I am a writer. I like words. I'm not a big fan of emoticons, though I do occasionally employ a traditional smiley face. The noseless one. So it looks more like the old-fashioned, yellow-circle, "Have a Nice Day" emblem. :)
Whenever I come across an emoticon, I always tilt my head to the left so I can see it in a more upright presentation. Because most of the time I can't figure out what those odd combinations of punctuation marks are supposed to look like. Because they're perpendicular to everything else on the page, for Pete's sake!
Anyway. Recently I started coming across one -- mostly in comments on blog posts -- that I could not decipher. I even went to the Wikipedia List of Emoticons for help, but no luck, it wasn't there.
The first character in the mystery emoticon was < and the only face on the list that had a hat like that was supposed to mean "dumb or dunce-like" -- which I though was kind of a rude reply to an entertaining blog post, especially considering the second character was a 3, which I thought looked like boobs, and when you put the two together the face would be a what? A dumb bimbo? Nice. Except there were no eyes. Whatever. I shrugged and let it go.
But it kept popping up, and I kept thinking, What the hell? And then tonight I was reading replies to a Bloggess post, and these people kept putting the Dumb Bimbo emoticon in their comments on a touching post about depression, and I was feeling frustrated, left out and stupid because I couldn't understand their language, and then all of a sudden, something across the room caught my attention and I tilted my head to the right and -- voila! There it was! I finally got it!
And all I could think was: What user of the English language would create something that had to be read Right to Left when the rest of the sentence went Left to Right??
Some emoticon junkie, apparently.
<3
(Yes, I now know it's a heart, and I realize that probably the majority of Web users know it's a heart, but I still think it looks more like an ice cream cone. Or a halter top. Depending on how you tilt your head.)
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Me and my shadow
My depression and I haven't been getting along very well lately. I thought we'd kind of had things worked out, but she's unpredictable that way.
You haven't met her, you say? Well, that's because I try to leave her at home. Because not only is she unpredictable, she's a pain in the ass.
She's a worst-case-scenario thinker. And she dwells. Plus, she's critical. Not of everyone. Just me. She has a knack for finding that one fault -- the mistake I made, the dumb thing I said, the task that didn't get done -- in an otherwise perfectly pleasant day, and then holding on tight to it and waving it around. Like a toddler with a big sucker. Hey, look it! Look it!
The spin she puts on everything is counterclockwise.
HER: You know, even if you do find an agent and a publisher, very few people actually make a living as novelists these days. In fact, I read that unless your last name is Rowling, King or Patterson -- or the book you're writing has the working title "Twelve Shades of Teal" -- you're statistically more likely to have "state lottery" listed as your source of income on your tax return.
ME: Well, shoot, if I can't be a writer, I'd be happy to make my living as a lottery winner.
HER: Yeah, except studies show lottery winners aren't all that happy. And chances are still better you'll be hit by a bus.
At least once a week she'll keep me up all night, only to hound me twenty times the next day with how tired she is. Sometimes she eats too much. Sometimes she drinks too much. Most of the time she doesn't want to do anything at all. Occasionally she stands in the shower -- completely inert -- until the hot water runs out. She can't make decisions.
I haven't known her long, only a few years. And her strength waxes and wanes. She has the ability to cloak me. But I've learned some tricks for fighting her off. With any luck, I'll soon be able to get her behind me again. And I'll try to keep my face to the sun.
You haven't met her, you say? Well, that's because I try to leave her at home. Because not only is she unpredictable, she's a pain in the ass.
She's a worst-case-scenario thinker. And she dwells. Plus, she's critical. Not of everyone. Just me. She has a knack for finding that one fault -- the mistake I made, the dumb thing I said, the task that didn't get done -- in an otherwise perfectly pleasant day, and then holding on tight to it and waving it around. Like a toddler with a big sucker. Hey, look it! Look it!
The spin she puts on everything is counterclockwise.
