arrrgghh.... school starts next Monday and I still don't know where, for whom, or at what grade level I'll be student teaching. I HATE waiting for news! Well, at least one person from our group sent out an email that she'd finally heard from our team leader... so at least someone is alive out there... and apparently it's still true that we're supposed to start on the 27th. I've been checking my email obsessively... so stupid, but I can't help it.

Oh well. At least I have my Wednesday night hula class to look forward to.

Posted on Monday 20 of August, 2007 [22:04:32 UTC]

Wow--imagine my surprise the other day when I found in my mailbox--a royalty check from Lulu! Seems my books have been selling like hotcakes over the summer... (yeah, you've seen all those busy hotcake stands out there, right?) Well, they sold enough to put me over the minimum, anyway. And as you can see by the last date on this blog, I haven't exactly been a frequent flyer over here at Lulu. Over the past several years, what with dealing with the wild Bear, and starting work on a new career, I've just been letting go of writing, making peace with my unpublished state, etc.

BUT--that check gives me new hope and ambition! OK, not really. Still, it would be kind of fun to actually sell some more books--and maybe return to blogging (see entry from two years ago, heh heh!)

Well, this year I've started a new odyssey--training for a career in which I hope I can actually find a job eventually (unlike my last academic career). I'm enrolled in a teaching credential program at a local public university, and right now I'm waiting, like all my classmates, to hear where and for whom and at what grade level I'm going to be student teaching, starting a week from Monday. So, as you can imagine, we're all getting kind of antsy. At the same time, the Bear will also be starting kindergarten--at least we know that much! We know the name of his teacher, and that he'll be in the morning class, but we haven't gotten a supply list or anything, so I guess I'll be shopping for scissors and pencil boxes over the weekend with the vast hordes. Oh well. I suppose I could just guess what he'll need, but, like Sherlock Holmes, I despise guessing.

So, whether I write in this blog again... you may guess but I will just have to see...

Posted on Sunday 19 of August, 2007 [18:47:29 UTC]

Maybe I'll start blogging around here some more. Journalspace has gotten weird on me, incredibly slow and not letting me see the comments page for some reason.

Well, having FINALLY decided (on his own and with no pressure from us--so HA! Take THAT, John Rosemond!) to go poop in the potty instead of a diaper, the Roo Bear is in the midst of a serious regression in all other aspects of life. But that's boring, so here are some funny things he's done lately:

We' re trying to teach him the concept of privacy, ie, people like to have privacy in the bathroom, etc. So I hear his voice outside the door: "Mama, you having your privacy?"
"Yes," I say.
"Can I watch you?"

Every Friday I take him for ice cream after picking him up from preschool. He always picks vanilla, or as he sometimes calls it, "balilla". But he's tasted chocolate in various forms and seems to like it. This Friday he announces as we park outside the Baskin-Robbins: "I'm not going to have vanilla ANY MORE!" As we walk from the car: "I like CHOCOLATE. Chocolate is my favorite." As we go in the door: "I'm going to have chocolate, not vanilla."
At the counter: "I want VANILLA!"

Posted on Monday 05 of September, 2005 [03:39:22 UTC]

Wow, more than two months with no entry in this blog--that's pretty pathetic. I've been just letting my books sit here on Lulu without doing diddly squat to try to sell any... well, I need to change that. A little, anyway. I thought about hitting the Internet hard again, going to all those listing sites, but once I visited a few, I just thought...uuuuuuunnnnnggghh. So, instead I'm going to try to circulate the copies of RID that I have left from my independent print run, and maybe some more of the business cards, too. We'll see what happens. Maybe I'll go on the reviews forum here, too, and see if I can get anything going that way.

Also, I edited my storefront some... since I no longer have my own website, I put a link to my other blog, which has also been neglected some in recent weeks, but not nearly as much as this one.

Posted on Thursday 23 of June, 2005 [17:49:41 UTC]

Well, it's now official, the piano is arriving on Wednesday! The Roo Bear, for some reason, calls it the "companyo," and tells me solemnly that it has eyes. Where he got this idea I do not know. We've told him he must be very gentle with the piano, and when we say, "What do you have to do with the piano?" he yells, "Be GENTLE!!" and jumps around whacking on things in his usual expression of enthusiasm.

Phil was away for a few days last week, checking up on the speaker business in Minnesota, and the Bear was quite good while he was gone, but has been a little trying this weekend. Still, he's continuing to improve, and we actually managed to take him out to (very informal) restaurants twice in the last week. Surprisingly, the dinner out worked better than the breakfast, which we tried this morning. (You've heard of Happy Hour from 4-6? That's his Crabby Hour) But at least there's a chance of him feeling like eating at dinner time. We took him to the Best Mexican Restaurant on the Planet, otherwise known as La Primavera, and he actually stayed (mostly) in his seat through the whole meal. He also dove--a little too literally--into his plate of rice and beans and devoured all the rice.

Now if only we could get him to use a fork.

