Reading and Writing Fool

Did you think I fell off the face of the Earth again?

I am happy to report that I have been absent because I've been reading and writing like crazy.

I've been reading books and then writing reviews for Bookstrumpet! Yay, me!

My first review was for "Twilight" - not a bad review for my first one, but I'm getting better. I've just finished reading "The Painter From Shanghai" by Jennifer Cody Epstein. A gorgeous story with such lush prose. My review for that one is almost done - it's difficult to write a review for such an amazing work. It's also hard to not use the word "lush" in every other sentence, but it was. The scents, textures, tastes and colors she describes are so ... well, you know. Lush.
I only hope I do it justice.

I've also just read "Kate - The Woman Who Was Hepburn" and will write that review next. That was a thick book - 532 pages in hardback. But it was very worth it! And such an interesting take on Katharine, her life, and (of course) Spencer Tracy. Thoroughly researched, for certain, and quite eye-opening. Most especially for a huge fan of both Hepburn and Tracy. I've read bios of them before but this one was layered and complicated - just like the woman herself.

In between reading those two books, I got to do an interview with one of my favorite authors - Sonia Singh. She's very warm and witty and the interview was a treat. And, as it was my first interview, she was very patient and helpful. She also gave some good advice about dealing with your Inner Critic as you begin to flesh out a story. I hope I get another chance to interview her again - I learned some valuable info, and would love more!

If you have a few minutes, stroll on over to http://wordstrumpet.typepad.com/bookstrumpet/ and take a look. Charlotte even posted a little something about the interview on her main site - Wordstrumpet. (The link for it is over there on your left.)

That's all for now. We had Payton's (belated) birthday party at the Noisy Arcade, Pizza and Birthday Party Place today ... and right now I'm seriously exhausted.

Cheers!

Happy Birthday, Pay-Pay

Today, July 8th is my son's eighth birthday. This is, as he learned from his sister's tenth birthday a few years ago, his golden birthday. That's the one where you turn the same age as the date of your birth.

I think he's had a pretty good day for an eight year old. He got to sleep in a bit, got cinnamon and sugar toast and a big glass of orange juice for breakfast, got an early birthday call from Grandma, and headed off to school to talk about his birthday (all day, I'm sure) with his classmates.

Then he came home, got another birthday call from Mamaw and Papaw, and opened his first present (we're saving the rest for the party with his friends and the extended family) and unwrapped the Lego Indiana Jones Playstation game.

And there was much rejoicing.

Then Kirk made his birthday cake, and Payton got to decorate it however he wanted. I didn't help with the baking, but I helped with the decorating. Later, he got pizza and soda for dinner - all the while playing the new Playstation game.

At the end of the day, he got a birthday call from Aunt Kelly in New York (New Jersey) which tickled him to no end. I think he talked to her for over a half an hour.

He finally went to bed at 10p.m. and fell asleep just after the sugar crash.

He was our surprise baby, no doubt. Katie was three when we began the "should we have another kid" talks. Soon after those talks began, God or Fate or The Universe said ... "Here." That silenced all our debates - we were expecting our second child.

He was a very easy pregnancy - except for the ravenous cravings for Del Taco and Peanut M&M's that I dealt with. I soon learned that his sister and he had totally different movements in the womb ... she was graceful and tai chi-like, he was short, staccato-like punches. I knew from the first moments of confirmed conception that she was a girl, and later, that he was a boy. It wasn't just their movements from later on ... right at the start - I just knew.

I worked right up until the day before his birth. I felt great, and had that spontaneous energy burst that tells you that something's about to happen. I picked Katie up after work on Friday, and after being home for a few hours, realized I was having early contractions. Katie and I walked the neighborhood for a while until Kirk got home from work. I had plenty of time to check and re-pack my bag, call the grandparents, call the hospital, and call my doctor.

We got to the hospital after dropping Katie off, and the next few hours were spent roaming the labor ward hallways, joking with the nurses, and watching T.V. in my room while waiting for the labor to get serious. I clearly remember watching the video for Metallica's song "I Disappear" from the Mission Impossible soundtrack about 10 times. I adore Metallica and that put in me in a very happy mood. The hard-rock soundtrack that accompanied the laboring for his birth could very well explain his current constant level-10 energy, though.

