kid and the rest of the Covered Bridge Springs Tarts that the kitten was not my problem and to go bother the actual owners of the kitten, I’m out there swatting at mosquitoes and talking baby talk into the tree branches.

When a clutch of panicking tweens are screaming and brandishing their cellphones and issuing shrill threats to dial 911, decisive action is needed.  How I felt about it was secondary.  The kitten, by the way, is safely out of the tree without the assistance of emergency personnel.

But I do things like that all time, against my nature.  Am I playing a role then?

So maybe Snooki isn’t quite what she appears on the show.  She has a novel in her?  Who doesn’t?  It’s the extracting of the damn story that’s the hard part, right?  How many people say “I’d love to write a novel.” but never do?

Call me a Patty, but the most I’m going to say is that it’s a weird world we live in when truly talented people work their asses off and maybe never get published and someone like Snooki, with broad appeal, but seemingly little depth, is handed yet another opportunity to enrich herself.

This is where Art and Entertainment and Commerce collide, I suppose. Publishing is, after all, a business.  Snooki already has a “diehard fan base of  600,000.”  That’s a direct quote from the press release.  Simon & Schuster has to sell books.  Good editors can cure many ills.

Sadly, I bet plenty of writers are asking themselves today the age old question:  “For whom am I writing?”  Well, the educated writers are asking it that way.  Someone like Snooki would ask “So why am I writing, yo?”

Answers, like people, will vary.

Unemployment Diary: Welcome to Anxiety Central

My initial reaction was “Shut up, Michael Bloomberg!”

His offense?  Part of what he said this morning on Morning Joe (transcript 01:09:41):  “You wonder why jobs are going overseas?  There a are a lot unemployed people in America. There are a lot of jobs available. The skill sets don’t match.”

But it’s not just Michael Bloomberg, as Paul Krugman points out:

Who are these wise heads I’m talking about? The most widely quoted figure is Narayana Kocherlakota, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, who has attracted a lot of attention by insisting that dealing with high unemployment isn’t a Fed responsibility: “Firms have jobs, but can’t find appropriate workers. The workers want to work, but can’t find appropriate jobs,” he asserts, concluding that “It is hard to see how the Fed can do much to cure this problem.”

Now, the Minneapolis Fed is known for its conservative outlook, and claims that unemployment is mainly structural do tend to come from the right of the political spectrum. But some people on the other side of the aisle say similar things. For example, former President Bill Clinton recently told an interviewer that unemployment remained high because “people don’t have the job skills for the jobs that are open.”

No matter what the Bloombergs and Clintons say, jobs have been outsourced because people in other countries will work for less than what Americans expect to earn for the same job.  Add to that the fact that the countries receiving our outsourced jobs have fewer worker protections and you’ve got a pretty simple reason for why jobs are leaving the U.S.  There’s more profit to be made!

I’m going out on a limb here, but here’s my example of why this is just more nonsense promulgated and promoted by those who think that corporations share no blame in our unemployment crisis.

Last week, I applied for a position with a company I once worked for.  The position is one that I could do, have done.  When I worked for this company, I started as a secretary (back when we still used that word).  By the time I left (in good standing), I’d risen to the position of assistant state rep for one of the larger states in the U.S.  During my five years with this company, I consistently received evaluations of Exceeded Standards.  I’m still sorry I left that job for what turned out to be really stupid reasons (another opportunity that turned out to be a nightmare), but I know this organization rehires people.  Or, at least, they used to.

I still haven’t heard from them.  While I’ll admit that it’s been thirteen years since I left quit my last job with them, I think it’s fair to say that I still understand the mission of the organization and its basic structures.  My skill set has improved and expanded in the thirteen years since I left.

This should be a cake walk, no?  So what’s the problem, Michael Bloomberg?

I’ve gotta tell you, I’ve applied for so many jobs, it’s ridiculous.  In the old days, half of them would have been slam dunks.  The other half I never would have applied for in the first place because they are entry level or clearly not at the level at which I’ve worked for the last ten plus years.

And yet my phone does not ring.  I’ve had exactly one interview since December 2009.  One.

So I ask myself – is it my age?  My old salary level? The simple fact that I’m unemployed?  Am I expecting too much too soon?

You reach a point where you start to wonder if you really did all those things on your resume.  Was I really capable of running an organization once upon a time?  How did I become unemployable?

I guess I should ask the bigger question – just exactly what skill set is it that Americans need?  What’s the secret, Misters Bloomberg and Clinton?  Because I haven’t changed.  The job descriptions for the jobs to which I’m applying haven’t changed.  The salaries seem to have been shaved and the duties expanded, but they are very much all the stuff I’ve done before.  I can still create an agenda, develop a database, write memos, make phone calls, read contracts, sit in meetings and worry about budgets.

