Month: July 2010

I’ve narrowly escaped Lilith Fair. My baby is drinking a cup of coffee. My husband starts a new job. It feels like today is going to hold a lot of awesome stuff in it.

Bronwyn Green won a blogging award, and now we’re all going to be punished. She got to pick some people who have to tell ten little-known things about themselves. I see this as a lot like being crowned Queen in Tudor England. You get the honor and stuff, and you get to pick some ladies-in-waiting and make them do some stuff, but it doesn’t last forever. Look, I’m not saying that someone should cut off Bronwyn’s head and put it on a pike or something, God forbid. I’m just saying that maybe she’s going to be declared the blog award’s sister and put away to molder in an estate somewhere. I’m just looking out for my friend. I want to make sure this blog award isn’t going to kill off its other recipients and expect Bronwyn to care for its children, you know?

Wait, what was I supposed to be doing?

Oh right. Ten things that are not well-known about me. That’s kind of hard, because I generally just vomit forth copious amounts of “about me” in my daily existence. Some of you readers out there might have copies of your books signed with, “I could really use a cupcake right now” or “I’ve never been to a P.F. Chang’s.” But I’m gonna give it a try. I’m gonna do eight because I’m bucking convention and I don’t feel like that blog award should be able to just barge into my house and start bossing me around because I am an American.

teneight things in no particular order of importance

1. If it would end up with me in some kind of group home, I would wear various period costumes as my regular clothing. Mostly Tudor, maybe some medieval or pre-revolutionary France thrown in to break it up. Regency just for cleaning the house. I’ve also considered the same scenario but with Disney costumes, and I would dearly love having Cinderella’s peasant dress for cleaning days. I would probably be more into cleaning my house if I could pretend to have cartoon mice assisting me.
   
2. The first car I ever owned was a Ford Escort XL. It was red, with a green hood because a tree fell on it before it became “my” car. It had a stain in the backseat that we all called “The Mystery Stain” because no one could remember how it got there. My friends and I used to hang our bras on the antenna, and once my mother left to go pick up pizza in the car with all of our bras still attached.
   
3. When I was in middle school, I didn’t like taking group showers after gym class, so one week out of every month I would claim to be on my period so that the gym teacher wouldn’t make me showever. Things were going okay for a while, until I actually got my period for the first time during, you guessed it, gym class. I had to go to my teacher’s aerobic’s class for like a week as punishment for lying about my period.
   
4. I’m a full-time believer in reincarnation, and I’ve had several past-life regressions. I’ve almost always been a peasant who died horribly. I’m really hoping to avoid that in this life. However, I have a pretty good outlook on dying since I’ve come to the realization that it’s not permanent.
   
5. When I was born, my mother was single and in college, so I was raised by my grandparents in their haunted house. Despite putting me to bed every night with stories about who died in the room I was sleeping in, my family can’t understand what would drive me to write stories about vampires. Many family members have expressed a desire that I write historical romances or something “nice” for Steeple Hill.
   
6. Recently, I’ve discovered nail polish blogs. I’m addicted to pictures and descriptions of nail polish. I don’t know why, but it relaxes me, and I’m a big fan of being relaxed. Because of my new obsession, I’ve gotten into the habit of painting my nails every day. Sometimes twice a day. And then I decided I didn’t like them square anymore, so I filed them round, then I didn’t like them as ovals so I filed them down to nubs to start over again.
   
7. I have a genetic disorder that makes me too bendy for my own good. To combat this, I lift weights, but I’m still a huge wimp who can barely lift a gallon of milk. I could probably crush a man to death with my thighs like that James Bond villain from the 90’s, though. The opportunity hasn’t really come up.
   
8. I have this delusional blind-spot in my reason wherein I think, “I can do that,” to almost anything. This once extended to playing the piano. I was surrounded by a group of about thirty high schoolers, all looking at me expectantly, and I asked, “Okay, can someone show me which one of these thingies is C?” I saw thirty young faces fall, and one of them meekly asked, “You know how to play piano, right?” I shook my head, very confident still, at this point, and said, “No. But lots of people do it. It can’t be hard.” I was wrong. However, their musical was a success, so there wasn’t any harm done. In fact, I think I taught them a lesson about courage or music or something.
   

Which is why it was all effed up and I had to go through it line by line fixing it.

Me:
I just slept for 14 hours.
Am I dying?