He was born near noon on Saturday. His birth was so easy. I think I "pushed" three times. My wonderful doctor, who had saved my life (literally) after an ectopic pregnancy a few years before and delivered our daughter in 1996 was fantastic. With a smile on his face, he told Kirk, "I'm tired. I delivered your last kid. You do this one." And Kirk did. Dr. T. was right next to him; instructing and guiding him.

So the first hands to touch my son in this world were the sturdy, dependable hands of his own father.

Over the last few years, we have learned quite a bit about this unique boy. He has the physical body-sense of his football-playing father, and the obsessive-compulsiveness of his mother. He's as whip-smart as his big sister - but he has a curious, unique view and observation of the world around him that gives all the grown-ups pause. He loves dinosaurs, bugs, archeology, cartoons, candy, camping, swimming and the beach.

He's gentle and loving, rowdy and blunt, sensitive and obtuse, and much, much too witty and smart for an eight year old boy.

Happy Birthday, Payton. We all love you so very much, and are all so glad you showed up to become a part of this family. We wouldn't be complete without you.

I love you! - Momo

Words

I'll admit it.

Letters, words, punctuation, grammar, all that ... makes me High with a capital H.

Reading, writing, thinking about writing and reading - it's all so good and sweet.

I've had the house to myself for the past several hours and I've done nothing but write and plot and think about what I'll write next. And it's so ... delicious.

The first review I wrote for Charlotte was O.K. Nothing spectacular, just O.K. But I want to do better. I want to do more. I want to do another review, with more review of the book and less of how I came to read the book. In addition to that, I want to dive in and do interviews now. Biting off more than I can chew? Maybe. Probably. But it is too tempting and exciting.

A few minutes ago, I sent an email off to one of my favorite authors and asked for the chance to interview her if she comes to town again - or any other way that I could work it out. Phone, email, texting, carrier pigeon - I don't care. I really like her work - reading it reinforces the idea that someone, someday may just want to read my work - my book.

All this literary goodness goes straight to my head. It's so addictive. The more I write, the more I want to write. The more I read, the more I want to write. I am giddy with the thought that I have an email correspondence with two published authors - and two more writers that are published regularly in magazine and newspapers. For me, that's like having signed autographs from Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.

Those writers - my e-friends - are my idols, in a way -because they have found the way down that scary dark path that I am trying to navigate. And they are kind enough to show me support, and offer a light to ward against the darkness.

I'm giddy and nonsensical and it's past midnight, so I ought to go to bed. But I won't because I'm too full of these words. I have to get them down on paper or on screen before they disappear.

I don't think I'm the only one that has to sleep with a notepad and pen beside the bed, and has to carry a small notebook and pen with her at all times.

Today, these past few hours, I have felt more alive and more myself - my true self - than I have in a long time. Writing is like breathing. When I don't write, I feel suffocated and stale. When I take pen in hand, or place my hands on this keyboard - I come alive.

(Happy sigh)

Good Night!

Frickin' Field Trip

What is it about the month of July that makes the teachers of the Clark County School District - or more specifically, the teachers at my kids' school - decide it's a great frickin' time for a field trip?

Last year I was a newly-freed parolee from the prison of an multi-doctor ophthalmology practice (read: had just quit job and 18 year career to stay at home) and all that freedom went to my head. I volunteered of my own free will to be a chaperone on my daughter's fifth grade class's jaunt to the Hoover Dam. (Boulder Dam for us old-time natives) And just when did they decide to undertake this venture? Um, the second week of July.

Helloooooooo ?

We live in the frickin' desert, people!?!?!? It's 117' outside !!!

Why the hell can't we do a field trip in February or March? Is it because the teachers have cabin fever by July and just have to get out of doors? Is it because you get cheaper rates for admission for a bunch of rowdy elementary school kids? Why, oh why?

I'm not going to rehash the trip to the Dam 'cause that was last year and I posted about that after it happened - and after I recovered from the heatstroke. Scroll back through the archives for July of 2007 if you want the whole story.

But I will refresh your memory (or let you in on the joke) by recalling that I had a group of six kids I was to watch over throughout the trip. My mantra for the day was: one, two, three, four, five, six ... just counting each head and making sure the little hellions hadn't (a) been kidnapped by a crazed tourist (b) fallen over the side of the Dam (c) run out into traffic. And just so you know - I did return to the school with all six accounted for. But my sanity?

I left it somewhere on that school-bus-with-a-poor-excuse-for-air-conditioning.