Posted on Monday 11 of April, 2005 [18:11:43 UTC]

Okay, for some reason that post went up three or four times and it won't let me remove the extras. So don't think I'm so in love with my inane scribblings that I want to post them over and over--it's just another glitch. I always seem to be running into these things! I will try to fix it later. Let's see if this one goes up a zillion times, too.

Posted on Tuesday 05 of April, 2005 [17:51:00 UTC]

On Sunday Phil took over the Roo Bear for awhile and I went out snuffling around for a few things. One of the things I wanted to get was some sandals for the summer. This is a difficult mission, because I have very cheap feet that need a lot of arch support. I actually had to see a podiatrist a few years ago, who told me I needed to wear orthotics or I'd have to have foot surgery someday! Yikes. So ever since then I've been wearing these dang things inside my shoes--I'm on my second pair now--and it makes me feel old and frumpy. And sandal-shopping does not exactly make me feel young and happy and spring-like. F'rinstance, I am the last female on earth with unpainted toenails. It's not that I have any moral objection to painted toenails--actually I think they look cute--but there are so many things I'd rather do with my time than sit around trying to paint my toenails! And I don't want anyone else to do it, either. Manicures, pedicures, massages, facials--all that stuff makes me cringe. I don't want any strangers messing around with me. Wouldn't make me feel relaxed. Just leave me alone and don't touch me.

But I digress. So here I was, wishing I could find some sandals as comfy for walking and standing as my trusty tennies-plus-orthotics, and thinking that, now that we actually have some money, I might be willing to pay for same, rather than grabbing a Target special on fake Birkenstocks the way I usually do.

So I went into this new fancy "comfort shoes" store and looked at some possibilities. One that seemed promising had a price tag of $125. I've never paid that for a pair of whole, enclosed shoes, let alone a sandal. And I said as much to the fresh-faced teenager who came to ask if she could help me.

She didn't crack a smile, but just told me that she owned a pair of these and could say from personal experience how great they were.

Well, I took her word for it. Maybe someday I'll try them on... if I can find them at a self-service store. But the thought of pulling off my cruddy, worn, smelly sneakers and exposing my misshapen, un-pedicured feet in front of this sixteen-year-old who owned a pair of $125 sandals was too much for me.

Maybe I can buy them online.

Posted on Tuesday 05 of April, 2005 [17:45:13 UTC]

On Sunday Phil took over the Roo Bear for awhile and I went out snuffling around for a few things. One of the things I wanted to get was some sandals for the summer. This is a difficult mission, because I have very cheap feet that need a lot of arch support. I actually had to see a podiatrist a few years ago, who told me I needed to wear orthotics or I'd have to have foot surgery someday! Yikes. So ever since then I've been wearing these dang things inside my shoes--I'm on my second pair now--and it makes me feel old and frumpy. And sandal-shopping does not exactly make me feel young and happy and spring-like. F'rinstance, I am the last female on earth with unpainted toenails. It's not that I have any moral objection to painted toenails--actually I think they look cute--but there are so many things I'd rather do with my time than sit around trying to paint my toenails! And I don't want anyone else to do it, either. Manicures, pedicures, massages, facials--all that stuff makes me cringe. I don't want any strangers messing around with me. Wouldn't make me feel relaxed. Just leave me alone and don't touch me.

But I digress. So here I was, wishing I could find some sandals as comfy for walking and standing as my trusty tennies-plus-orthotics, and thinking that, now that we actually have some money, I might be willing to pay for same, rather than grabbing a Target special on fake Birkenstocks the way I usually do.

So I went into this new fancy "comfort shoes" store and looked at some possibilities. One that seemed promising had a price tag of $125. I've never paid that for a pair of whole, enclosed shoes, let alone a sandal. And I said as much to the fresh-faced teenager who came to ask if she could help me.

She didn't crack a smile, but just told me that she owned a pair of these and could say from personal experience how great they were.

Well, I took her word for it. Maybe someday I'll try them on... if I can find them at a self-service store. But the thought of pulling off my cruddy, worn, smelly sneakers and exposing my misshapen, un-pedicured feet in front of this sixteen-year-old who owned a pair of $125 sandals was too much for me.

Maybe I can buy them online.

Posted on Tuesday 05 of April, 2005 [17:45:11 UTC]

Here's a few cute things that the Roo Bear has said
and done lately:

--The other day I climbed up into the loft bed with
no shoes on to get something. It was a little
awkward coming down the ladder in my stocking feet,
and the Bear said, "Be careful! Don't fall, Mama!"
Then when I was groping for a rung with my toe, he
put his hand on my foot and guided it to the right
place, just like I used to do for him when he was
learning how to climb ladders at the playground. I
thought that was awful sweet.

--This morning when he made his usual observation
that it's not dark anymore, I said the sun had come
up, and he said, "The dark went down!" And I guess
in a way he was right.

--Now I can't remember what exactly we were talking
about, but saying that someone or something had gone
away or gone home, and Roo said that whatever it
was, "went home to blanket." So we have established
that home is where the blanket is. (Roo has a
much-beloved huge purple blanket with Cookie Monster
on it. It's kind of bilingual because on one side it says "YUM YUM YUM" but on the other side it says
"MUY MUY MUY." This may be as close as we get to a
Spanish immersion program, but we'll take it!)