If you’re going to indict Americans for this unemployment crisis without questioning the corporations, then you’d better come up with specifics because more of us are slipping over the edge and if November turns out to be the political disaster we’ve heard it’s going to be, the already straining safety nets are likely going to be shredded.

Meanwhile, I set aside the utter freak out about ever finding a job again and try to focus on writing.  Some days I can do it, other days I can’t.  Those are the days when the house gets really clean and the cats cower under the bed afraid they’ll get swept away in the frenzy.

Okay, I’m done whining.  I know have readers in NYC.  Will one of you go over to the Mayor’s office and give him a punch in his nutsack for being such a dope?  Thanks.

Until next time…..

Getting Figgy With It

He has singlehandedly resurrected the phrase like hubba hubba.
He’s been my blog buddy since the very first days of PoliTits.
He and his significant other Sparky share my adoration of British TV.
He’s working on a graphic novel titled Hip Deep, Mountain High.  Go see!
And he makes Fig Bomb preserves that are so good you wanna eat the whole jar, diet be damned.

Thank you, Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein, for the wonderful package of treats!

http://www.youtube.com/v/N79CjNval08?fs=1&hl=en_US&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1

Stupid Sting and his lute.

Black Magpie Theory: Do As We Say, Not As We Do

I’m at Black Magpie Theory today where I’m writing about my crazy bohemian lifestyle circa 1995.  Big hair is only the beginning.

Will be back here soon.

There’s a Little Less of Me to Love

I used to sneak-eat my mom’s Ayds candies.  Explains a lot.

My Weighty Battles Continue

I broke down and went back to taking the appetite suppressant Phentermine aka the “mean pill” under the supervision of my real doctor.  Not a weight loss clinics.  The upside is that it’s a slightly higher dosage meaning Boy, does it work!  and it’s mostly covered by insurance because it’s considered prevention for that dreaded word obesity.  The downside is Boy, does it work!  Let me ‘splain.

The medication makes me not hungry.  Not just not hungry, but not cravey.  As in I’m not sitting around plotting my next hit of sugar. I’m not hiding pints of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food behind a stack of frozen vegetable bags.  I’m not stowing plain M&Ms in my underwear drawer like a deranged, chocolate-craving squirrel nor am I hoarding baguettes and croissants like tomorrow all the wheat in the world will disappear forever.

For someone toting around way too many pounds, this is a good thing this not being hungry or craving junk.  I promised my self this time that I would do this the right way.  That means I must train my taste buds to appreciate or at least not be repulsed by the things that are good for me.  So far, it’s working.  Mostly. I’m eating more of what I should be eating, less of what I shouldn’t. And I’m exercising.  With regularity.

The result is a loss of 15 pounds so far. I weigh less than I have in four years.  I’m wearing clothes I haven’t worn in three years.  I’m not sure how that math works, but I guess my body shape has changed.  Or maybe I looked like a stuffed sausage three years ago as I crammed my body into the clothes that now fit me nicely. I’m too afraid to look at my flickr account to confirm this.

I’ve become obnoxious about the weight loss.  Thank goodness I don’t have any friends around here.  They’d be shunning me by now and saying ugly things about me behind my back in Facebook chats.  Lucky MathMan gets the pleasure of my company and is treated to my hourly fitness updates.  That’s why he gets paid the big bucks.

I wake up in the morning and run my hand over my tummy.  “Dude!  Feel this.  There’s less there!”

He reaches over to feel because 1. He’s a nice guy who is encouraging me all the way on this new lifestyle and 2. If he gets his hand on my tummy, it might just make its way to the neighbors up north or the neighbor down south.

I squirm away just as his hand makes contact because I’m ticklish.  “Wait!  I’ll show you!”  I jump out of bed and give him the full frontal.  Juggle my shrinking boobs and then make a muscle to show how my batwings are toning up.

I turn around.  Do a Vanna White hand sweep along my less dimpled thighs.  “Does my butt look smaller?  And how about this?” I squeeze my shrinking love handles.  “And look!  If I put on a bra, you can’t see so much back fat!”  I point over my shoulder showing where the dreaded back fat would be.

“That’s great, honey,” he yawns and puts on his glasses.

I dash away to the bathroom to go wee and do my morning weigh in before anything, not even a drop of water, passes my lips. I glanced at myself in the mirror. I still flinch when I see myself wearing nothing but panties, but I’m happy to note that my waist now goes in instead of out.  For every muffin I’ve given up, my muffin top has shrunk by one tenth of one centimeter.

