The End of Another Year

This has been a big year for me. I graduated with my master's degree. I went to Disney World for the second time and New York for the first. My husband and I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary. I was cast in my first play in seven years (two plays at once, actually--rehearsals start January 3rd!). I completed my first collection of short stories, though who knows how much tweaking it will receive before it's published (if ever). I had a few short stories published individually. I broke my aversions to fish, various fruits, and tried many many many new foods. I've completed a few editing and freelance writing jobs, some paid in money and some with the advancement of my career. And while I wouldn't say it was the best year ever, it was a fruitful one.

So here comes 2012. My husband plan to ring in this new year at a charity ball in our little town, with dinner and dancing and wine. Usually, New Year's isn't a big deal for us--we often go to bed by ten and wake up to the strict new regimens we've set for ourselves rather than hangovers and brunch. We intentionally diminish the celebration so the resolutions won't be so hard to keep. But this year, we're trying to make fewer strict resolutions and more manageable ones that can be built into lifelong habits. We're trying to build our lives more solidly instead of blasting calories for a month only to slide back into overeating.

Joyeux Noel

Hallo, Blogosphere!

As you can see, I've switched my picture to something more Christmassy. Yes, that is my butt. And my love handles. I was looking for an ornament. Deal with it.

Also, my husband recently replaced iPhoto with Aperture on our computer, which is apparently fancier, but I hate using it. Cropping a photo becomes a math equation. If there's an easier way to do it, I'd love to know.

Anyway--heading to the folks' tomorrow! I've just finished packing all but my toiletries (and I mean all--including presents, a fruit cake, and three kinds of homemade preserve) into my suitcase. The cat is very suspicious and not looking forward to our leaving. But it will make her appreciate it all the more when we get home.

NaNoWriMo

It's November, and November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. I've been curious to participate for years--the goal is to hammer out 50,000 words in one month--but I've always been too busy or lazy or skeptical. There are many who deride NaNoWriMo because it produces shoddy work, because some people seem to think a month is enough to really write a novel, because... I'm not sure of all the becauses. And really, I don't care. NaNoWriMo is what you make of it, and this year, I'm making something. A novel? Probably not. But a really thorough set of character sketches and outline for a novel? That might be closer. Which isn't to say I'm not attempting to make this thing read like a novel, but as I push through the words (I've got just above 14,000 here on day eight), I find dozens of things I want to go back and correct, but can't if I want to keep moving forward. So I allow for that and just sort of keep writing with the new idea in mind, and make a note of my new concept. Sometimes I go for pages and pages without writing a scene, or anything scenic at all; it's easy to get swept away in exposition. But it's good I've got that exposition down so I can sift through it when I come back to this thing.

What If?: NYC

This last week, the hubby and I had the pleasure of visiting New York City for the first time ever. It was, in many ways, fantastic. It was, in many ways, terrible.

I have this problem, you see. I'm a bit of a regret junkie. I would like to have about thirty lives, and in lieu of that possibility, I would like to cram thirty lives' worth of experiences into this one. And I must admit that, in the years since I got married, I haven't been packing those experiences in as much as I'd like. I've experienced grad school, the turmoil of the failed first novel, some housewifery. I've had my first visits to New York, Scotland, a few cities in England, Glacier National Park, Big Sur, Disney World, and South Dakota. I've learned a lot about wine and cooking and recently learned how to make preserves. I've revisited a few cities like London, Paris, and Las Vegas with my husband--his first time in each. When I list it like this, it seems that I've really done quite a bit since 2007, but still I want more. I wish I'd had the chance to live in more places, to work in commercial publishing, to spend less time sitting on my couch in Eastern Washington.

Here's where the terrible stuff comes in: living in New York was one of those dreams that never came to fruition. And, yes, I know it's a little trite. But I often imagined getting a job as an assistant at a publishing house or literary agency, moving to New York, and spending a few years soaking up the city. Maybe going to grad school there. I've heard a lot of bad stuff about New York in the past few years--it's loud, it smells, and so on--but when we actually visited, I didn't find those things to be true, at least not in any way that would dissuade me from wanting to live there. I hoped, in some ways, that I might be allergic to New York like I am to London--but New York doesn't have the same type of pollution London does, and it didn't bother me at all. So I walked around the city feeling those pangs of regret that all I had was three days, when a greedy part of me really would have wanted three years.

One piece of our trip inspired these bittersweet feelings more pointedly than anything else: On our second night in the city, we found a little black box theater where Scott Adsit and John Lutz (from NBC's 30 Rock) were doing some improv. We stood in line, paid our five bucks each, and got to stand at the back of the theater and laugh our guts out. We got to use the dingy little bathrooms with their bad plumbing and amusing graffiti. And I couldn't help thinking, this is the type of place I might have worked, some small theater like this that hosted small plays and comedy shows and theatrical workshops. This is the type of place I would have gone once a week to laugh if I worked someplace else.

Two days later, I had a birthday. I am now 27 years old, which is an age I had never really imagined for myself. The likelihood of my moving to New York is now greatly diminished, and to be honest, I'm past the age where I would have found the small, dingy apartments and constant street noise and crowded subways romantic if I had to deal with them every day. I'm past the age where city living really appeals; I want to live somewhere I can raise children, with backyards and good schools, where I can have a little land to spread out in, maybe raise some chickens or goats, grow a pumpkin patch and tomatoes and zucchini. But what if I'd transferred to NYU instead of WSU? What if I'd had more confidence in myself that I could do it? What would life have been like then?

