Twitter Is Ruining My Life

I am going to have to break-up with Twitter.  I just can't pull off witty in 140 characters.  My tweets seem hilarious in my head and then I look at them later and I think that I might have the IQ of a pencil.  Plus, random people seem to be following these Sucky tweets and I am not exactly sure why.  I'm not talking about other writers who follow the same agents/authors as me.  I am talking about Herb, the car salesman from Toledo.  Why is Herb following my Suck and how did he find me in the first place?  Did he happen to search "parallel parking" and "Steinbeck's Winter of Our Discontent" and my name popped up?  And even if it did, after reading the evidence of my tweeting lameness, why would he still be inclined to follow me?    (EXAMPLES OF SUCKY TWEETS BELOW)

Add to this the fact that I just can't help myself when it comes to responding to agents' tweets.  It's like a black and white cookie before me, I just can't resist.  Especially once I've broken the ice with a bad tweet response already.  I mean really, at a certain point, I feel I have nothing to lose.  So the agent who received last week's happy "puss/pus pockets" tweet was complaining about all the illness in her house and I responded, "sounds like you all might be suffering a bio-terrorist attack."  It was meant to be funny but reading it again later, I realized how this woman whom I have never met before might think that I was admitting to some nefarious plot.  I am totally making a name for myself with this agent.  I can't wait until my query letter crosses her desk.  Truly.

In point of fact, I think that I might also need to break up with my phone who is the messenger by which I frequently react without thinking things through.  For example, I received a request from my kids' Montessori school to participate in a promotional video wherein I answer questions about how great the school is.  They promised that it would only take 10 minutes.  (That's 10 minutes to tape me and 10 hours to edit out most of my particular brand of honesty so they are left with me saying, "My kids are happy..." and the "because they can go to the bathroom freely" has been redacted).  You are probably wondering why they even chose me.  If I had to guess it would probably be that they actually wanted Julio to do it but he sadly had another gig and is sending me in his stead.  And there is no getting out of it since I already told the school via my phone that "we" would be happy to participate.  I am sure they will be DELIGHTED by the Julio/Christa substitution.  Stupid phone.  (And curse you for your Twitter app).

So now, without further ado, the top 10...er, 6 Sucky tweets of the week (I don't even tweet enough to have 10 to choose from which is like the opposite of what I am supposed to be doing on Twitter.  #Me=TwitterLoser):

1.  I think the hardest thing about being a mom is the parallel parking.

2.  I love to write in the teen corner at the library on HS half days.  It's a glimpse of magic.

3.  Holy crap, it's only Wednesday?

4.  I've stopped buying clothes, I only buy books.  Today I will have to wear Chapter 6 of Steinbeck's Winter of Our Discontent.

5.  RPattz has weird nipples.  He should have had a chest overdub in New Moon.
6.  Somebody stop me before I volunteer again.  

I SWEAR I am a better writer than this.  I am clearly just a Twitter failure.  Please don't hold it against me.  

Best Laid Plans

Julio and I don't celebrate Valentine's Day. This harkens back to the year when we first started dating wherein I stood before him in a RIDICULOUS outfit and handed him Chris Rock concert tickets (whatev, it was an Awesome gift in 1997) and he handed me a spice rack. Yes, a SPICE RACK. He would argue that it was very thoughtful because he was "listening" to me when I lamented my lack of spices at Christmas time. I would argue that it was Valentine's Day. (Side note: I have asked him for a blog redesign for V Day this year since I am a little tired of the pink standard template. It will be unveiled when he finishes it in 2014. He's a pretty busy guy.)

Happily, Valentine's Day has been re-appropriated from Suck into Awesome by my friend Bergl. The two of us agreed to always cover V Day for each other after she had a disastrous experience wherein she told her boyfriend at the time how important V Day was for her and he bought her gas station flowers and a stuffed bear on the side of the road (or something equally egregious). Each year Bergl sends me more elaborate gifts. I am thinking of something like this for her this year:

I am also in charge of providing the craft for Butter's preschool Valentine's party. I am trying to figure out if I can pull off having the 3 year olds decorate doilies to take home to their parents that say "My Life Would Suck Without You." I might get calls.

I am so glad that the Montessori school doesn't celebrate ANY holidays. Sure, it might be a rite of passage to have in-school holiday parties (and Butter's siblings are already complaining that it isn't fair that he has a class party and they don't) but really, how much more evidence do my kids need that I am a complete slacker? The fact that Butter's "valentines" for his classmates are cards that I bought 2 years ago on sale at Michael's and found again in the bottom of our ottoman should suffice.

And speaking of slacking, Alexis awarded me this Stylish Blogger badge weeks ago and I am just now thanking her for it. Thank you, Alexis. My lack of immediacy in acknowledging this is not from a lack of gratitude but much more from a general inability to figure out (until yesterday) how to post this award on the sidebar of my blog. (Julio better not mess with this when doing the redesign of 2014).

Part of accepting this award involves telling 7 things that you may not know about me and nominating other blogs that I find Stylish. To address the latter, I have been sitting on this award for so long that there are very few blogs that I follow that haven't already been told they are Stylish. If, though, you happen to have a blog that has not received this award and you are interested in it, feel FREE to grab it from me. You are ALL nominated. (I love when everyone wins).

As to the 7 things...tricky, because after the sex/pee panel and "escort" story, there isn't much you don't know but I will try my best:

1. I was a volunteer rape crisis counselor in Chicago ERs for almost 10 years. If it didn't take me away from my kids in the middle of the night (with a husband who travels), I would do it again in a heartbeat.

2. I choose the Bad Boy 9 times out of 10. I married the Good Guy who looks like a Bad Boy. Win-Win for me. This is him:

Yum, right? He is surrounded by my scrumptious children. All I have to say is: "Look to the cookie, Elaine."

3. When I first started eating mangos, I ate the skin too.

4. I am not quite a Tiger Mom, more of a Tigger Mom (WASP-y pressure and guilt instead of emotional abuse). I send my 6 year old to school with binary code messages in his lunch. He loves it. So do I.

5. I taught kickboxing at Leo Burnett's company gym until I was 8 months pregnant with Jojo. Bad A-S-S.

6. I am the spider/insect killer in my house.

7. I have never loved a job as much as I love writing.

Ninja Novel Writing Month

Okay, I am at 25k words in RADIO STATIONS ARE FOR LOSERS. Carrie has the first 15 pages. Rebecca read the first 8 (and told me to keep going which is one of the Awesome things about Rebecca!). So now, I am joining a group of writers (thank you Ali Cross) to hunker down and finish our drafts. Yeah, yeah, I am still shopping GESTAPO. But I need to write right now and I want to finish RSr4L so that I can get to revising it.

In February.

Yes, I am going to finish my first draft in February. February. February. February.

I am a Ninja. I can do this. Forget NaNoWriMo. November is too far away. February is a short month and we are 7 days into it. That's 21 days to finish. Wish me luck.