It’s a definite improvement.

I track my meals and exercise in Sparkpeople so I am aware of how many calories are going in and out.  I’m paying attention to fiber, protein, fat, and carb counts.  I repeat meals because I get tired of putting the foods into the database system.  So what if I eat steel cut oats every morning?

I still have moments when I want something made mostly of refined sugar.  It’s not the all consuming madness it used to be, but there are moments of sweets weakness.  I give in if there’s something available.  However, a handful of M&Ms results in way fewer cellulite dimples than a giant bag of M&Ms does.  Sometimes when I feel the need to indulge in some emotional eating, I try to use positive reinforcement to redirect my thoughts.  I look in the mirror to see if my excess chinnery is shrinking or I’ll take a peak at my thighs and marvel at how they’ve gotten less onerous.

It’s a journey.  I have to remind myself.  As much as I want to be sipping green tea in Skinnyville right now, I’m pleased to at least be on the right road.  Now I need the birds to come along and snap up the breadcrumbs that lead back to Fat and Bad Habitsburg. I don’t want to go back there.  As much as I want to blame heredity, I have to admit that nurture plays a large part, too.  People, you do not grow up with parents who put sugar and milk on top of Jello, and swan out into the world with healthy eating habits.

Exercise is another positive change.  I’ve been working out off and on for a while, but seeing few results.  Now I’ve ramped up my intensity to the point where I’m feeling it the next day.  I’m a litany of aches and pains.  I’ve even stepped out of my comfort zone.  Yesterday as MathMan and I entered the gym where I planned to do a few minutes on the elliptical before working my upper body with free weights, the trainer popper her head out of the classroom and suggested in a manner that meant no would not be an option, that I join the step aerobics class that was just getting under way.  I shot MathMan a pleading look and he just shrugged, the sadist.  Turns out, I really like step aerobics.

Like so many things in life, it’s about balance.  Or rather about tipping the balance in favor of what’s good for you and away from destructive behaviors.  As I sat in the doctor’s office today and soaked in the praise for my progress during my first month on the plan, I realized that even though yesterday ended up being kind of a food FAIL, the Mounds bar and cup of black coffee I had for supper were not the end of the world.  Nor would they be my excuse for swinging by the grocery store for cat food and a box of Krispy Kremes like I might have done a month ago.

I came home, teased the cats by putting their food in the cabinet in slow motion then made myself some steel cut oats.

So what are you doing for yourself these days?

Buy-Her: My First Music Review

Long time readers know that I am a huge fan of music.  All kinds of music.  I’ve had an opportunity to combine my love of music with my love of writing and so I’m doing music and book reviews at Buy-Her.com.

My first foray is right here.  You know me, though, it’s hardly a straight up review.  I couldn’t do thinky and high-minded if I tried.  So I don’t.  But I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.   While you’re there, please click around and read the other varied reviews of all kinds of things.

Now I have to go get busy with my work in progress before it totally breaks up with me.  It’s been one of “those” weeks.  How’s your week?  Did you get mooned last night?

I’ll be back here tomorrow.  I’m going to update you on my Odyssey Away From Obesity.  Riveting stuff indeed.

Adventures in Real Parenting: In The Driver’s Seat

MathMan and Nate are out of school this week for something called Fall Break.

I know, right?  Fall Break?  Lots of schools have just gotten started.  What can I say? It’s Georgia.  We like to be ahead of the curve on things.  Starting school, voter suppression, French kissing the Confederate flag…..

So here these guys are, underfoot and messing with my routine.  This is where I say “I love them, but…..”  because goodness knows I do. But I also love my routine.  Everything is off kilter right now, though, so I can’t really blame them. I don’t know what it is – the change in season, the shortening of the days, the lack of alcohol in my system, the general ennui and bad news burnout that seems to grabbed a lot of us by the lapels and made us swear off cable “news.”

And then Twitter went all fercockta this morning.  That sounds way more fun than it is.  I mean, how am I supposed to know anything without Twitter?

Aren’t modern day complaints hilarious?  Wah! I can’t make the xBox work right!  Wah! That store’s ATM machine is on the fritz!  Wah!  My cable is out!  Wah!  The internet is moving slowly.  Again!!!!

People, none of us would have survived the crossing of the oceans.  We would have been fish food or, on a particularly rough day, tomorrow’s lunch special.  For those of you not living in the U.S., pick a World War to not have survived because….yeah.

But before I wonder too far into the land of low blood sugar and this ache in my neck, let me wrangle my thoughts back to what I thought I might tell you today.

