If you can't articulate a problem, does it exist?

What do you call it when you have educated intuition? I'm actually not even sure if that is a term, but it should be, or at least there should be a term for it. What I'm talking about is not the sixth-sense sort of intuition, but more the sort of intuition you have about something you're familiar with.

For instance, I know a woman who bakes a lot of bread, and she can look at the dough and say "Not enough yeast" or "It's too sticky" or even "I can't make bread today--it won't rise in this weather."

So far, she's never been wrong with these assessments, but I can't see what she's talking about. Bread-making is not my skill-set. (I am very good at baking, but bread-making is a whole other branch of culinary chemistry.)

In general, this educated intuition is good--it's why I can do a high-level review of files and find the error. It's how cooks know to add a little more of one seasoning and not another. It's how we make a lot of day-to-day decisions that we may not even realize we're making.

But this educated intuition can be frustrating, too, when either you don't have it, or you can't access it fast enough.

I was recently at a writing conference where possible titles were being suggested for an as-yet unpublished work, and I knew that the facilitator was listening for a certain rhythm, or cadence, or structure as he rejected titles or put them on the mental "maybe" list. But I am not a professional writer (yet) and I don't have years of experience (or any at all) in the publishing industry. I couldn't hear the difference between suggestions like "The Stone of God" and "God's Stone." (Which one would you be more likely to buy based on title alone?) (Also, if you google image these two phrases you get some similar, but mostly different results. Crazy, right?)

This is frustrating because as a would-be author, I want to market my writing in the best possible way. I want a title that works for the book, catches publishers' and readers' eyes, and is easy to promote. But I have no idea what this sounds like.

Similarly, I work with a woman who is very familiar with her field (we call her a SME--subject matter expert. Oh corporate America and your acronyms!), but when we're in meetings lead by strong personalities, she sometimes pauses before she speaks and by the time she decides what to say, the meeting has moved on to a new discussion point. When I asked her about this, she told me that sometimes she hears an idea, and it clicks around in her brain for a moment or two as she processes it. So she's nearly always a beat behind.

This is unfortunate in two ways: when her educational intuition says "that's won't work" but she can't pinpoint why, people move ahead with plans that have already been tried, or don't have enough data to be useful, or have some other limitation, when a more useful solution could be found if the matter were discussed a little longer. Secondly, when she hears something that sounds workable she doesn't speak up, so the rest of the room doesn't know that they're on the right path.

So obviously, in the first example, experience is a huge help, but it's also fairly easy to google book titles in your genre, or *even crazier* go to a book store and look at what sells (fantasy, for example, has a lot of titles where the structure is The [object] of [some location, person, etc.] as in The Sword in the Stone, while historical fiction uses a [Main character's name]:[His/her unique identifier] model, such as Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and her World.

But what do you do when you can't access the data quickly? Should you interrupt the meeting and say, "I think you're going to find some problems with that suggestion, but I'll have to get back to you on them"? That sounds pretty lame. And you don't want to schedule another meeting to resolve something you thought was already resolved but turned out it wasn't, although this sort of thing happens all the time.

The problem, it turns out, is in the ability to articulate the problem.

This is why I get nothing done at work, even when I don't spend the day in meetings.

I show up at work this morning and immediately attend a meditation session (yes, I work for one of those kinds of companies).

Then I get back to my desk and I sit down to finish listening to the Excel training I started yesterday (by Jeff Lenning--he's crazy enthusiastic about excel. I'm crazy enthusiastic about anything that automates my job and therefore makes my life easier. Or at least allows me to spend less time at work. Unlike writing this blog post.)

Except, I have a friend who's looking for a Conservation Biologist to talk to a high-schooler with leukemia about what her job is like. And I know a Conservation Biologist. So then I spend some time connecting the two of them. The C.B. is currently driving across the country, and may or may not be headed through Spokane, WA, where Cody makes Disney-themed drinks. (I can't make this stuff up. As far as I'm concerned, this might be the only reason to go to Spokane, and I haven't even had one of his drinks.) So, of course, it is basically my civic duty to inform the C.B. of this.

But my new manager wants me to look into getting a company-issued phone, so I start to research that, and I reach out to the woman I'll be shadowing to see if she actually has a company-issued phone, and we get into a whole conversation on when I'll be moving to my new location so I can actually be of some use to my new team.

At the same time, I coordinated a women's group lunch to make sure all of the attendees understand that we have two lunches this week--one with our group and one with another group. Then I had to remove an attendee who TOLD ME LAST MONTH that she wanted to be part of the group, so I added her to everything, and then TOLD ME TODAY that she is too busy. She's an administrative assistant. You'd think she'd have a better understanding of scheduling.

Meanwhile, I'm also taking a Facebook class or something on becoming a Beach Body Coach--which I am killing, by the way--today we are supposed to 1) Make a healthy choice. Meditation it is; 2) Reach out to a friend--nailed it! I've reached out to, and connected, two of them FOR PHILANTHROPIC REASONS, and it's not even lunch; and 3) do something to grow yourself. I guess I could count mediation for this one and then do something else healthy, like not eat out of the snack drawer. If only I could get paid to be this awesome! But, tragically, this isn't really my day job. It's only what I've been doing at my day job.

Advice for a college graduate

I recently received the following letter from a friend:

Hi Virginia,

My daughter Tess is graduating from the University of Arizona in May. As a gift I am giving her an advice book, advice from 100 people I respect -- people like you. 

The question I'm asking respondents is: "If you could offer a college graduate only one piece of advice which, in hindsight, you wish you had been offered, what would it be?" 

If interested, please respond by March 30th. 

So far, responses have ranged in length from one word to around 250 words. My suggestion? Be brief, be memorable.

Also, let me know how you wish to be identified: 1) name only, 2) name and title, 3) name, title and company. 

A graphic artist and I will put the book together and present it to Tess on her graduation day. 

Thank you in advance.

This is what I wrote back:

What a great idea and thank you for reaching out to me!

One piece of advice that I think of often are the lyrics to an Eagles song "City girls just seem to find out early how to open doors with just a smile."