Fast forward one year. Now my second-grader's class is going on a field trip to the Natural History Museum. I signed the permission slip the day he brought it home (four weeks ago) - because to not do so would have caused him to spontaneously burst into flames. He loves dinosaurs and there are dinos-a-plenty there - they even roar when you push a button on the display.

There was no place on the slip to volunteer to chaperone so I figured I had dodged the July-field-trip bullet.

Ha-ha-ha. Fate has a sense of humor, did you know that?

This past Monday, I got a call from my son's Very Sweet and Nice teacher, asking if I would be available to chaperone the field trip.

Of course, being the big spineless dork that I am, I agreed.

Thursday morning found me sitting in the school's office, (which also had iffy air conditioning) and waiting for the morning bell to ring so I could traipse down to the classroom. Happily, the other chaperone for the trip was the father of my son's dance partner from the talent show. He has a good, snarky sense of humor also, so that helped.

As the class lined up for last-minute potty breaks before boarding the buses, the Very Sweet teacher, the Girl's Dad and I were discussing how to divvy up the kids to watch over. Once that was settled, she mentioned that I should keep an eye on "Shawn." I agreed and asked her to point him out. She did. Turns out Shawn is the one with the four-inch Mohawk.

Oh. O.K.

Shawn has a bit of an attention-span problem, Teacher says.

Uh-huh.

Let's just spare you the gory details and sum up the rest of our day. The mantra from last year, when I was counting all the kids? Totally unnecessary this time. All 10 of my kids stayed close with the group - no one wandering off ... except for ... guess who.

Shawn.

My mantra for this most recent trip -all day - was ... "Shawn, turn around. Shawn, sit down. Shawn, don't stand on that. Shawn, don't touch that. Shawn, come back here. Shawn, sit down. Shawn, listen to the tour guide. Shawn, don't run. " (ad nauseum) Girl's Dad snickered at me and my mantra the entire day, by the way.

(Harrumph - that's OK though, HE had to go to the PTA meeting that night ... HA! With the exception of one woman, my friend Anne, they are all Scary Psychotic Control Beasts. )

I am happy to report that my son seemed to be aware of Shawn's 15-second attention span, and without any instruction or request from Teacher or myself - helped me herd that hyperactive little boy like a sheep dog all damn day. At one point, my kid had his arm around Shawn's shoulders, subtly trying to keep him focused on the tour guide. And let me tell you, my kid can be hyperactive like nobody's business some days.

That was the best part of the day.

Oh, and the air conditioning actually worked in our school bus.

Whew.

New Gig

Hey, all. Guess what?

I was meandering my way around Charlotte's WordStrumpet site and found a nifty little item from her - asking for people that would like to write book reviews.

Ahem ... yes, please ?!?!?

My blog bluddy / neighbor Anne volunteered as well, and our first reviews have already been put up on the site. Anne chose the newest book in a favorite series of hers to review, and Charlotte sugessted I write the review for Twilight, since we were just chatting about it on her site, and I read it in the last month.

Whoo-hoo!

We don't get paid - but in the very near future we will get free books mailed to our homes to read and review for the site. And someday in the future we'll get paid for our work.

But we already have our own little bios with our reviews, and Charlotte put up a link to my blog.

I'm sorry. I just have to read that little part about getting sent free books and then getting paid to read and write a review ... one more time. Hee - hee !!

Is that just incredibly awesome or what? I mean seriously - that's like getting paid to shop for purses, and then having the store GIVE you the purse. (Yes, I have been known to have a purse addiction. Some women like shoes - I dig purses.)

Here is the link to the book review site: www.wordstrumpet.typepad.com/bookstrumpet

Please drop by if you have a chance and check it out. Oh, and feel free to leave a comment and tell Charlotte just what wonderful writers she's chosen. (KIDDING !!) She lavishes praise on us like frosting - working with her is too much fun.

I know it's been a while since I've posted - but like I said after that last gap between postings, there just hasn't been much to talk about. Really boring stuff. But thank you so much for checking in with me every so often all the same - I promise to not stop writing altogether. There just may be a bit of lag time between items.


FYI: I still haven't heard anything back from my freelance client. I'm not really sure what to think about that - but rather than beat myself up and decide that she hated the first 25 articles, I'd rather simply chalk it up to the fact that she travels a lot, and has a lot on her plate at one time. Ah, well.

Somebody out there still wants me to write for them - and that's good enough for me!