HER: You know, even if you do find an agent and a publisher, very few people actually make a living as novelists these days. In fact, I read that unless your last name is Rowling, King or Patterson -- or the book you're writing has the working title "Twelve Shades of Teal" -- you're statistically more likely to have "state lottery" listed as your source of income on your tax return.
ME: Well, shoot, if I can't be a writer, I'd be happy to make my living as a lottery winner.
HER: Yeah, except studies show lottery winners aren't all that happy. And chances are still better you'll be hit by a bus.
At least once a week she'll keep me up all night, only to hound me twenty times the next day with how tired she is. Sometimes she eats too much. Sometimes she drinks too much. Most of the time she doesn't want to do anything at all. Occasionally she stands in the shower -- completely inert -- until the hot water runs out. She can't make decisions.
I haven't known her long, only a few years. And her strength waxes and wanes. She has the ability to cloak me. But I've learned some tricks for fighting her off. With any luck, I'll soon be able to get her behind me again. And I'll try to keep my face to the sun.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Middle Mom
Yesterday was Mother's Day, and I spent the day thinking that this year I have moved into a different phase as a mother. This year, all three of my kids are teenagers.
Obviously, it's been a long time since I was a New Mom, toting baby-carriers and diaper bags. And even though I'm only in my mid-forties, I don't consider myself a Young Mom. Those are the moms with juice boxes, strollers, and sticky-fingered urchins all clutched in their nimble grasp. (And, yes, I know some of them are probably in their early- or mid-forties, but I still think of them as Young Moms. I suppose the designation has more to do with the age of the children than the age of the mom.)
I remember when my oldest started elementary school and I looked, wide-eyed, at the moms who had been around a while -- the seasoned veterans with 5th or 6th graders -- and thought, Wow, they've really got their shit together. They're organized, calm. They look like they know what they're doing. And they did know. They knew what they were doing because they'd been doing it. For years.
But that's still the tail end of the Young Mom phase.
With three kids fully entrenched in junior high and high school, I don't think I can call myself a Young Mom anymore. Mostly because I don't feel like one.
My kids are all as tall as me. We include them in adult conversations. My oldest can get into R-rated movies without sneaking through the back door, and is the same age I was when I met his father. All three kids can arrange their own rides when I'm not available to chauffeur, can prepare something to eat when I'm not around to cook, and can (theoretically, because I know they know how but I never see them) do their laundry.
Are my kids independent? Yes. And no. Are they dependent? No. And yes.
One day, they will have full-time jobs, other places to live, maybe spouses, maybe even children of their own. And then I will be a Mature Mom. One whose kids are fully launched.
But we're not there, yet. We are neither Young nor Old, New nor Mature. For now, we are in the middle. So I am a Middle Mom.
And I think this phase is going to last a while.
Obviously, it's been a long time since I was a New Mom, toting baby-carriers and diaper bags. And even though I'm only in my mid-forties, I don't consider myself a Young Mom. Those are the moms with juice boxes, strollers, and sticky-fingered urchins all clutched in their nimble grasp. (And, yes, I know some of them are probably in their early- or mid-forties, but I still think of them as Young Moms. I suppose the designation has more to do with the age of the children than the age of the mom.)
I remember when my oldest started elementary school and I looked, wide-eyed, at the moms who had been around a while -- the seasoned veterans with 5th or 6th graders -- and thought, Wow, they've really got their shit together. They're organized, calm. They look like they know what they're doing. And they did know. They knew what they were doing because they'd been doing it. For years.
But that's still the tail end of the Young Mom phase.
With three kids fully entrenched in junior high and high school, I don't think I can call myself a Young Mom anymore. Mostly because I don't feel like one.
My kids are all as tall as me. We include them in adult conversations. My oldest can get into R-rated movies without sneaking through the back door, and is the same age I was when I met his father. All three kids can arrange their own rides when I'm not available to chauffeur, can prepare something to eat when I'm not around to cook, and can (theoretically, because I know they know how but I never see them) do their laundry.