But what I would say is:

Do what terrifies you: your successes will be sweeter than you dreamed, your failures will be less than you imagined, and if you end up in the middle, well most of life is lived in the middle, so what are you worried about anyway?

Thanks,

Virginia

What do you think?

The other day, a coworker I'll call David (who is not, in fact my coworker who is actually named David), asked me if I had any upcoming 10Ks or if I was taking the summer off.

It was nice that he remembered that I'm a runner, although I really don't run 10Ks. I told him no, that my next race is the Carlsbad Marathon in January, so while I'm not actively training this summer, I'm still running.

I explained to David that last year, my running partner and I ran the Portland Marathon in October, so we did all of our long runs in August and September when it was miserably hot here in San Diego (yes, I realize San Diego is really far south and basically a desert, but it is rarely miserably hot here).

Here's what a typical Saturday looked like for me last summer:
4:30 am: Get up and eat a bowl of cereal (For those of you who are not distance runners, you CANNOT do long runs without eating first. You're going to be out there for hours.)
5:00 am: Leave my house to meet my running partner at the predetermined designated location
5:20 am: Arrive at the predetermined designated location. Debate the usefulness of putting on sunscreen BEFORE THE SUN IS UP. Decide to put it on anyway. The sun in California is out to get you. And you. And you.
5:30 am: begin 16, or 18, or 20, or 22 mile run.
sometime around 9 am, on your return trip through Torrey Pines, observe that you've burnt 1,642 calories. Have a random stranger say in astonishment, you've burned 16-hundred calories?!?! (It is only 9 am, after all). Respond, yeah, we just bench-pressed a whale. Because this somehow seems a more logical explanation than the fact that your 22-mile run started at 5:30 am when weather.com told you it was only 74 degrees out (we actually considered starting to run at 4:30 am, but weather.com told us it would be 73 degrees, and we decided one degree wasn't worth an hour of sleep) AND that you still had 5 more miles to go. And it's now 95 degrees. Let me tell you, the Torrey Pines park water was the most delicious thing I have ever consumed in my entire life.

The cool part of this was...oh wait, nothing was cool about this. The sun god was all, I hate you bitches. I'm going to turn your running playground into a sweltering death zone. It's going to be awful when you start running, and then I'm going to peak my rays up over the rest of the country and hone in on you so that all of your sunscreen has melted off well before I reach my zenith. So not only will you be hot and miserable, but you are now almost certain to die of skin cancer. BWAH-HA-HA-HA!

So what did we do this Saturday? We ran approximately 5 miles and then went and ate doughnuts and walked around the convention center, admiring the amazing people watching that is comic con. And I even got a Captain America doughnut to bring home to Captain America.

She dreams in color

I'm trying to get real stuff done, like paying bills, but all of the sites I need to use are currently undergoing maintenance. Presumably because it's a Saturday night, but this sucks for me because when they're back up on Monday, I'll need to go back to my other real life of going to work and the gym and such. THIS is why I never get anything done!

So, in the meantime, I thought I'd share with you a dream I had the other night.

I was in heaven, with my cousin. I was my age now, but in my dream he was about 8. We were in a candy store and I was hesitating to make a selection (NB: despite my real life love of all things sweet, I actually rarely  make purchases in candy stores...even when I go in just to look around and smell that candy store smell. I'm pretty sure once I started buying things, I wouldn't stop.)

Then I turned to my cousin and said, I'm so glad you can't get cavities in heaven because now I can have all of the Bubble Yum Watermelon gum I want. 

I'm not sure what I'm more concerned about: dreaming that both my cousin and I are dead, or that my heaven is a candy store (and that Bubble Yum is the first thing I go for).

The rights of the reader

I'm currently reading a book called The Rights of the Reader by Daniel Pennac. And it's awesome.

It might seem odd (or maybe not) that I'd read a book about what a wonderful hobby reading is, since I already love to read, but this book articulates everything I love about reading, and learning to read, and discovering books, in better language than I could dream up. When I write my official review, I'm going to pretty much quote the entire thing.

I was having a discussion with a friend the other day about how mind-numbingly dull high school was. I really wanted to skip, say second through fourth grade. Which would have gotten me to high school at point in my mental development when it probably wouldn't have been so dull. (Although, emotionally, on the other hand, it would have been a train wreck.)

I commented to my friend that during the summers, I would easily read seven or eight books at the same time. (Now that I have work and grown-up responsibilities, my max is about 3 before it gets stressful.) What would happen is, my mother would go to the library a couple days a week (it was across the street, and she a librarian) and bring home some books. They'd be on the coffee table, the kitchen table, the dining room table, the porch. Some would make it upstairs into the (accurately, but somehow inaccurately named) TV room. Some would end up on my sister's bedside table, some on mine, some on the floor next to my mother's bed (see, Captain America, I inherited this trait!).

And as we mosied around the house, my sister or I would pick up one book, ask whoever was reading it how it was. We'd sit at the old-fashioned telephone table, waiting for a friend to pick us up to take us somewhere, and start a book that had been placed there as someone ran inside to answer the (land-line) phone (which was, ironically, located not on the telephone table, but in the kitchen, where everyone used to keep their phone). We'd start a book in one room, leave it to get a snack, and begin another as we stood at the kitchen counter (on one leg) eating a bowl of cereal.

We'd tear out strips of the Ladies' Home Journal that my grandmother would bring over as impromptu bookmarks. Sometimes there would be multiple bookmarks in any one book; part of the challenge was remembering which bookmark was yours.

Is anybody still reading this? my mother would yell as she readied herself for a new trip to the library. Sometimes we'd have requests...the second or third or fourth in a series...another book by the same author...a chapter book the kids we babysat were reading so we could catch up and understand what they were talking about when they called us muggles (was this really an insult or are kids just ridiculous?). Yes, even in high school, my mother picked out my books (she was, after all, a librarian).

