What Time It Is...And Other Things YAs Don't Know

My 6 year old has turned on some function on my computer that announces the time every 15 minutes. I have no idea how to undo this function. It is simultaneously annoying and hilarious because it is like a constant reminder of a) my level of SLACK and b) my level of technological ineptitude.

Some days I feel very young. This is sadly not because I am super hot and carded all the time at Famous Liquors. I feel young because I do such stupid stuff that clearly the wisdom of age has not made any sort of chink in my armor.

Some days I feel quite old. Those days are almost always when it becomes evident that my kids have some technological skill that I do not. Butter (3y0) is the only one that I can outpace technologically in my house. And my days are seriously numbered on that front.

I have a 16 year old friend on speed dial (or text dial, as it were) who miraculously answers any and all random YA questions that I have. This is truly THE BEST although with every pinging of returned text messages that I get from her, I feel like I age 20 years.

Some examples of showing my age from 1st draft of GESTAPO:

1. Sixteen year olds do not have a frame of reference for Columbine. They may have heard of it but it apparently means very little to them.

2. YAs don't play Trivial Pursuit. Not even the dorky YAs play Trivial Pursuit.

3. YAs don't know what D&D is.

I know, I am as SHOCKED as you. Columbine? Trivial Pursuit? Dungeons & Dragons? Dungeon & Dragons???? I mean really, D&D was like the beginning of all MMORPG (or whatever that acronym is). Surely, they understand some history. Apparently not.

Julio told me this great story from one of his work colleagues about getting older. It involved an incident he (Mr. X) had with a barista at a Starbucks that he hadn't visited in a few months.

Mr. X: Hi.

Barista: Oh, hi, I haven't seen you in a while. Tall Americano, right?

Mr. X: There you go, that's what time it is.

Barista: It's 8:30.

Mr. X: No, like "what time is it?"

Barista: I'm not following.

At this point in Julio's story, I start laughing about how these young kids don't even know about MC Hammer. I mean surely they've heard the Glee soundtrack???

Julio: Well, actually hon, it's Flav Flav.

Me: Who?

Oh.

Being the Sucky Brownie Mom and Getting Perspective

Do you ever have one of those days when you feel like everything is easier for other people? Like you are the only one in the world who can't get your act together enough to make it through the day unfrazzled? This is a picture of the recycling that is sitting on my counter waiting for me to sneak into neighbor's recycling bins:

In case you are wondering, the large light behind it is a HappyLite (for those of us who live through sunless winters and need a little pick-up)!!! I haven't gotten to the recycling in 4 days. And you can pipe down about that wine bottle, I wasn't the one who finished it off:)

Jojo left for a Brownie outing this morning at 7:30am, lamenting the fact that I still hadn't sewn all her patches on from December. Those patches are a bitch to sew on, ask anyone. I have tried hot glue and staples (not lying) but neither can hold those things on. I hate sewing.

Jojo: Every other girl will have all her patches on.

Me: Well, they have better moms than you.

Jojo: Um, you're a good mom. (Panicky eyes searching for example of my good mom-ness)

Me: Yes, I know. I just don't sew or recycle.

Jojo: Well, maybe Grammy June can help.

Me: Yes, undoubtedly.

The irony behind this is that my mom (Grammy June) can and probably will sew the patches on. She is great like that. But if you want to know the reason that I hate sewing, it is because my mom made me spend 3 weeks before summer camp (for 9 years) sewing little "Belongs to Christa" labels into every article of clothing I was taking to camp. When you are going somewhere for 8 weeks, that's a lot of socks.

This altercation with my daughter got me thinking about my original thesis of everything being easier for everyone else. Luckily, before I got swept into a pity party that only a Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 7 marathon could undo, Perspective came knocking on my door. And I remembered that the snow is always easier to shovel on someone else's sidewalk.

Perspective came in the form of:

1. A hilarious text from my sister about her 3 year old son getting naked in preschool so that he could get the teacher's attention and wake the napping kids up.

2. A twenty minute period yesterday when my kids and I were all sitting on my bed reading our own books!

3. A love note from my husband. *Swoon*

4. The knucklehead who dropped my daughter off 45 minutes early after the Brownie outing and sped away without making sure that she got into our house safely. (Evidently, I wasn't the only one having a rough morning).

These all seem unrelated, but really they aren't. The point of all this perspective is that really, all of us, every day, are doing the best we can. Some days, we have a better shoveled sidewalk and some days, someone else does. I try to remember this in writing too. Some days the revision mountain seems huge and some days it seems easy to tackle.

It is amazing how much resentment, doubt, defeat, anger, negativity can be done away with if you remember that EVERYONE IS DOING THE BEST THAT THEY CAN. I understand now why writers don't want to review books or only review books favorably. They somehow understand how difficult the process is and they want to be FOR anyone who is trying to get through it. I am taking that perspective too.

Don't worry, I will still be snarky and sarcastic because it is in my nature but I will do so with the perspective that we are all doing the best we can and that for some people, that means getting ridiculous Twilight tattoos. (Photo "borrowed" from TwiTarded...read the blog, hilarious!)

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.