When it became clear that I wouldn’t be getting much writing/revising done yesterday, I acquiesced to Nathan’s begging to go for a driving lesson.  He’s got ants in his baseball pants about learning how to drive a stick shift.  See, we only have manual transmission cars.  He doesn’t master driving one, he doesn’t drive.

Well, good thing our county is loaded with aborted subdivisions.  The roads are paved and there’s no traffic on the back streets where the developers didn’t build before the bottom fell out of the real estate market.  That’s where we go for driving practice.

And the truth is, he did pretty well.  This was his first outing with me, but he’s been out with Chloe and with MathMan.  So he’s getting it.  Sure the car stalls sometimes and his shifting still requires some finesse, but, for the most part, he definitely gets the concept.  This is a good thing because this is the same kid who videotaped himself just a year and a half ago doing stupid things with a wagon.

http://www.youtube.com/v/mbudEROBdE0?fs=1&hl=en_US&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&border=1

For those of you who haven’t been around very long, Nathan used to be referred to as The Actor.  Not Good Actor, just The Actor.

So how about you?  Are you feeling weird today or is it just me?  What’s stuck in your craw?  Or are you stuck in second gear?

Black Magpie Theory: A Poetry Break

I’m over at Black Magpie Theory insulting the memories of Tolkien, Lewis, Perrault and Carroll.

See you back here tomorrow, my little happy endings.

I Get Around

Yes, I realize this is not news.

I’ve been cheating on you guys, my long time lovers.  While I still haunt the places I’ve been visiting since about 1912, I’ve added some new places to my feed reader.  Like that stray kitten you should have never made eye contact with, I follow these new, shiny interests home.  It’s not my fault that they feed me, is it?

The thing is, these new places mesh well with my Tried and Trues.  I may have met them while trolling the literary agent and editors sites or goofing around on Twitter, but many of them share my world view, skewed as it may be.  What they have in common with my old pals is humor.  It may be dark, it may be slapstick, it may be dry like a nice red wine, but humor and excellent writing ties all you lovers – old and new –  together.  It’s what keeps me coming back.

Let me introduce you to Bethany.  She tagged me with a meme the other day.  Bethany is an ex-pat living in Quebec.  Long time readers will guess that I’m just a wee bit envious that she’s up there where le Francais est parled. (you’ve gotta say it with a mash-up Midwestern flat/Deep South Country twangy accent)  Le Francais est parled.  Nevermind.

So it’s Sunday morning and I’m going to do this meme because I am wiped out.  Yesterday, I did more things than I typically do in six months. Socialist things, I mean.  Wait – no, not socialist.  Social.  As in go out and interact with people.  Socialist is like when I go to the library.

I had coffee with Wendy of Wendy and Jason’s Excellent Adventure!  I’ve been reading Wendy’s blog for close to three years.  Zeke was a baby, I know that. Back then, she was living in Hawaii, a relatively new mom, writing about surfing, life with an Aussie husband and making me long for the days when Nate was a cute little guy.  Now Wendy and Jason have two kids, live in Colorado and recently closed on a house.  This wasn’t like meeting for the first time.  It was like catching up. And Wendy?  I wish she lived next door. She’s the chick I wish I was.  Smart, successful, funny, supremely grounded in reality. If she did live next door, I can assure you I would never have gotten so embarrassingly out of shape.  Look at her killer body.  I would have starved myself and learned to run with a brick in my pants due to peer pressure alone.  Or I would have been slipping her fat-laden stuff, lying that it was a special, fat free recipe and borrowing her workout equipment and never returning it.  You never know with me.

Thank you, Wendy, for the coffee and the great morning. I hope we’ll see each other again!  Have a safe trip home.

After coffee, I returned to a clean house.  “Okay, what do you guys want?”  Because a house cleaned by Nate and Sophia is a Tell.  Like clearing your throat after telling a lie, a clear indication that favors are about to be requested.

Thankfully, they were reasonable requests.  Nate needed a lift somewhere and then somewhere else.  Sophia needed unmentionables that I’m mentioning here.  On the blog.  They’re used to it.

We even had a visit with Chloe’s boyfrand while we were out.  Can I tell you that a young man who stands at six foot seven draws some stares?  He’s delightful, though, (even if he does introduce Nate to things like this and Nate, in turn, introduces them to me, except that song is way, way, way tame compared to the others Nate likes to “shock” me with.) and I really appreciate the fact that Boyfrand was willing to pick up a few things and deliver them to Chloe on the other side of Georgia.