Who does this belong to? I'd holler down the stairs. My sister would answer her friend, or my grandmother would claim it, or I'd have picked it up babysitting. Books littered my youth the way the shoes accumulated by the front door when we had friends over. (My father had more fits over the shoes than the books...I'm not sure if this was a pick-your-battles scenario or if books just stack better than shoes do.)

Books still litter my house. Instead of getting rid of some of them, we buy more bookshelves. Put the story aside, we're about to have dinner, my husband tells me. Could you put some of these on a shelf, he admonishes, Josafina is cleaning today.

My sister uses rule #2, the right to skip, and rule #3, the right not to finish a book (I can't bring myself to do this). I've mastered rules #4, the right to read it again (somehow Dobby dies EVERY TIME. It's still tragic); #6, the right to mistake a book for real life (um, hello, I have second breakfast EVERY DAY; if second breakfast is real, then by the transitive (or some such) property, Hobbits are real); and #7, the right to read anywhere (most recent bizarre reading location: in a bar during an MMA fight). My whole family uses #5, the right to read anything (I would add the emphasis ANYTHING!!), and #9, the right to read out loud (my sister and I were first introduced to Harry Potter when I read it out loud to her as she was recovering from surgery).

But my favorite rule is rule #1, the right not to read. I've never used it, but it would be a sad day if I had to read rather than got to read.

Word vomit, or why I drink

So, for fun last night, I was in charge of making dinner. This doesn't actually happen a lot in my house because Captain America works the night shift, and as far as I'm concerned, raisin bran is THE ultimate dinner. (We had a house guest one time who observed me having Baileys on the rocks (why is there no apostrophe in that?), cereal, and chips for dinner...while watching 8 Mile. He was duly impressed. Captain America was decidedly unimpressed when he learned of it.)

Anyway, our CSA sent us beets in our box last week. As you may or may not know, beets taste like dirt, and that's where they should stay. They are only marginally above peas in edibility tests, and peas, as far as I'm concerned are NOT food. I cannot conceive of a situation in which I'd be hungry enough to put a pea in my mouth. There is no scenario in which I'm that hungry AND that's the last thing left on the planet to eat.

So somehow I magically turned beets into food, and even incorporated the celery we got in the box. And, to top things off, I quoted Ogden Nash at dinner (fun trivia fact: when the post office made Ogden Nash stamps, it was the first time the word "sex" appeared on a postage stamp). The poem I quoted had nothing to do with sex, though. It was "celery raw is hard on the jaw, but celery stewed is more easily chewed." I mean, really, when was the last time someone quoted poetry to you at dinner?

And after all of this fine dining (did I mention there was wine? and cloth napkins?...of course, there are always cloth napkins in my house), Captain America's take away was that somehow, in the midst of all of this excitement, I got salad on my eyelid.

See if I ever turn beets into food for him again!

And then, because we don't see each other all week to catch up and tell random stories, the weekends end up being a lot of thought vomit. At least on my end. Which is preferable to regular vomit.

So I asked Captain America if he had noticed that our meth addict neighbors had not only built a fake brick well structure, but had adorned said structure with the most phallic-looking mushrooms I have ever seen.

Somehow this had escaped his observation (and yet he notices when I floss in the "wrong" bathroom). Our crazy neighbors have built a brick circle. It looks like either a tree or something should be growing out of it, or it's a very decrepit well that lost it's roof thing with the winch and pulley. Except it's just a circle of bricks, about 10 bricks high. And it's displaying four very phallic mushrooms.

These are the sorts of things that if you were at a street fair, and you had a friend who had just bought a new house, and you saw these, you'd think, you know what would be totally hysterical? If I bought my friend this collection of pseudo-pornographic lawn art. Wouldn't that be funny? And you'd wrap them up and take them to the housewarming party, and you'd be all, look what I got you! Penises disguised as fungi! We should give them names. Like Peter and Harry! And then you'd giggle a lot, like I did when I was trying to explain all of this to Captain America.

And finally, for extra fun, Captain America declared himself the luckiest man alive. I thought this statement was going to be followed up with how his amazing wife turned beets into food and came up with a fun housewarming gift for some unsuspecting friends, but no. He's lucky because HIS COWORKER DROVE OVER HIS FOOT IN A TAHOE AND IT DIDN'T BREAK. As far as he knows. Because he didn't actually bother to get it x-rayed.

THIS is why I drink!

Is this how life is supposed to be?

Or, I'm crabby because I don't get enough sleep because I like to do so many other things.

Someone once commented that "I don't have the time to x" is really just an excuse, and what you actually mean is that you're not willing to make the time. I don't disagree, but it always seemed to me to be a half-thought. It implies that you're doing a bad job of managing your time, and you would completely be able to fit in a new activity if you had your priorities in order. What this further implies is that someone else's priorities should be yours. This drives me crazy!

Example: studies indicate that people who volunteer are happier and have more fulfilling relationships than those who don't volunteer. This suggests that we should all spend some time volunteering. Except, I don't like volunteering. It always feels like one more thing on my to-do list, one more obligation, and I don't come home feeling fulfilled or better about humanity or anything like that. I come home tired and crabby and feeling like I now have to squeeze whatever else I need to get done that day into even less remaining time. And I have pretty incredible time management skills.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what's a time priority for me, because for me, and probably for a lot of other people, time is the biggest limit in their life. Like most people I know, I work hard, so when I'm not at work, I don't want what I do with my precious free time to be hard. For me, volunteering is hard. It's unpleasant and unrewarding, and I always wish it didn't take up so much time. Of course, we all have to do unpleasant stuff in our free time sometimes, and we have to spend time doing emotion-neutral things like laundry and grocery shopping, but I don't want to spend what's left of my now decreased free time doing things I don't enjoy.

Here's what I enjoy doing: reading, spending time with family and friends, writing, baking, exercising, and watching movies.

I'd love to do more of all of these things, but then it would be at the expense of, well, some other of these things (I could read more and exercise less or vice versa), or at the expense of sleep, which I already don't get enough of. I suppose I could work less, but that would likely mean a lower-paying job, and that's something I'm even less willing to compromise.

