Thursday, February 3, 2011

Stupid Stuff I Do/ Exercise in Humiliation Friday comes Early!!!

So a little thing about blogging...

There are these things called "stats" that let you know how many times that your blog has been viewed . It is very fun to read the "stats" because you get to see what kind of blog draws people in. Not surprisingly, any blog whereby I mention the stupid things that I do seems to draw people. Go figure.

Unfortunately, I have just figured out that these "stats" are a bit suspicious because they actually include the number of times that I have gone to my blog page. So if a blog has been viewed 67 times in a day, I now have to calculate how many of those times have been me messing with my iPhone to see what my blog looks like when it is tiny or trying to add gadgets and see what they look like. (This blog thing is tricky. How come everyone else can do these fancy things like bookshelves with hundreds of books and all I can do is an Amazon carousel of 10 books that sits at the bottom of my page?) The point is: the 67 viewings in one day is more realistically 7 viewings. Outstanding.

Still, 7 viewings are more than 1 so I am delighted. People clearly find the stupid things I do enchanting. *grin*

In that vain, I will now lay bare this week's list of stupid but only after I explain why I put this sort of information out there to be viewed 7 times.

When I had a 5 month old and had been wearing the same gray pants for over 11 days, my dear friend Lindsey called me. She had a 5 week old and the first thing that she said to me was, "No one told me how much this was going to suck. How come you didn't tell me?" Um, because I couldn't figure out how to change my pants let alone warn all the pregnant women in my life about the upcoming SUCK.

Lindsey and I agreed from that moment forth that we would tell each other everything: the good, the bad, and the smelly pants. And motherhood got MUCH better. When one of my college besties got prego a few years later, I wrote her an entire treatise on the 4th trimester SUCK. I like to think that it helped.

So without further ado, I will put before you this week's STUPID STUFF THAT I DID and hopefully, you won't feel so bad about your own.

Agent stuff (this is about a month's worth but only because agents don't give me the opportunity to embarrass myself more regularly...if only they knew):

1. Sent an agent asking for sample pages the first five pages of my manuscript with the subject line "SAMPLES PAGES: GESTAPO"---yes, "samples" in the subject line. Believe it or not, English is my first language.

2. Tweeted an agent that I have been "following" who mentioned that she had strep throat "@AGENT (redacted) Is there anything worse than puss pockets?"---Nice way to introduce myself! Plus, I think it is supposed to be pus which makes it so much worse. I bet that query letter is going right to the top of the pile.

3. Did major revision on GESTAPO (based on lovely and hilarious comments provided by CP Jeannie) whereby I took out a bunch of clichés before sending first 50 pages to agent requesting a partial (exciting--I know!) only to find that I had inadvertently left in a cliché that involved Rachel "shuttering." Yes, shuttering like she would do to a house which I guess becomes less of a cliché since it is not actually the right kind of shuddering. Also, did I mention that I forgot to put page numbers on the requested 50 pages? Next time, I will send the whole thing in a purple package with glitter stickers that spell out "I am an amateur" or maybe "amature."

Non-writerly stupid stuff:

1. Got caught sneaking my recycling into all my neighbor's recycling bins because mine can't be dug out. It is hidden beneath a mountain of snow. This is a picture of Jojo searching for the recycling bin. No, it's not the green one. That's the trash. The recycling bin is underneath that massive pile there.


2. Got car stuck in the alley behind my house because "I can totally make it over that mountain of snow in my mini-van."

3. Paid a teenager $40 to shovel because I had strep throat and Julio had bronchitis during SNOMYGOD. Forgot to mention that we needed the back sidewalk done too. I believe that is $40 for 8 feet of sidewalk. Julio and I had to do the back. Suckers.

4. Started crying at the Minute Clinic when the pharmacist told me that no one was coming in to give me a throat culture because of SNOMG. Pharmacist: "Do you need a tissue, Mrs. Desir?" Me: "No, I need someone to look at my puss (pus?) pockets, Sheila."

END OF BLOG NON-SEQUITIR:

Just read--DASH AND LILY'S BOOK OF DARES by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan...Love love love books about smart teenagers. And this one is set in NYC at Xmas. Fab.

5 comments:

Carrie said...

Ah, stats...they are SO PRETTY. Have you tried google analytics? HOURS of fun there as well! Congrats on the agent interest! Sounds very exciting.

Puss pockets sound like a wacky new product for cat lovers (or maybe cat haters, depending on whether they are pockets FOR the puss or pockets made OF the puss). Either way, I'm sure it caught the agent's attention!

Paige said...

Can I 'like' Carrie's comment? Guess that is just the FB world.

As for my stupidity in the world today, I told the boys it was okay to go out and play in the snow while the brownies baked - figured that the limited time for the brownies to bake would be sufficient time out in the arctic air. You can probably guess where this story is headed except, yes the brownie timer was going off while we were outside, but it was because block head mommy decided it would be great to follow the boys down the path through the back yard, got my foot stuck, the inside of my snowpants filled with snow, burning sensation and every two minutes my phone alarm is telling me that it's time to go get the brownies. It took 8 min. to get back from when my phone alarm started going off - one crying child with a hurting chin and one teenager complaining that he doesn't know why we waited so long to go outside or why his snowpants won't stay over his boots.

Needless to say, we are staying in for the rest of the night and I just want to go to bed!

Love you!

MK said...

FYI on the stats page on the right there is a "don't track your own pageviews" link that will help with this problem, or if you just don't want to do math. Then again, inflated stats do make us feel better, so never mind.

moljoe said...

I still read that letter you wrote me about the 4th trimester often and laugh just as hard each and every time.

I could have a whole bog about the stupid things I do. Paige, I was outside shoveling with Kai and Ruby and kept hearing a loud, beeping noise. I thought a truck was stuck in the alley. When we finally went in, I realized it was the smoke detector and the cookies that I had totally forgotten about had burned. BTW, I used store bought dough. I just want to be clear that i even burn store bought dough. I am a certified mess.

Stephanie said...

Ha ha, oh I loved reading your Agent experiences. I think it's awesome to keep your sense of humor throughout querying (in between refreshing your email inbox).