Oh, and I’d like to state for the record that Sophia is grateful for the donations.  She didn’t have to wait another two weeks for new underwear that don’t give her distracting wedgies during class nor suffer the indignity of being dragged through Goodwill looking for used undies.  So thank you.  Not only did your dollars keep the lights on and pay the water bill (yay showers!), but you can also pat yourself on the back because my sixth grader isn’t going to school commando this week.

Okay – that meme.

If you could have one superpower what would it be?
This is really hard for me even after all these years.  Every morning, I wake up and think “Hm….the ability to see through walls or invisibility?  Elasticity or speed?  Supersonic hearing or the ability to lift a freight train and set it back up on the tracks?”

And then I get out of bed, knowing that there will be dirty clothes, unmade beds, random effluvium, a pile of cat barf and a scattering of pens, markers, crayons and papers behind those walls.  With lightening speed (because I have just injected myself with caffeine and I have things I WANT to do), I’ll employ my elasticity, bending, stretching, squeezing into tiny places, eradicating the clutter and filth.  In the old days, I would even pick up the train and put it back on the wooden tracks running through the living room.  I do all of this while remaining invisible because, as I asked the other day, if a woman cleans a toilet and no one is there to smell the bleach, did it really happen?

And at the end of the day, I use my supersonic hearing to make sure I’ve closed the porn and wiped the history set out the Organic, Hormone-Free Skim Milk and cookies before the school bus comes barreling around the bend of the subdivision.

Who is your style icon?
Oh, I dunno.  Carol Burnett as the Cleaning Woman?  Pam Dawber as Mindy?  Jackie O. when she sneaked out as her alterego Kelly Green?  Drew Barrymore when she thinks there aren’t any paparazzi around or is too hungover to care? Lady Gaga when she’s not wearing meat?  Who sits around in torn shorts and wife beaters?  Because that’s kind of it right now.

What is your favorite quote?
Right now it’s this by Mark Twain.

‎“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

What is the best compliment you’ve ever received?
Best?  Yikes.  Bethany had such a lovely answer to this.  Mine seems so craven and shallow in comparison.  But when people tell me that I make them laugh or that they think I’m a good writer or that I’m a good mom.  All of those give me a buzz.

What playlist/cd is in your cd player/playing right now?
Right now, it’s Nate’s playlist on the computer.  ’nuff said.

Are you a nightowl or a morning person?
I’m a morning person.  Sometimes that means I’m still up at 2a.m.

Do you prefer dogs or cats?
Cats. I love dogs, but I’m more suited to sharing space with cats.  They totally get that sometimes I really don’t feel like being petted or picked up and carried around like a baby.  If I’m hiding under the bed or in the back of the closet, they are cool with that.  Unless, of course, it’s their turn in that space.  Then they bite my toes until I vacate.

What is the meaning behind your blog name?
I haven’t done this in ages, but there was a time when I used to finish blog posts with something like this:

Because I had a lot to say and this meme gave me the perfect opening, that’s why.


Now comes the tagging part.  You know the drill – do this when you need a post, when you need a starting point.  Pick just one of the questions and explore if you want.

Merci, Bethany, for giving me some inspiration this morning….

Everyday Heroes Otherwise Known as Blog Readers

Today looks better.

Ask.

To just ask was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in a while.  And you guys did not let me down.

Thank you.  Thank you for your donations, your comments, emails and suggestions. Thank you for showing up here to read my words, to follow the story, to play, to be part of this community.

It really does take a village. So many times I think I’m an island.  I’m bloody Ebetha!  Except, I’m really not.  And I don’t want to be.

On behalf of the Goldens, thank you.

See – I’d scheduled our electric payment for the very last minute to make sure that my unemployment money would be there.  But I forgot a quarterly payment for my life insurance.  It came out of our bank account, leaving us short.  Which meant that the electric payment would bounce, triggering our disconnect the next day, a whole mess of reconnect fees, the bounced check fee at the bank….because when you’re in the hole, you get punished and punished some more.  Not the good kind of punishment with the safe word, but the kind that makes you want to disappear, to just not exist anymore because how is it ever going to get better?

If you live on the edge, you know the feeling.  It’s like panic with a side order of self-loathing.

“So the electricity won’t be shut off?”  It was Sophie’s first question as she dropped her backpack next to the sofa.  I’d had to prep her for the possibility in case she came home while I was out picking up Nate from baseball workouts.  I didn’t want her to come home and freak out when the lights wouldn’t come on.

“Yep, thanks to the blog readers, we got enough donations to pay the bill.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

She stared at me. “Wow.  That’s amazing.”

“They are amazing.”

With gratitude,

The Goldens