So this has all been slogging around my head when a friend of mine invites me to a Landmark Education open house thing she's hosting. I originally thought Landmark was like Bridgepoint, or National University, or any other for-profit school. Then I read more about it an thought it sounded suspiciously like a cult. Then I did a Google search to see what I could find out about it from any other source than it's website. Mostly, people  have been saying it only appears cult-like, and it's really a program for figuring out how to get the most out of life. It sounds self-help-y/inspirational speaker-y, but it's apparently all about you.

But I still don't get it. I don't understand specifically what it does. There's no clear cut definition of what the program means by "living an extraordinary life," and the syllabus doesn't outline specific steps or actions. So while it sounds like the kind of thing where everyone would say, of course I want an extraordinary life, of course I want more fulfilling and deeper relationships, it still feels a little bit like a scam to me.

So, on the one hand, if this is helping my friend be happier and have a better life, I want to support her, but on the other hand, I don't want to go to her open house and be the one who's all, but I don't get it. I feel like that would make me even more of a target for all of the Landmarkians, because clearly I'm in even greater need of this program, since I don't understand it at all.

But what it really comes down to is, I don't want to go. I like my friend, but I don't really feel the need to meet a bunch of her other friends, and I'd rather spend my time reading, or sleeping.

I feel like my life is already very full, and at the same time, I'd enjoy it a lot more and be less crabby if I got more sleep, but then I'd have to cut down on something I enjoy doing. Who came up with this system?

The sad tale of cleaning out my email

Periodically, the threat level from an overflowing email inbox reaches impending doom level and I have to force myself to go through and clean it out. This, for me, is anytime there's more than, say, 78 emails in my inbox. I'm pretty sure I have a low threshold for impending doom, but I also try really hard to practice the "touch it once" rule with my emails. Anyway, inevitably, there's a whole bunch of stuff that can be deleted because I've already done it (like library reminders), a whole bunch of stuff than can be filed (like stuff I bought at Amazon that's arrived and so everything's fine), and a whole bunch of other stuff that I should either delete or file away for when I have copious amounts of free time (does that every happen to anyone? because if so, c'mon over to my house--I've got a whole bunch of blogs to read, cats-doing-strange-things videos to watch, and double-chocolate-brownie recipes to try).

So here's something I'm trying to come to terms with: I had a ton of fun with NaNoWriMo and I'd really like to write on a regular basis. But I have bills to pay, so I go to work. (And I have a pretty awesome job...too awesome to give up and embark on being-a-writer-for-a-year type projects.) I also exercise a lot because it keeps me from going postal on the freeways in Southern California, helps me sleep through the night (you're welcome, Captain America), and because I really want to fit back into my old pants. Finally, I read a ton. And, push come to shove, I like reading more than I like writing (full disclosure: I like reading more than I like doing ANYTHING else).

I read a parenting article a while ago that said that kids can basically handle three things, and you have to count school as a thing. So if your kid is enrolled in scouts and little league, that's a manageable amount of stuff in their life, but if you throw in choir  they've now got four things (because, remember, you have to count school), you can expect a lot of meltdowns. I don't think adults are so different. If I go to work, and then make exercising and reading my two other things, pretty much everything is fine. But when I add in writing, like I did last November, it was at the expense of the other two (remember, you have to count going to work as a thing, and since it's what pays the bills, I didn't think it was prudent to allow that to be the thing that suffered).

So what does this have to do with cleaning out my email? As sad as it is, currently, the prudent thing for me to do is to sort of put writing aspirations on hold, which means that all of the emails that are links to tips or agents or whatever that would be helpful need to get filed away. This isn't a crisis, but it's still sad to acknowledge that I really don't have the time to try out this particular hobby right now.

But don't despair! I fully intend to participate in Script Frenzy in April and NaNoWriMo again in November!

Midnight in Paris

Last night, my mom and I watched Midnight in Paris, starring Owen Wilson. It's a Woody Allen film, which really tells you just about everything you need to know about it.

The basic premise of the movie is that the protagonist, Gil (Wilson), is dissatisfied with his life and imagines a better world/time/place...in Paris in the 1920s. He somehow time travels back to that era and meets a number of cultural icons of the time, including Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein, and Picasso.

In his real life, Gil is surrounded by some really annoying people  one of them being his fiance, with whom he has no real chemistry.

During one of his time travel/fantasy escapades (the movie isn't clear on exactly what is happening...is he really traveling in time, is it his imagination...it really doesn't matter), he and Picasso/Hemingway's lover Adriana travel further back in time, to Paris in the 1890s, which Adriana thinks is preferable to Paris in the 1920s. It is this experience that awakens Gil to the fact that the present is always less pleasant than the past seems because life isn't always pleasant, but that a person shouldn't try to live their life in the past.

Gil returns to the present, decides to live in Paris, breaks up with his fiance, and presumably lives happily ever after, or at least happier ever after.

I enjoyed the  movie. It was good, but not great, but on another level, I found it relatable. I mean, who hasn't been dissatisfied with their life, or some aspect of it, and imagined themselves in a better time or place? The Virginia in my imagination is taller, thinner, and has way better skin and hair.

I think this is also the premise behind fan fiction (or at least one of the premises)...fan fiction allows the reader to insert him or her self into the story, and therefore allows the reader to escape their own life for a while, yet to do so in a way that they still control.

In the movie, what was more unbelievable to me, wasn't that Gil was managing to travel back in time, it was that no one in his present life seemed to understand this sense of yearning for something more/fuller/bigger that comes from feeling unfulfilled. I mean, isn't that just human nature? Otherwise, how would we grow at all?

Neo

I've recently been officially hired on by my company, so I've had to go through new employee orientation, despite the fact that I've been working here for two and a half months. The acronym for "new employee orientation" is, of course, NEO. So of course, this is what I think of:

Sadly, this is totally not what I've been hired to do.

