Generation Exhausted

Deprogramming

Today is the day that I almost became a Mac person. I had nine - NINE! - programs running all at the same time, and I was just zippity do-dahing because this new-to-me Powerbook? She is fast, v. fast. I had no idea just how old the old Mac was until I was finally up and running today.

Plus, she can see my PCs, even though my PCs can't see her. Go figure.

Except, then I couldn't make a pdf. And after an hour of trying, we could make a pdf, but as soon as Distiller said "success!" the pdf went somewhere. I don't know where. It's just...gone.

Friend assures me we'll figure it out, says it takes a while to get everything doing what you want it to do. He's a Mac guy, so I'll believe him. But I'm not going to bid farewell to my Dell. I'm too comfortable on a PC.

Project A is, if not put to bed, then certainly on its way there. Project B looms large.

I lost two days this week, in a week where I couldn't afford to lose two days, so I'm workin' for the weekend.

What I'm doing on my summer vacation

Mark your calendars now. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, The Movie, will be in theatres July 13.

Rotten fruit

Is Mercury in retrograde or something? Because today? Not the day I planned to have.

I got out of bed at a reasonably decent hour - just after 9.  By 10, I'd crossed four things off the handy Task list in my Palm, and dealt with a few additional matters that WEREN'T on the list. By 11, I'd crossed off a couple more. Plus, I'd done my morning routine - you know, read all the news on the Internets, made the rounds of the blogs I frequent, showered and dressed, etc.

It was shaping up to be one of those very productive days. At noon, I punched the Start button on my Mac, ready to hunker down and continue with the project I've been working on.

The project which, just last night, I promised I would have hard copy proofs to deliver to the client on Friday, so they could be proofed over the weekend, corrected early next week and delivered to the printer next week.

The finish line is in sight on this project, which is good, because I also have a magazine to lay out by Monday, so it can go into prepress and to the printer at the end of next week.

Five minutes later, I notice that, while my Mac started starting up, it didn't finish starting up. Ok, it happens. Rarely, but it happens.

So, I unplug, plug back in, and hit the Start button again. The Mac sings its little song, startup proceeds, and then...stops.

Ok, no need to panic. Unplug, plug back in, hit Start.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

With guidance, I get it started in Safe Mode, and try to at least rescue my data. Priority being the 40 page booklet. All the supporting files? Eh, I can live without them, I've already got them on my PC.

Safe Mode won't let me use the thumb drive.

I'm not panicking, but I am in solve-the-problem mode. Obviously, my Mac, whilst not dead, is likely going to die. Maybe today, maybe on the weekend, maybe next month. I'm not surprised - I bought it used almost four years ago, and it's probably a ten-year-old machine. So, it doesn't owe me anything.

But, see, it dying today? I can handle that. Continuing to work on it and having it die, say, Sunday? No way.

The time has come, said the Walrus, to replace the Mac.

Off to the used Mac guy I go, and he sells me a Powerbook G4 for only a little more than I hoped to spend. Considering that I started the day hoping to spend nothing, that is. Yes, it's a lot of money, and no, I can't really afford it, but...what are ya gonna do? I figure I can't afford to gamble on how much life is left in the old machine, especially not when I'm in mid-project. There are days, nay WEEKS, when I can go without the Mac. The next two weeks are not some of those weeks.

So I bring home my pretty new-to-me Powerbook, and Friend spends all day configuring it for me and installing software and trouble-shooting, and, you know. Setting up stuff. Because me? I'm not a Mac person. A PC, I could do that myself, with my eyes closed. A Mac? No way.

And it's all pretty, and shiny, and it has OS 10 and nifty other stuff, and wonder of wonders, I can have wireless Internet, and it's like a whole new world. Beautiful. And after four hours of setting up stuff, it's ready to go.

So after dinner, I'm ready to go. I hunker down and open my booklet. Uh oh, the fonts need to be tinkered with. So I go to Friend's, where he's going to fix my fonts.