Are my kids independent? Yes. And no. Are they dependent? No. And yes.
One day, they will have full-time jobs, other places to live, maybe spouses, maybe even children of their own. And then I will be a Mature Mom. One whose kids are fully launched.
But we're not there, yet. We are neither Young nor Old, New nor Mature. For now, we are in the middle. So I am a Middle Mom.
And I think this phase is going to last a while.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
"That's not the head."
These are words you do not want to hear in the delivery room. But, thirteen years ago today, that's exactly what a bright young nurse said to me, my husband and the on-call family-practice doctor from my regular clinic, five hours after my water broke and roughly twenty minutes after I'd started pushing.
For a very long second, everything in the room, including my heart, came to a standstill. Then the sweet, little blond nurse turned into a drill sergeant. She moved up toward my head, looked me straight in the eyes, and ordered, "Stop pushing." Then she smacked the red panic button on the wall and barked something into the intercom that I don't remember because my brain had turned inside-out.
What in the world is going on?
What was going on was that the small crown the three of them had been discussing a few minutes earlier as being the top of a very bald baby wasn't the top at all. It was the bottom.
My baby was folded in half and presenting itself to its unsuspecting attendants left-rump-first.
Whirlwind is probably the most apt word to describe what came next. The room was almost instantly filled with nurses. An obstetrician was summoned from the specialty clinic next to the hospital. I was told at least a dozen times by my militant new best friend not to push, and the family doc was told by that same woman what to do in case the baby came anyway. (Even though she was younger than he was, I'm guessing she had delivered a lot more babies and figured he might not remember the tricks for a breech.)
When the OB finally walked in, he went right to the foot of the bed, took a quick peek, then looked up at me and asked two questions.
"Not your first baby?"
"No. My third," I said.
"How big were the first two?"
"Both about six and a half pounds."
He considered this information for a moment, then nodded and said, "Keep going," and settled in to finish the delivery.
Damn right I'm gonna keep going, I thought. I'm almost done. There's no way I'd let you push it back in and take it out the top.
My husband later told me that after hearing my responses to the doctor's queries, one of the older nurses in the room leaned over to another nurse and said, "I'd go for it." Now, I happen to think maternity ward nurses are amazing, but I'm also aware that breech delivery in this day and age is a rarity, so I really am glad the doctor gave me the chance to keep going and didn't immediately whisk me off to the OR.
And because breech delivery is rare and inherently more risky, my room remained full of people through the next few pushes and eventual arrival of a slippery, quiet, little newborn. In the ensuing hubbub, my baby was taken across the room, to a raised, heat-lighted table for examination, before I even got a chance to see it.
Frightened, I asked, "Is everything all right?"
A couple of beats later came the reply: "Everything looks fine."
And I finally exhaled. Then I realized there was something else I needed to know.
"What is it?" I asked.
"It's a girl."
With a full head of hair.
For a very long second, everything in the room, including my heart, came to a standstill. Then the sweet, little blond nurse turned into a drill sergeant. She moved up toward my head, looked me straight in the eyes, and ordered, "Stop pushing." Then she smacked the red panic button on the wall and barked something into the intercom that I don't remember because my brain had turned inside-out.
What in the world is going on?
What was going on was that the small crown the three of them had been discussing a few minutes earlier as being the top of a very bald baby wasn't the top at all. It was the bottom.
My baby was folded in half and presenting itself to its unsuspecting attendants left-rump-first.
Whirlwind is probably the most apt word to describe what came next. The room was almost instantly filled with nurses. An obstetrician was summoned from the specialty clinic next to the hospital. I was told at least a dozen times by my militant new best friend not to push, and the family doc was told by that same woman what to do in case the baby came anyway. (Even though she was younger than he was, I'm guessing she had delivered a lot more babies and figured he might not remember the tricks for a breech.)
When the OB finally walked in, he went right to the foot of the bed, took a quick peek, then looked up at me and asked two questions.
"Not your first baby?"