Fan Fiction

I have been creating fan fiction in my imagination my entire life, but it's only been in the past year or so that I've learned that that's what it's called. It was refreshing to learn that there were other people out there who created fan fiction. I mean, I never assumed I was the only one, but it's not like my friends and I sit around discussing the next imaginary adventures we've thought up for Harry Potter or anything. As opposed to the not imaginary adventures J.K. Rowling thought up for him. Because Harry Potter is real. And I'm Dobby-esque in that I can never just say Harry. It's always Harry Potter.

Although I would like to point out that Robert Pattinson
was Cedric Diggory  before he was Edward Cullen, in case you've forgotten.

(And as a side note, I really don't recommend reading fan fiction. I don't have issue with people taking legitimate characters and doing what they want with them, because once you put art out there, it's out there, and most people don't make any money off it anyway--it's really more like a silly hobby. But the real reason you shouldn't read fan fiction is because, in general, it sucks. Authors like George R.R. Martin (who HATES fan fiction, by the way) get paid to do what they do because they're really, really good at it. There's no way you've thought up something better for Jon Snow to do than he has. Jon Snow couldn't think up something better for himself to do. You, for sure, can't.)

Anyway, I digress. Although this entire post is probably a digression. Anyway, I've been thinking about fan fiction a lot lately, partially because I've been watching this ridiculous new show in which I feel like the characters could be doing a lot more. If only I were in charge. Which, of course, doesn't mean I'll stop watching the show.

The other reason I've been thinking about fan fiction lately is because I've signed up for NaNoWriMo (and I'm way behind. That's what I *should* be doing rather than writing this post), and it's really, really hard to create characters.

I know that's a no shit! kind of statement. But it really is. I have lots of good ideas for what my characters should be doing, but it's really, really hard to make the characters real. They all feel so one-dimensional. Which is why it's so much easier, at least to me, to imagine someone else's character doing stuff.

On the other hand, lots of writers sell books with one-dimensional characters. I'm just not sure that's the sort of thing I'd tell my friends about.

I have a little bit of a crush on Jenny...

Dear Jenny Lawson,

I hope you don't mind me calling you Jenny in my blog title. And for saying that I have a little bit of a crush on you. In a completely non-threatening kind of way. I wanted to write you a letter, and so I did.

Thank you for sharing your world on the bloggess. You are as irreverent as I'd like to be if only I were braver.

I know I'm hopelessly late in finding you, and I have no idea how I happened to miss your book tour stop in San Diego, but hopefully it was because I was starting a chapter of the Unicorn Success Club, or bench-pressing a whale, but I am so happy you got to meet Neil Gaiman, even though, and you'll probably hate me forever for saying this, but I was really disappointed in Stardust.

After reading your logic, I agree that Zombies would win, but I really, really want to agree with Mr. Gaiman and live in a world where unicorns would win. However, I think further research is needed to determine if drinking unicorn blood would turn zombies back into humans, or just make them really fast.

Sincerely,
Virginia

P.S. I love Beyonce and can't wait to get one for my husband for our 15-year wedding anniversary.
P.P.S. I also intend to get his some knock knock mofo towels. Just to go full circle.
P.P.P.S. I'm also really glad you had an emergency wig in your bag. Because what if Mr. Gaiman hadn't had a sock monkey hat? You'd have had to take an ordinary picture. And that would be sad.

Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was a lot of fun to read! I loved the picture of Reepicheep on the cover, until I learned that it's not a sword he's holding, but a gold head (I had assumed that the point of the sword had been lost in the perspective of looking straight at it) and then I learned on p. 291 that it was not Reepicheep, but Hamlet von Schnitzel, holding Yorick's scull. Either way, I would not have been disappointed!

My sister read this book before me, and told me to let her know when I got to her favorite part. The fact that I couldn't find her favorite part speaks volumes about how much Lawson's writing is a bit like living in my own head (if my childhood were much, much weirder), and how unlike living in my sister's head it is.

My sister read this book thinking it would be relatable in an I-have-a-strange-mother sort of way. I have no idea where she got this idea (clearly she hadn't read Lawson's blog) because our mother is nothing like this.

At any rate, I loved this book because Lawson is quirky, witty, clever, and strange. I feel like Lawson makes it okay to be really, really strange.

View all my reviews

Why I need to get more sleep

So my sister moved out Tuesday and Captain America left yesterday to go to Oregon. So I have the house to myself. Except this isn't nearly as much fun as it sounds because it's close week at work so I've been working crazy hours, and I've been trying to be consistent about going to the gym because I don't want to blow my whole marathon training program by not running for a week the week before the marathon. I mean, what if I forget how? Or what if my butt gets even more wimpy and pathetic?

Anyway, so between work and the gym and various other chores, I didn't get to bed last night until 2am this morning. Which is sub-optimal in general, but definitely a few days before a marathon. While I was busy not sleeping, I started to think about that book I just read, Hour Game, in which the serial killer mimicked other serial killers, and I thought about how he observed that no one closes their blinds well enough. Which Captain America complains about as well (actually, he complains about me wandering around in various states of undress, while the blinds are in various states of openness...and no, this is not sexy. This is usually me about to get into the shower post-gym only to remember there's a container of yogurt in my bag that should probably be refrigerated and that while I'm walking around I may as well make a to-do list and pack lunch. Meanwhile, I'm probably wearing pants, a heart rate monitor, and no shirt. And I'm probably still sweating. So I feel like anyone who's busy peering at me through my windows while I'm in this state gets what they deserve. Except when Captain America is out of town. Then, I feel like I should make sure all of the blinds are in proper working order).