Bronwyn:
Are you sick? Also, I’m jealous

Me:
I don’t feel sick.
Maybe I’m getting sick.
WHICH IS BULLSHIT THE DAY BEFORE MY BIRTHDAY.
But if I’m not getting sick, WTF.
Is this what happens when you turn 30? You go into a coma?

Bronwyn:
Maybe your body recognized it was coming down with something and decided to sleep it off. [name omitted] does that all the time

Me:
That would be awesome, if somehow my body realized it should do something good for itself.
Most of the time, when I start to get sick, I also stop sleeping and being hungry.
Like my body is saying, “Bootstraps, young man!”
Why are you awake so early?

Bronwyn:
Editing.

Me:
Fuck that. Burn down your house, collect the insurance money, move to the bahamas, profit.

Bronwyn:
Oh, how I want to.

Me:
I think I’m having a mental break down.

Bronwyn:
Seriously?

Me:
No, not really.
I had a dream that I had to get my high school boyfriend to sign some paper having to do with my kids.

Bronwyn:
I’m sorry you’re cranky. I’m feeling pretty bitchtastic myself.

Me:
Is this what it’s going to be like every time I go into a new decade of age?
Like, “OMG IT IS MY LAST DAY IN MY _______IES! I MUST GO IMMEDIATELY INSANE.”
I’m googling old classmates.
I have wasted the last ten years of my life.
This is it. It’s a midlife crisis.

Bronwyn:
That’s pretty much how it works. Just be prepared to rage insanely every ten years – sometimes it starts early and lasts longer.

Me:
Which means I’m only going to live to be sixty.
That is not good news, Bronwyn.
I am disappoint.
Deeply, deeply disappoint.

Bronwyn:
You did not waste your life – you made two amazing kids, you write books, you have fantastic friends – this is not a waste.

Me:
I had one, long dream during my fourteen hours of sleep. All of it came down to trying to clean things by setting them on fire or running from people younger than me who had guns.
This is not a good sign.

Bronwyn:
This is your paranoia and freakout about turning 30.

Me:
I’m actually surprised that it waited this long.
This whole week should have been like this, knowing me.
I’m going to go wake up Joe and share these thoughts with him.

Bronwyn:
I’m not sure if it’ll make you feel any better, but I’ve kinda been waiting for this.

Me:
Oh, good. I’m glad someone was anticipating my mania.

See these little guys? I want one of them SO much. I guess they work off the light or something. But watch this video and just see if it doesn’t relax the hell out of you.

This online thing said I write like James Joyce. So, you know, watch out for AMERICAN VAMPIRE by James Joyce, coming out March, 2011.

Usually, I don’t have a problem with my body. In fact, I like it. I have to, because I have no intention of changing it, other than punching a few holes here and there and inking up my skin. This weekend, however, I was confronted by something that threatened to destroy the self-confidence I take such pride in. This weekend, I found an old duffle bag full of clothes from my high school days.

As any of you who have met me in person know, I’m fat. Rubenesque, if you’re into flowery language. I wasn’t always fat. In high school, i was teensy. I never realized how teensy until I held up a t-shirt that would fit a four-year-old and realize it was a size 2 from GAP. Now, I have this policy in life. My policy is, “Do what feels good.” Dieting doesn’t feel good. No one can convince me that a Snickers don’t taste as good as thin feels. Because I’ve been thin, and it didn’t taste like Snickers. But in that moment, as I held up that tiny shirt, I thought, “My God. How did I get this fat? I need to go on a diet.”

That feeling passed as soon as we started roasting marshmallows over the campfire. But I did take stock. How did I get to this weight?

1. I had two wonderful babies who are growing every day into wonderful kids and, eventually and against my wishes, into wonderful teenagers and then wonderful adults.
   
2. I have plenty of food to eat. Some people don’t.
   
3. I have the genetic code of my family, the women of which tend to be on the heft side. Also, on the awesome side.
   
4. My husband doesn’t care how much I weigh or what I look like, and I don’t have to be afraid that he’s going to leave me for a younger, thinner woman because I’m not physically perfect.
   
5. I express my love for my friends and family through food. And I love them a lot. My family and friends share this same ideal, and they also love me a lot.
   

So, in the end, I guess the leap from a size 2 to a size 20 wasn’t a downward slide generously greased with ice cream cake and cheese fries. Every pound I’ve gained has been the result of love and good fortune. And I’m not about to wish that away.