--When he gets a balloon at Trader Joe's, he WANTS
to let it go and watch it go up in the sky. He's
done this twice now. "Bye-bye balloon!" we say, as
it gets smaller and smaller. And, amazingly enough,
he doesn't get upset that his balloon is gone. I'm
going to take this as a good sign for the future.

NOW, Here are two business ideas that I offer free
of charge to anyone who wants them, provided you
come out and open the business in my neighborhood:
1) A coffee shop (or maybe even a restaurant) where
parents can take their young kids, with a supervised
play area for the kids, maybe behind glass or
something so you can see the kids, but with some
nice teenagers in there to referee and so on.
Meanwhile you enjoy a capuccino and a magazine, and
listen to sophisticated, non-kid oriented music.
What I mean is, sort of like Chuck E. Cheese or The
Jungle, only with the atmosphere oriented toward the
adults rather than the kids. Because toddlers don't
really care if there's a giant mouse or rat or
whatever... just give them the toys and a place to
play, and let the parents have some quiet time and
conversation like in the old days... before kids...
aaah!

2) A breakfast restaurant where the dress code is
pyjamas and slippers so you could roll out of bed
and go right over there for your first cup of
coffee. Call it "The Pyjama House" or something.
Maybe have the waitresses in robes and curlers. The
only people actually dressed would be the cooking
staff. Women with perfect makeup or wearing tight
jeans would be sent home to put on their PJ's.

How 'bout it, folks?

Posted on Tuesday 15 of February, 2005 [02:20:42 UTC]

Yeah, right. But still, here's another entry from my blog at an undisclosed location.

The key to happiness...

... is not tying your hopes for fulfillment to something that's out of your control. Of course, in a sense everything is out of your control--you could lose your home or your family to any number of terrible events, the fear of which we suppress in order to function. But what I mean is, don't make your happiness depend on something that, while it's out of YOUR control, is within the control of other people. Such as: editors, publishers, admissions officers, hiring committees, and all other
finicky and fallible gatekeepers of institutions and industries. This is the darker side of that happy advice to "follow your dream," and it's something I've taken a long time learning.

I've had plenty of lessons, though. My sister is one example: she wanted to be a doctor. She worked hard, followed her dream, and lo and behold she achieved it. She now has all the tangible and intangible rewards that go with successfully following a dream that's universally approved and applauded. But the whole thing could have crumbled if not for one acceptance letter from one medical school. Even before it came, I thought about the power of that letter: that such a cold, flimsy thing could dissolve a dream or make it real.

Meanwhile, thinking I was saving myself a lot of heartache in comparison to what my sister went through, I decided to go to graduate school. Turns out I was a complete noodlehead. After jumping through all the hoops and finally getting my PhD, I faced a dismal job market, with hundreds of over-qualified candidates for every part-time, temporary, non-tenure track position at Podunk U. So I said, forget it! and left academe altogether. This was actually not a hard a decision to make, as I'd already begun to feel I wasn't suited to the scholarly life.

A few years later, I had a regular job--the kind I'd spent my entire academic career avoiding--and was actually pretty happy with it. I was a bit bored, though, so I started to write. Soon I got totally caught up in writing fiction and decided that this was my true calling and had to be my career. I put my all into it, writing, revising, going to conferences, contacting editors, agents, publishers. Practically everything I did met with sincere praise and kind rejection--over and over, close but no cigar. After four or five years this got to be a real drag...and once again, I had to learn how stupid it was to give powerful strangers power over my happiness.

Last year I went to a conference for mystery writers and readers. I was newly self-published and hoped to learn a few things--and I did. Over and over I heard stories of persistent writers who didn't give up and were finally published. "Never give up," people kept telling me. But at the same time I was hearing other things: anxiety over sales, books going out of print, authors marketing their books so hard they never had time to write, editors pressuring them to write what would sell. And I began to think that maybe success is not really success. I was told that it usually takes seven books for a mystery author to get established with the public. I had written two, and had ideas for a third... but did I really want to write a book a year, with the same protagonist in the same setting, for five more years? The answer was no.

Well, I think I finally get it now. I don't regret what I've done--the thesis, the degree, the books--but I've stopped measuring my worth by things like acceptance letters, job offers, and publication contracts. Joseph Campbell said, "Follow your bliss," and to me that seems like better advice than "follow your dream." Because if you follow your dream, you need to make sure there's room in it for failure: that is, failure in the sense of not meeting the world's expectations or definition of success. It might turn out that your dream and your bliss don't coincide. Dreams are something always out of reach; they bump up against reality and get bruised. But happiness is simply there. If you can find it where you are--in what you're doing and not what you're striving for, for its own sake and not for anyone's approval--you'll have stopped following your dream and started living your bliss.

Posted on Sunday 30 of January, 2005 [05:11:35 UTC]