And then I thought about how I had left the front door open when I went to put the garbage can away, and that's when the serial killer probably walked into the house. He probably quickly hid somewhere, like the shower, taking the 50/50 odds that I'd either find him when I went to shower and he'd kill me then, or he'd just kill me according to his regularly scheduled killing plan. I thought, maybe I should sleep with the gun next to the bed, when I remembered that I can't actually get it out of the holster. And that Captain America keeps it locked when we're out of town. So then I thought I'd just get a big knife from the kitchen and sleep with that next to the bed, except I figured that would really just help the serial killer along, as he would have his wits about him, being awake and all, while I'd be all groggy and, well, dead. And then I thought my best bet would be to not panic and use up all of the oxygen in my lungs while I was being strangled. If I acted quickly and calmly, I could probably inflict enough damage on my serial killer to leave behind some DNA evidence, and the cops would at least be able to catch him with that. Assuming he had committed other crimes and thus already had a DNA record (that's how those things work, right?). He probably has already committed other crimes. I mean, it wouldn't make sense for the serial killer to pick me as his first victim, mostly because I'm in reasonably good shape and we keep a gun in the house. Unless I was specifically being targeted. Then all bets were off.

At this point, I decided I had just better go the fuck to sleep. And so I did. For four and a half hours. So needless to say, my mental capacities were not operating on all cylinders today. And I almost told the guy training me that I was not a recovering heroin addict.

Because he was eating chips. And we have magical food drawers at work. That somehow sprout snacks during close. And I told him that if he was eating chips, I'd feel like that meant I should be eating ships, and he told me, oh, YOU can have chips, in that sort of voice that suggests a double entendre, but I couldn't think of one, so I figured he was just as tired as I was, because he has a baby at home. So I got some Cheetos out of the magic drawer (I mean, maybe chip-eating was part of the training, and I didn't want to miss part of the training). I picked Cheetos partly because there wasn't much of a selection left, and partially because I figured he wouldn't want me getting yellow #7 on his keyboard, so he would just let me observe rather than think, which I was pretty sure I hadn't been doing all day anyway.

And, in case he argued with this logic, I was prepared to point out to him that if he let me use his keyboard, he should be prepared to explain to his wife why his fingers looked like they had been pollinating plants all day and not accounting. (Because you can't get yellow #7 off. No matter what you do. Too bad I didn't have any when the serial killer was in my house last night...the cops would have had no problem catching him.) Anyway, I imagined his wife being both pleased that her husband was concerned about the plight of the bees (you did know that the bees are suffering, right?), but concerned that the pay scale wasn't as high as accounting.

I figured after the Cheetos and the yellow #7, the least I could do was chew a piece of gum. And I even offered him one, too, 'cause I'm nice like that. And then I thought about telling him that when I'm stressed, like in grad school, I'd chew a piece of gum until it was dead, spit it out, and immediately start chewing another one. Like a chain-smoker trying to quit. Or a recovering heroin addict. But I caught myself and realized that that probably wasn't a thought I should say out loud at work. Instead I decided to share it with all of you.

And that's why I need to get more sleep. Although it doesn't look like that's about to happen quite soon enough.

What do Homer Simpson and hobbits have in common?

Donuts! At least in my imagination, they do!

I learned about Hobbit Second Breakfast Day from my friend, Tracy, over at Tracyfood. And I really wanted to celebrate. But I had to go to work. And then I forgot. I even meant to get a donut (to eat at promptly 11am) when I was getting coffee (sshhh! Don't tell Captain America I was getting coffee!), but I forgot to do that, too. I have no idea where my mind has been. I mean, who forgets about donuts? That's a new one for me. I LOVE donuts. And Blogger apparently also loves donuts because it's very confused about the singular donut. It thinks it's not a word. Like, why would you stop at one? If I were a hobbit, I certainly wouldn't. Because there really aren't any fat hobbits. There aren't any skinny ones, either, and I'm pretty sure girl hobbits don't have to wear bikinis 10 months a year like you do here in SoCal. Because it's mandatory.

And then Tracy did a rockstar job of celebrating with scones and Gaffer's eggs, the recipe for which she found on the...wait for it...official hobbit recipes website. On the one hand, I'm not sure the world could get any better (unless of course there was an official Harry Potter recipes website and it taught me how to make butterbeer and treacle tart), and on the other hand I'm very sad that I somehow missed everything completely. I'm sure this is a sign of the coming Armageddon. And on top of all that, I have to eat vicariously through Tracy, which is decidedly un-hobbit like (I meant eating vicariously is un-hobbit like. However, Tracy is also not a hobbit. In case there was any confusion there. I'm sure I just cleared everything up.).

Eating happily...inspired by Tracyfood...inspired by Julia Child

About two weeks ago, a friend (whom I've known since 4th grade if you can believe it...from this program we were in called ALPS...which stands for Advanced Learning Program...I guess the "S" should be lower-cased, which really just proves that we have been brilliant and fabulous our entire lives, or at least since 4th grade). I think it's time I just start that sentence all over again. A friend of mine published a blog post in tribute to Julia Child, who was all about eating happily.

Just the other day I had the realization that no matter how good something is for me, if I don't like it, I'm really not going to eat it, no matter how much I think I should. I know that's a super-obvious realization, but as I mentioned above, I'm brilliant and fabulous, and therefore don't have much time for the mundane realities of life.

Except that I'm trying to lose weight. So I've been trying to figure out foods and meals that fill me up without breaking the caloric bank but also leave me feeling satiated. Because it's really the worst when you finish a meal and still have that feeling of not being satisfied. Which is why I try to balance my calories in such a way that I can always end my day with a hot chocolate.

But the other challenge is trying not to be too obsessed with anything. And for someone who may or may not have OCD tendencies, but is totally type-A, obsession is an easy path to dive down. For a short while I was on a Skinny Bitch and Beauty Detox kick, until I realized that I was always hungry, irritable, and all I thought about was food. ALL OF THE TIME.

There are times when a mild obsession makes sense. My sister has celiac disease (she's had it for years--since way before it was trendy to not eat gluten, which BTW, for those not in the know, is a royal pain in the ass, so I don't recommend that you jump on this bandwagon just for the hell of it). Yes, we upend the kitchen for her. Because otherwise she ends up in the ER and my mother moves in to supervise the healing of her baby and my husband leaves me because my family is insane and life as I know it ends, and I'm pretty sure baby penguins are massacred somewhere in there just for good vengeful measure. Because penguins are my favorite and my mother would be THAT mad if I poisoned my sister. Which I have never done (knock on wood) but does nonetheless happen every now and then. Gluten is EVERYWHERE! However, if, for example, you're a normal person and you just don't like tomatoes, I am not upending the kitchen for you--you can put your tomatoes in the tomato graveyard on the edge of your plate like Captain America and I will come save your life from potential tomato zombies (or whatever tomatoes turn into in your fear-of-tomatoes-imagination).