And Friend is in the process of fixing my fonts when he nudges the screen, and shiny ne Powerbook shuts down. He starts it again, touches the lid, and it shuts down. He starts it again, lifts the machine up ever so gently...

And it shuts down.

Crap.

Obviously, a fluke. We were shifting this thing around all day and this never happened. Total, complete, unpredictable, fluke.

I've seen it happen to brand new cars - they're pretty and shiny, and in absolute perfect working order, and two days after you drive it off the lot it blows a gasket and needs $4000 worth of repair work.

Except, A - I need a Mac, and 2 - I need one NOW. And, you know, I paid for this thing already, so it would be nice to have one that works.

So, I have a date at the Used Mac store in the morning to exchange this for ANOTHER new-to-me Mac, which probably will have a teeny-tiny screen (this was a 15", all the others he had were 14") and we'll have to go through all the setting up and everything again. And you know, I' feel weary just thinking about it.

I was very proud of myself for getting through the day without, you know, having a nervous breakdown, but I think my calm, positive approach may be wearing thin. Rotten Apples seem thick on the ground, hereabouts, and well, that's enough to put anyone in an edgy mood.

On the upside, because I can accomplish nothing right at this moment, I finally found time to blog. There really is a silver lining in every cloud.

It's simple, but not even remotely easy

Earlier this week, I decided it was time to correct yet one more of those Big Parenting Mistakes I've Made. You see, hubby and I, in all the years the childrens were in elementary school, never missed a parent-teacher interview.

Preparing for parent-teacher interviews was a little like getting tickets to a rock concert. Interviews happened on a specific day, over one evening and one morning. You couldn't schedule a specific time until report cards were out - it was a rule. So, on the day report cards were due to come home, I'd show up at the school ten minutes before the dismissal bell and say to The Best School Secretary In The World, "Ok, report cards are out. Can I have the first time slot?"

The earliest possible time slot was vital. Interviews were scheduled in ten minute increments (in the old days, when Oldest was in the primary grades, they were 15 minutes) beginning at 6 p.m. If the first interview runs two minutes long, and the second interview runs 1 minute long, and the third interview runs three minutes long...well, you can see what happens. The year we ended up with the 7 p.m. time slot, we didn't get to see the teacher until 8:15.

So. In we'd go, twice a year, sometimes scheduling a double interview slot just to be able to talk in complete sentences. Our kids rarely had "trouble" in school, so there wasn't a LOT to talk about. Year after year, we'd trot in there, and say "Hey Mr. T." and he'd say, "Hey, Mr. and Mrs. H." and we'd just kind of laugh about what weird and wonderful kids we had and that would be that.

And then high school started. And, well, we didn't go to parent-teacher interviews at the high school, because the kids do well, and how could we possibly choose which of EIGHT different teachers we could laugh with about what weird and wonderful kids we have? Plus, there were no appointments.

That's right - no appointments. They don't do that at the high school. Read on to hear what they actually do.

It has been said, sometimes critically, that parents of high schoolers don't connect with their kids' teachers enough. I know, because I've said it myself. So last week, after having kids in high school for FOUR years, we went to our first high school parent-teacher interview. To try to, you know, be "good" parents.

Now I know why parents don't go to high school parent-teacher interviews.

It's a big cattle call. The teachers are spread out around the gym or cafeteria, each with a little sign on the wall or table to show who they are. And you go in and find the teacher you want to speak with, and then wait in the line that has formed in front of them.

There wasn't anyone we HAD to speak with, but there were a few we felt it would be appropriate to touch base with. Unfortunately, a dozen or more other people also wanted to touch base with the same teachers.

It resembled our DisneyWorld strategies.

"Ok, I'll get in line for Ms. X and you go hold a place in line for Mr. Y and if I get to the head of the line first, I'll wave you over."

We waited twenty-five minutes to see our first teacher. Then another fifteen for another teacher. And of course, the teachers that gave our kids the marks that caused the most interest also gave a lot of other kids "interesting" marks, so they had the longest lines.

Some teachers didn't have lines at all, and we started to get a little silly.