"No. My third," I said.
"How big were the first two?"
"Both about six and a half pounds."
He considered this information for a moment, then nodded and said, "Keep going," and settled in to finish the delivery.
Damn right I'm gonna keep going, I thought. I'm almost done. There's no way I'd let you push it back in and take it out the top.
My husband later told me that after hearing my responses to the doctor's queries, one of the older nurses in the room leaned over to another nurse and said, "I'd go for it." Now, I happen to think maternity ward nurses are amazing, but I'm also aware that breech delivery in this day and age is a rarity, so I really am glad the doctor gave me the chance to keep going and didn't immediately whisk me off to the OR.
And because breech delivery is rare and inherently more risky, my room remained full of people through the next few pushes and eventual arrival of a slippery, quiet, little newborn. In the ensuing hubbub, my baby was taken across the room, to a raised, heat-lighted table for examination, before I even got a chance to see it.
Frightened, I asked, "Is everything all right?"
A couple of beats later came the reply: "Everything looks fine."
And I finally exhaled. Then I realized there was something else I needed to know.
"What is it?" I asked.
"It's a girl."
With a full head of hair.
Happy Thirteenth Birthday, sweet baby girl!
Thursday, May 3, 2012
One or the other
I've said it before because it's true: Either my bras fit or my pants do.
If I can fill my A-cup, then I can't button my jeans, and this has been the case for most of the past winter. I pretty much ignored the pants-problem by leaving the skinny jeans at the bottom of the stack and opting for a "softer profile." Otherwise known as "fleece." But the issue reared its oversized head yesterday when I was swapping out my winter clothes for summer ones. Sure, my tops looked good (read: when tried on, they had slightly more shape than when they were folded in the plastic tub), but I couldn't squeeze into half of my shorts or capris. So, of the five (okay, maybe seven, well, let's say less than ten) pounds I've gained since last year, about twenty percent have gone to my boobs and the other eighty percent have settled somewhere in the ten-inch span between my waist and my thighs.
If I can fill my A-cup, then I can't button my jeans, and this has been the case for most of the past winter. I pretty much ignored the pants-problem by leaving the skinny jeans at the bottom of the stack and opting for a "softer profile." Otherwise known as "fleece." But the issue reared its oversized head yesterday when I was swapping out my winter clothes for summer ones. Sure, my tops looked good (read: when tried on, they had slightly more shape than when they were folded in the plastic tub), but I couldn't squeeze into half of my shorts or capris. So, of the five (okay, maybe seven, well, let's say less than ten) pounds I've gained since last year, about twenty percent have gone to my boobs and the other eighty percent have settled somewhere in the ten-inch span between my waist and my thighs.
Now we all know the last thing a woman wants to do is buy bigger pants. But I also know that if I lose a couple of pounds, my chest is going to go from being convex to concave. So what I really want is Redistributive Liposuction -- where fat is sucked out of places where you don't want it and deposited it in places where you do. (I have no idea if this procedure actually exists, but it should. It's your own tissue! Nothing artificial!) My sister says this is what Spanx are for; buy a tight enough pair and your stomach will end up under your chin.
Actually, I think my stomach is more culpable than my ass in the Great Pants Dilemma of 2012. Everything always seems to settle in the front. Probably because after having accommodated a growing fetus, a woman's belly is permanently wired to expand on a moment's notice. Hell, after a big meal, I can easily look six-months pregnant. (Among friends, that's what's known as a Dinner Baby.)
So, what's a girl to do? Well, I could go for a little longer walk tonight. Maybe even try to pick up the pace. I suppose I could do a few crunches when I get home. Work the core, as they say. Maybe I can get things to firm up enough so that I won't have to buy all new shorts and capris -- or spend the summer in my sweats. But if I burn enough calories that my breasts flatten out completely? Well, then it might be time to stop exercising and start shopping.