Going back to being obsessed with food, this is a great article that I must have found by way of Tracyfood because I can't think of how else I would have stumbled upon it myself. And I love Insulin Sensitivity Man and his sidekick, Hormonal Disruption Boy. They are my two favorite Action Non-Heroes.

So, see if you can follow my brilliant and fabulous train of thought another step further. I read somewhere that people like stuff that meet at least two out of the three following criteria: fast, easy, and cheap. For example, anything Apple: fast and easy, but not cheap. The article I read this in had nothing to do with diet or nutrition or food in any way, but I thought that for the most part it applies. For example, I don't like carrots. I've tried (I read somewhere else that if you eat something long enough, you taste buds get used to it, and then you'll like it. I tried carrots for MONTHS. Nope. I just don't like them). However, we do have pre-cut baby carrots in my house because they're fast and easy (and low in calories but nutritious). They're reasonably cheap, but not cheaper than buying my own carrots and cutting them, which I am not going to do. BECAUSE I DON'T LIKE CARROTS (which is actually a great reason for me to do it, since I'd get to spend my time stabbing the bastards).

Maybe my fast, easy, cheap idea doesn't transfer well to all food, or maybe it needs some tweaking (for example, most people I know don't love Starbucks coffee, but it's consistent and easy, although not cheap). But if I'm going to eat food that makes me less-than-happy (although not truly un-happy), like carrots, they better be fast, cheap, and easy!

Small Miracle...at the airport

Last week, I dropped Captain America off at the airport. Our airport is under construction, so in addition to all of the normal nuisances of slow drivers, random stops, and people taking their time getting in and out of their vehicles, there are fewer lanes in which to navigate, making the whole process even more annoying. And it's 5:30am, so no one is a 100 watt bulb yet.

I drop Captain America off, and then try to navigate away from the curb-side lanes and into the driving lanes. Except there's a taxi that's only half in my lane a few cars in front of me. Which stops both driving lanes of traffic. The cab driver finally gets fully into my lane and the lane to my left starts driving. But my lane is just sitting there. I'm not sure if this cab is designed like police cars--you can't let yourself out of the back seat (no, I don't know this from personal experience, but from Reno 911), or if maybe everyone fell asleep, or what the problem is.

On the sidewalk is one of those rent-a-traffic-cop types that populate the arrivals area at airports--always telling people to move their cars and that it's not a waiting zone while the person is clearly trying to greet their brother/mother/grandmother/bff/returning soldier and load the accompanying bags into the vehicle. As if people really want to hang out at the arrivals pick-up zone, you know, for fun.

As luck would have it, though, this particular rent-a-traffic-cop had an ounce of sense, and instead of instructing all of us to move (which we would have been happy to do if we could), he temporarily stops traffic in the left lane to allow my lane to merge in while the taxi took care of whatever their problem was. Then he waved the taxi into a more appropriate lane and allowed both driving lanes to actually drive. It was really nothing short of a miracle.

Random conversations

Every Saturday, my running buddy and I go for a run and then out to breakfast. Last Saturday, we tried out a new place...Mission Cafe and Coffee House. We were seated at one of those half-booth things where one person has a booth seat and the other person has a chair. I usually elect the chair because booth seats tend to be too low for me and I always feel like I'm heaving my boobs up onto the table. Running Buddy doesn't care, so she gets the booth seat. Which she insists is more comfy on her butt anyway. So, she's facing into the restaurant, and I'm facing out the window. I see a girl ride up on a bike cruiser and get off. She's wearing a black tank top over a pink bikini. I don't know how comfortable it was for her to ride the bike in just bikini bottoms, but she's braver than I am.

I point out this girl to Running Buddy because I think her bikini is about two sizes too small and because her butt isn't nearly as good as ours. Clearly she didn't run up Mt. Soledad that morning. Breakfast is served and Running buddy turns the discussion to Accent Day. The week after father's day, she and her parents had Jersey Shore Name Day. Her dad became G-Train, her mom, M-Woww, and she was H-Funk. This Saturday's theme was apparently accents.

I don't do accents. I don't even do a Jersey accent well, and I'm from there. I credit this to the speech therapy I had as a kid. Although, as my aunt points out, my mother had speech therapy and she has a Jersey accent. But not much of one.

So Running Buddy proceeds to go through the types of accents I could have. English, Australian, Hispanic. Meanwhile I'm watching Pink-Bikini-Girl, and more specifically, I'm terrified and fascinated by how her bikini keeps getting more and more lodged in her butt, and she doesn't seem to notice at all.

Running buddy insists I should at least try out a New Jersey or Brooklyn accent.

How about Boston? She asks me. You can say pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd. Which I repeat, as demonstration of the limits of my accent skills.

Then I notice that the bikini bottom is completely missing! It has been entirely consumed by the butt cheeks. It's gone! It's as if the butt cheeks got hungry while waiting for a seat at Mission Cafe and just decided to nosh on the bikini!

I point this out to Running Buddy, who is still working her way down the lists of accents. We're still on accent day? I ask her. Then I suggest pirate accent, which she thinks is pretty cool, but only if I'm willing to give it a shot. Which I"m not. Then I ask, When is accent day?

Today, she tells me.

Me: Wait, don't I get to practice. Like maybe get some language CDs at the library or something?

We're walking to the car now, and she's been somewhat less fascinated/appalled by the missing bikini bottom than I was, partially, I think due to the fact that she's been preoccupied with accent day, and partially because she wasn't witness to the entire consumption of the bikini.

RB: No, that's part of the fun! You have to try out new accents, and it's funny when you get them wrong, but every now and then, you do a good one, and you're like, I just did an awesome Southern Accent.