"Hey look, Mr. Z has no line, let's go talk to him instead."

Some teachers' assigned spots didn't have teachers. Hubby considered sitting down at the empty desk under Mr. T's spot, taking out a pen and declaring himself open for business.

We were there one hour and forty-five minutes and managed to connect with five teachers out of fourteen of our kids' teachers.

So, we've now been "good" parents and gone to high school parent-teacher interviews, but I don't think we'll be repeating the experience. I don't know why they do it that way, but I'm guessing it keeps a lot of parents from showing up.

Just call me Mrs. Fields

I see from the comment trail that I've gained more support in my NaNo tinkering. However, you can see from my NaNo word counter on the left there that karma is biting me in the butt for it.

Never you fear - I will persevere, and FINISH. Besides, it looks like AGK is going to have many days left over once she hits 50k - maybe she can pick up my slack and do my typing for me.

Meanwhile, I made cookies. Or rather, cookie dough. No, really.

The backstory:

The church bazaar is coming up and one of the things they sell is frozen cookie dough, you know, like those icebox cookies my great-grandma used to make. Except chocolate chip and oatmeal. Last year, when I volunteered for the bazaar, my job was to wrap the rolls of cookie dough in foil and label them.

This year, I saw a notice on the board that they were looking for people to MAKE the cookie dough to sell. They had copies of the recipe, and everything. So even though it was late in the game (this was only last Sunday) I took the recipes home, thinking that I'd buy the ingredients and Middle and her friend could make some.

The week went on, and Middle and Friend were Busy Teenagers, so the cookie dough fell by the wayside. No one was COUNTING on us making cookie dough or anything, so I didn't worry about it.

Until I started worrying about it. Well, not worrying, just feeling a little guilty about what kind of a person was I that I couldn't even find an hour in my life to make cookie dough for the church bazaar. So, knowing we were off to the grocery store tonight, I decided I would make cookie dough after all.

Of course, we forgot the recipe at home, and I haven't got a clue as to what we have in the kitchen at home, so Middle and I just kind of guessed at things at the grocery store.

They were having a great sale on Five Roses flour. A 22 pound bag for 5 bucks. I know it was a great sale because they were LIMIT TWO PER FAMILY. So I got one. And I got two bags of sugar, and some brown sugar, and chocolate chips and oatmeal oats, and, you know, cookie stuff.

Plus I got two packages of Pilsbury Sugar Cookie Dough for us to enjoy at home, which caused hubby to shake his head a little bit. Doesn't it make perfect sense to buy all the things you need to make cookie dough and then BUY COOKIE DOUGH? Does to me.

Frankly, by the time we got home, and all my ingredients were out on the table, the novelty had worn off a bit. Quite a bit. But we pressed on.

It turns out we already had flour, and though we now had enough flour to make a ginormous amount of cookie dough, I'd only bought two pounds of butter, so there you go. We made four batches of cookie dough according to recipe, and didn't even open the new flour. Or the new sugar. Or the new roll of waxed paper, because we had some of that too. But we now have 16 cookie rolls to give to the bazaar.

I was seriously affronted when my mother called in the middle of the cookie dough making and wanted to know who was helping me. I'm 34 35 years old, I think I can manage cookie dough on my own. Just for that, I may not share my 22 extra pounds of flour with her.

Tomorrow, as a treat for all my hard work, I'm going to bake the Pilsbury Sugar Cookies. And at the bazaar, I'll probably buy back three rolls of my own cookie dough.

And into the wall she ran...

From the NaNoWriMo Week Two Newsletter, also known by those with a twisted sense of humor as "the Week Two Pep Talk":

But this email is not for those doing exceptionally well. It's for the rest of us---authors with underdeveloped word counts, overdeveloped novel-guilt complexes, and sensational procrastinating abilities. Because we are the ones who are going to begin having serious misgivings about this whole escapade in the next seven days.

Why?

Because it turns out we are too busy to do this.

Or because a crisis has brought some novel-eating turmoil into our lives.

