In the photo is my father, the Jewish mother. No, Dad, only kidding. My sister(whose gorgeous head of golden hair is pulled back, as usual) at his right (and J. off in the distance). He would hate this, I bet. Ah well.



Secret Confession

Sometimes I check my email (manually that is, because it's already set to automatically download new emails every five minutes) every thirty seconds. Yup. If you didn't know what I was doing, you'd think I have a nervous tic, finger poised over the mouse to click "send/receive." I've become an email junkie. I turned down the sound on my computer so that I wouldn't be totally pavlovian, a slave to the little techno "ding" the envelope icon makes when something new slides sweetly into my inbox. This way too, it's kind of like a surprise...when I come back from getting a glass of water or letting the cat in and out...will that glorious golden envelope be waiting for me? (Okay, that was neither a secret, nor a confession. I lied).

The envelope icon is a fabulous pictoral representation of all the waiting in a writer's life. I am equally always waiting for my snail-mail. Will there be an acceptance? A check for my freelance work? A request to speak or read (hey, one can dream!). Will that editor respond to my query? Will the person reading my novel think it sucks? Will we get the interview with (insert big name author here) for Word by Word? Will Word by Word get syndicated? Will the anthology I got grandfathered into arrive? Will my portal-key to an alien civilization in which authors are gods be plopped on my doorstep today, transporting me through the fabric of the universe into an adventure of mystery and intrigue? Will it, huh, will it punk???

The problem with all this waiting is it has a funny way of suspending me in a kind of inertia. The waiting breeds and becomes funk. No news=depression. No responses=loneliness. I think I've figured out the answer to my mood swings. I am addicted to my anticipation, it gives me a little high not unlike jogging or sudafed cold and sinus formula. And then, similarly, it crashes me.

Today I talked my program director's ear off after an interview at the station because, I realized I have been keeping so much to myself, since I'm mostly alone all day long, and nobody pities someone who works from home, and people stop asking, "So how are you anyway?" because they figure it's all lesiure and lunch breaks and sitting around in your pajamas. I realized how much has happened lately, both on the literal/physical plane, and inside me. Fortunately she humored me, which is good, because I think I may have averted some kind of freak case of hives.

So anyway...I'm having a weekend garage sale, and tonight I am going to have a good time with friends. The kind of good time you'll often find me blogging about later as having involved one or two too many...but that's okay. My temple is otherwise pure.

Eleven days until my birthday. I had one of those existential moments in the mirror today, realizing, hey I still feel essentially 22. I will always feel 22! Even when I'm 40! and 65! How frightening. I have always believed our self-conception stops at a certain age, and mine is hovering somewhere between being able to drink legally and that hormone shift that happened right after I finished beauty school, and I just can't seem to eke it up higher, so that's it. I'll be 22 forever, trapped in a body that continues to age. How sci-fi.

I already have this little chill when I interact with my teenage siblings and realize that I am NOT one of them anymore. Not by a long shot. I have finally slid into that weird little groove where technology now advances faster than I can keep up with it, styles of the younger generations confound me, and I'm happier staying at home on a Saturday night than going out (Okay, who am I kidding? I have always been this way. Since the age of two).

I got E. a mini-ipod for his birthday, by the way, so now we are two self-contained music units passing each other in our house bopping to our own individual rhythms. I like life better set to music, I admit it.

This post was very much like the kind of frothy, non-directed one-sided conversation I just had with my program director. God help you.

JPR