So, what's a girl to do? Well, I could go for a little longer walk tonight. Maybe even try to pick up the pace. I suppose I could do a few crunches when I get home. Work the core, as they say. Maybe I can get things to firm up enough so that I won't have to buy all new shorts and capris -- or spend the summer in my sweats. But if I burn enough calories that my breasts flatten out completely? Well, then it might be time to stop exercising and start shopping.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Advice Overload. Or: Too Much "How do you do..."
I haven't posted in over a week. So much for that post-at-least-every-other-day tip/recommendation/guideline that I read in several places on the Web and set as my goal a month ago when this whole thing began. Four weeks in and failing already. Or not. I'm still here. Still thinking every day about what to write, even if I'm not drumming away at the keys.
So, what have I been doing (besides trying to keep all the usual plates of my life spinning and atop their poles)? Well, my daughter and I planted some sugar snap peas. I've been checking out lots of other blogs -- including blogs about blogging -- to help me figure out what the heck I'm supposed to (or want to) be doing here. And I've been chipping away at a book I started reading two months ago and don't really like, which sounds like a waste of time except that I'm trying to figure out where this best-selling novelist went wrong. And since I can't help but consider all the reading I do right now to be part of my education as a writer, if I drop this book, it'll be like bailing on an assignment. (See, this is what happens when a teacher tries to teach herself something.)
I can't help it; I'm a learner. I seek information. I want to know how it's done. Almost more than that, I want to know how it's NOT done. I want to benefit from someone else's hindsight. So I read. I glean. I absorb. And sometimes I get so wrapped up in trying to figure out How To that I don't Do. I could spend the next, well, forever reading about how to be a better writer. There are books, classes, blogs, magazines, articles and newsletters all so chock-full of good advice that I can get lost for hours reading, bookmarking, copying, filing and thinking, Oooh, that's good. I need to remember that. I need to make sure that I did/do that in my manuscript.
But it can get to be overwhelming, too. It can make me think, I'll never be able to get all that in! And what if I don't? Will the manuscript bomb? Bring me nothing but rejection? Oh, God, it's all too much! Get me a white flag! A towel! A shot of bourbon! I give up!
Then, somewhere in the depths of an interview or a bio or a post, I'll come across a small tidbit that reminds me of the immortal words of Nike, Goddess of Victory:
Just do it.
And I'll stop picking at that pretty-damn-good novel and send out a few more query letters.
So, what have I been doing (besides trying to keep all the usual plates of my life spinning and atop their poles)? Well, my daughter and I planted some sugar snap peas. I've been checking out lots of other blogs -- including blogs about blogging -- to help me figure out what the heck I'm supposed to (or want to) be doing here. And I've been chipping away at a book I started reading two months ago and don't really like, which sounds like a waste of time except that I'm trying to figure out where this best-selling novelist went wrong. And since I can't help but consider all the reading I do right now to be part of my education as a writer, if I drop this book, it'll be like bailing on an assignment. (See, this is what happens when a teacher tries to teach herself something.)
I can't help it; I'm a learner. I seek information. I want to know how it's done. Almost more than that, I want to know how it's NOT done. I want to benefit from someone else's hindsight. So I read. I glean. I absorb. And sometimes I get so wrapped up in trying to figure out How To that I don't Do. I could spend the next, well, forever reading about how to be a better writer. There are books, classes, blogs, magazines, articles and newsletters all so chock-full of good advice that I can get lost for hours reading, bookmarking, copying, filing and thinking, Oooh, that's good. I need to remember that. I need to make sure that I did/do that in my manuscript.
But it can get to be overwhelming, too. It can make me think, I'll never be able to get all that in! And what if I don't? Will the manuscript bomb? Bring me nothing but rejection? Oh, God, it's all too much! Get me a white flag! A towel! A shot of bourbon! I give up!
Then, somewhere in the depths of an interview or a bio or a post, I'll come across a small tidbit that reminds me of the immortal words of Nike, Goddess of Victory:
Just do it.
And I'll stop picking at that pretty-damn-good novel and send out a few more query letters.
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