Me: That sounds really embarrassing.

RB: It's not embarrassing, it's just fun.

Running Buddy is now driving me back to the jetty, where my car is parked. We're sitting in a bunch of traffic on Mission and I observe, I wish I could apparate.

RB: What?

Me: Apparate, you know, like Harry Potter, apparate, or disapparate, so we don't have to sit in all of this traffic.

RB: What! I totally thought you were trying to say operate with a Boston accent and that you were finally embracing accent day.

Me: I think we've just discovered why you're still single.

RB: You're weird and you're married.

Me: Yes, but I tricked Captain America into thinking I was normal for the first year, and then we lived in different states, and he thought I was only weird around my weird friends, and it wasn't until I left my weird friends when we got married that he learned he'd have to bear the brunt of my weirdness until I found some new weird friends.

RB: But I have a really good Russian accent!

Me: Just don't tell your potential husband til he's signed the marriage licence.

Running Buddy proceeds to demonstrate to me her Russian accent.

Me: Yup, we've hit the nail on the head. This is why you're still single.

RB: Surely there's a guy out there who's goofy like me.

Me: You're still going to need to trick him in the beginning.

Being busy and related ramblings

I'll confess: I read this article on busyness a while ago and don't really feel like re-reading it. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/?smid=fb-share It basically talks about how Americans are all saying how busy they are. And I find myself telling people how busy I am, but when asked to articulate what I'm busy doing, I just find myself annoyed. Here's what my typical day looks like:
6:30am-8:00am--breakfast, read the paper, get ready for work
8:00am-8:45am--drive to work (stop and get coffee if I'm super sleepy)
8:45am-6:00pm--work (I'll leave earlier if I have a random appointment, which happens on a fairly regular basis...in fact, probably too regularly to be called random)
6:00pm-6:45pm--drive to the gym or other random appointment (If my appointment is for 6:30, in, say, Hillcrest, then I actually leave work at 4:30.)
6:45pm-8:30pm--gym time, including changing
8:30pm-8:45pm--drive home from the gym (sometimes I have to stop at the library or the grocery store, or something so this takes longer)
8:45pm-10:00pm--make something to eat, maybe watch a little recorded TV, take a shower, do laundry, pay bills, balance my checkbook, do the dishes, etc.
10:00pm-11:00PM--pack all of my bags for the next day, say hello to Captain America, who's just come home from work, brush my teeth, maybe read in bed a little if there's time, and then it's bedtime.

I don't know if this looks like a lot or not because most of the people I know are also busy. Although, I do have a friend who will say things to me like, I think I might go to the beach this weekend. I don't remember the last time I had enough free time to think I might do something. On the other hand, I really am into scheduling stuff, so I'd probably just schedule a trip to the beach if I wanted to go (assuming I had the time).

I would like to have a less busy life, I really would. I dream of finding a cute little neighborhood coffee shop, curling up with a really good chai, and getting lost in a book. Then, I'd walk home, maybe pick up something fresh at the grocery store for dinner. I'd prepare the dinner, and afterwords, Captain America and I would leisurely do the dishes and maybe have a drink on our patio.

But I also dream of paying off my student loans, traveling to Antarctica, and buying a hot tub.  All of this means I have to have a job (not to mention all of our normal bills and expenses require me to work). Which gets me to a maybe unrelated task--Captain America and I need to sit down and review our budget.

But it seems I also need to review how I budget my time.

Gretchen Rubin, over at the Happiness Project, sometimes blogs about busyness. I'm not sure that's exactly how she puts it, but she does discuss it. She's obviously a busy person: she's a mother of two, a wife, an author, a blogger, a columnist, and she's actively trying to be happier, which, to even think about while running a household and holding down a career is a lot to manage! What I like about Gretchen is that her approach to happiness is very, here's what I've tried, here's what worked for me, here's what didn't work for me, and here's what I'm trying next. She never says to be happy you have to do x, y, or z. However, she's a big advocate for eliminating falseness from her life. She's not into being busy for the sake of being busy. She confesses she doesn't like to dress up and go out. She's not a hermit by any means. In fact, she's a member of several book clubs, as an example. But I suspect she'd leave these book clubs when they stopped being useful to her. She also doesn't like false choices, which are not really relevant here, but important to understand anyway. False choices are when you think you have to pick one thing or another, but you don't really. For example, I can make a lot of money OR I can have a job I enjoy. You, at least in theory, can have both, you just have to figure out how.

Anyway, back to being busy. I'm still trying to figure out how to free up more of my time. My commute takes  up a lot of time right now. I have found that when I come in a little earlier and leave a little later, my commute is no big deal. As I'm currently paid by the hour, this is no big deal for me, either, but I could always take a longer lunch. The down side of this is that I'll have to figure out a way to have fewer commitments in the evening.

I had to go to the dentist yesterday and have a root canal done. I apparently grind my teeth despite being a devoted bite-guard user. So I think I'm going to try some mediation. I'm serious. I'd been thinking about this anyway, because I took a class in it a while ago, and it was nice. And mediators sleep better. And I'm currently seeing an acupuncturist and a massage therapist, which takes up both time and money. I'm hoping to determine if I can get essentially the same results from meditation and more stretching. If not, I can always go back to the acupuncturist and massage therapist, right?

Also, despite what Captain America might say, I've stopped recording so many shows that just aren't worth my time. Which should free up time in the evening for stretching and meditation.

The big hurdle to tackle is eating. Everything about eating is time-consuming, especially if you want to eat well. One thing we've started doing in my house is buying those pre-made fruit salads. I'm much more likely to eat fruit as a snack if I don't have to do anything with it. I've got to also remember to get carrot sticks and cashews. I'm pretty good about eating yogurt, and that's a good source of protein and carbs. What I'm still looking for is that satisfying, satiating sweet-tooth item, but one that won't ruin my diet. (If I could lose a little weight and find a way to keep it off, I wouldn't have to spend so much time at the gym.)

And this is why I never get anything done--I'm busy writing blog posts about how busy I am!