Or because our stories are really, really bad, and we're wondering why we're sacrificing so much of our time to produce a consistently crappy book.

It all adds up to the fabled Week Two Wall---a low-point of energy, enthusiasm, and joie de novel that strikes most NaNoWriMo participants between days 7 and 14. This is when our inner editors, who largely turned a blind eye to our novel flailings in Week One, return to see how things are going. And their assessments are never kind.

The plot is draggy. The characters are boring. The dialogue is pointless, and the prose has all the panache of something dashed off by a distracted kindergartner.

I will draw your attention to the words "sensational procastinating abilities", "our stories are really, really bad", "dialogue is pointless" and "prose has all the panache of something dashed off by a distracted kindergartner".

It struck me, sometime Tuesday evening, that in the 14,000 words I've written in the last 9 days (no matter WHICH novel I've written them in, for the critics lurking out there), that I've typed the following phrases an inexcusable number of times:

...realization dawned...

...glanced up, startled...

...arched one eyebrow...

...wrinkled her nose in distaste...

...grimaced...

...patted her shoulder gently...

Seriously, BLECH. Whatever talent I might once have possessed has vanished, disappeared into nothingness like socks in the dryer. There is neither snap, crackle OR pop in anything I put on the page. And I'm wondering if that should be NOR instead of OR, that's how hopeless I am.

Plus, I need to get out more. Yesterday, my friend set her own housecoat on fire, and tonight another friend, who is running for political office, attended a charity benefit and discovered that the dress she'd decided to wear matched the chairs in the banquet hall. THEY have things to write about. Me? I got nothing.

Unless...one of my characters could set her pajamas on fire and another could show up for work wearing an outfit that matches the curtains...

...and realization dawned...

I got words to write. Couple thousand or so to stay on track. Think good thoughts - I'm going over the wall.

Sibling Rivalry In The Twenty-First Century

From the Middle:

"How come HER birthday blog was longer than MY birthday blog?"

For the record

I feel I must state, for the record, that Hubby disagrees with the Internets and says "swapping" my novels is cheating. However, he's always suspicious of math I did all by my ownself, (with good reason!) so we forgive him.

We don't agree with him, but we forgive him. Intersection stays. It's going nicely. Or, at least better than the harpist, the corpse and the cop.

Intersection...a blurb

A quiet afternoon is shattered by a tragic accident, and as four strangers struggle to reconcile their feelings about its elderly victim, they find the missing pieces of their lives in one another.

There you go. Women's Fiction, no funny, very character-driven. Keep your fingers crossed.

Writer's math

Ok, here's the deal - some may call it cheating, but it's what I've decided to do.

Since the first of November, I've written 10,607 words on a brand new novel, No Strings Attached, the one with the dead body, the harpist, the smaltown newspaper and the cop with a grudge. And quite frankly, I was just...not happy. From paragraph one, things didn't feel right. I was trying too hard, had no idea where I was going, you get the picture.

So.

Having reached 10,607 words on No Strings Attached, I have set that aside and returned to Intersection, a previous work-in-progress that sat at 10,440 words. I've brought Intersection up to 12,142 words, and plan to continue at Nano pace.

I've been itching to get back to Intersection for a while, but can recognize the inherent value in an adrenaline-filled push to pump out a sh***y first draft in thirty days. It may be the only way I can write those necessary drafts, at least for now, as the only novels I've ever finished were Nano novels. And I really want to finish Intersection, although I don't think 50k is going to do it.

So that's what I'm doing. Technically, it's not cheating - I did write more than 10k new words on a new novel, I'm just swapping them out for the more than 10k I'd already written. I don't want to give up my counter because it's very motivating, and as far as I'm concerned, I'm still aiming to meet the challenge.

Got that?

10,607 new words of No Strings Attached out.

10,440 old words of Intersection in.

Intersection now standing at 12,142 words.

Everyone good with that?

Criticize if you will. At least I'm being honest with the Internets - I coudl have just swapped everything in and out and never said a word. And maybe I'll go all wrong and return to the harpist and the corpse and the cop after all, and have a lot of catching up to do.

Only time, and the month of November, will tell.

From "me" to "we"

Is it a hallmark of the generation we're raising that they expect their milestones to be marked, publicly, on the Internets? As early as Friday, the Oldest asked me, "So, have you written my birthday blog yet?"

At that point I hadn't even thought of it, quite frankly. I should have known the danger in setting precedent - last year, there was a birthday post, and then one for her sister, and then one for her other sister - so now, naturally, the fact that it's happened once means it's a non-negotiable tradition.

But what to say that hasn't already been said? I've bragged about her SAT scores, shared the details of her knee injury, talked about what it's like when she's not here. What more could I possibly say about the child that I do not say, every day, in some way, that's somehow different on her birthday?

The child. Ha.

The child is six inches taller than me, outweighs me by twenty five pounds and can beat me in a pie fight. She works twenty hours a week, buys most of her own clothes and makeup, and has better jewellery than I do. In the last six weeks, this "child" has attended no fewer than half a dozen university presentations as she grapples with the question of what to do with the rest of her life.

But she still calls me every day at 1:30 p.m. Just to tell me how her day's going. And she's already planning to be running a fever on the day she's scheduled to get her flu shot later this month.

Seventeen years ago today - is it horrible beyond belief that I cannot remember the exact minute? I only know that it was sometime between 1 and 1:30 in the morning when the doctor said, "It's a girl," and I said, very definitely, "No it's not, it's a boy." (blame it on the demerol, the exhaustion, the months of buying blue sleepers and the fact that they'd taken away my glasses before wheeling me into the delivery room)

I was disappointed for about thirty seconds and then they gave her to me, laid her in my arms, all cleaned up and wrapped in a pink striped blanket. They gave her to me and she...looked at me.

She wasn't crying, wasn't squirming or fussing. She didn't look scared, or even hungry. She just....looked at me, with all this dark brown hair standing on end, these dark blue eyes like polished stones. As if to say, "Well, I'm here. NOW what are you going to do?"

Indeed.

You spend your whole life knowing that you're a part of a great big world, a world where most things are beyond your control. A world where good things happen, and sometimes bad things, and people come in and out of your life, and you just...live in it.

And then you have a baby, and all of a sudden, you realize, in those first few days, that your baby lives in this world too. And all of a sudden, it all means something very different than it did the day before the doctor said, "It's a girl."

When she was four days old, I watched the Berlin Wall come down on the TV beside my hospital bed. And instead of thinking "This is history," I thought, "This will be her history."

When she was a week old, I had to take her back to the hospital for some bloodwork, and I brought my aunt with me because I couldn't stomach the thought of holding my own daughter and letting some efficient nurse poke her with needles. My mother used to say, whenever I was sick or in pain, "I wish I could suffer it for you instead," and I never knew what that meant until then. I would gladly have let them poke me with a thousand needles if it would have spared my baby the agony.

When she was two weeks old, I heard a siren in the distance, and for the first time I thought, "Someone's baby could be saved by that fire truck or ambulance."

When she was a month old, I sat in a tiny apartment in December in shorts and a t-shirt, sweating while the heat pumped out at 80 degrees, because I was afraid the baby would be cold.

When she was four months old, we went without her on a Carribean cruise, and all I could think of while the plane took off out of Detroit was, "If we crash, who will take care of her?"

When she was eighteen months old, and I got a job waitressing, I used to think, "She would like the grilled cheese on the menu."

To work, or not? To go back to school, or not? To buy no-name soup or Campbells? Everything - every thought, every decision, every move, no matter how seemingly insignificant, from that day until this, has been made with the consideration, "Will this be good for the kids?" They haven't always been the right ones, or the best ones, but we tried. The kids weren't the only factor, but they were the most important ones.

And she was the first. The one that changed everything from all about "me" to all about "we".

For that alone, she deserves cake and ice cream. Happy Birthday, my angel. I love you.