I guess it's like the number of licks to the center of a Tootsie Pop (which I did, in second grade, attempt to count): the world may never know.

Kissing the Lipless

It's Up!

NecessaryFiction.com

Parsnip/Pumpkin Beer Soup

So, I also have this food blog that has been petering out lately... it's an attempt at broadening my palate and learning to cook. I realized a while ago that I should probably have made it less than a year's project... I was really good for the first eight months, but now I just don't have the energy. Plus, the portion of the project I'm now requires me to cook something new every day, which would not only mean a lot of groceries, but some discomfort for my husband who likes a little more regulation in his diet, and also, potentially, a great deal of weight gain. But--last night I did post a new soup recipe that is just really really good, and so autumnal. So if you're interested in parsnip soup made with pumpkin beer, click here.

Cat Scratch

My cat is a bit of a spaz. She never learned to use her claws properly, so she sometimes gets stuck to a blanket after kneading it, or a shirt, or the carpet. But mostly, my cat is not a scratcher. Occasionally, she'll walk across me while I'm sleeping, lose her footing, and an untrimmed back claw will get me. But even when she freaks out, I tend to make it away unscathed. Because she's such a good kitty, I had forgotten what a really bad cat scratch feels like. On Friday morning, I was reminded.

You see, I've been volunteering at the local animal shelter (though, because they have a glut of volunteers at the moment, I've backed off my hours... we'll see how their schedule looks once bad weather makes it harder to get out there). On Friday, I was cuddling with a new cat named Ricky, who looks a lot like a more masculine version of my cat (right). He's an absolute sweetheart, but there's a bit of construction going on right next to the shelter right now, and as we cuddled, a very large machine switched on and Ricky flipped out. If I'd been at home, I would have let him wriggle free and hide somewhere, but at the shelter, you can never tell when someone's going to open the front door and an upset cat will dart off into the bushes, never to be seen again. So I held on to Ricky.

I guess no one had gotten around to trimming Ricky's nails, because he really gashed up my arm and throat--or, it seems like "gashed up" to a spoiled brat like me who hasn't been injured by an animal in years, even though my mother's love of animals and the fact that we once had eleven cats (two cats at first, then they both got knocked up and had large litters) has meant a lot of scars over the years. Blood was drawn. For the first time in what felt like forever, I felt the need to use isopropyl alcohol to clean a cut. I'd forgotten how much that stings.

So, as simple as the even of being scratched by a cat might be, all this made me think about some interesting stuff. Like: how spoiled am I? Not only does my cat not scratch me, she cuddles me on a regular basis and only snubs me when I've been away on vacation--and that only lasts a few hours, max. And, though I have been a little annoyed that I'm getting muscled out of volunteer hours by the many, many college kids in this town who can't have pets and so volunteer with them, how nice is it that I am not stuck in a job where I get scratched all day--if I get injured volunteering, I can just go home and lick my wounds. I don't have to go back to cleaning cages once I'm bandaged up. Yeah, this means I also don't make any money--a fact that nags at me day and night--but I have a husband who does. I am spoiled rotten. Which I also worry about. But I must also acknowledge that I'm lucky to be spoiled. And maybe "spoiled" isn't the right term, because if I was really, thoroughly spoiled--as in wrecked, ruined, unfit for real life--I wouldn't worry about being spoiled. Would I?

Also, my cat scratch reminded me of this Nickelodeon cartoon that, sadly, was cancelled before it got off the ground:

A Little Morning Rock 'n' Roll

New Shoesies!

I went to the mall the other day (first time in a looooong time...) to buy pants for Ian, and ended up buying a couple pairs of shoes for myself. In my defense, they were cheap and most of my flats are falling apart--why don't shoes last forever? Maybe because I buy them for $25 or less. Anyway, I bought these super cute loafers!
And, even more exciting, these awesome jazz shoes! I've been looking for shoes like this for a long time--they make me want to start taking swing dance lessons. I used to be quite the swing dancer, you know. If only the swing dance revival had lasted longer! And if only my husband were a better dancer... I'm sure he could learn! For these shoes, I'd be willing to teach him.

Respect

Before starting grad school, Ian and I used to take yoga classes on a regular basis. We were getting pretty strong for a while there, even doing partner yoga, in which you sort of use your spouse's body weight for resistance. But then I started splitting my time, I wasn't home on a regular basis, and to be honest, I got lazy. Now that I've got my degree and a whole mess of free time, though, we decided it would be best to get back to our yoga-ing. So we signed up for Yoga Fit Flex & Flow through Yogatopia, with our favorite instructor.

I'd forgotten how many muscles yoga actually works and stretches. After our first class back, even my toes were sore. Though, to be fair, Tuesday nights are also cheap beer nights at Dupus Boomer's, where Ian and I are working our way through a list of 44 beers that they have on tap, and after yoga we took the bus over there and had two beers each. Bad, bad decision. Apparently the blood was still moving pretty quickly through us, so we ended up getting much drunker than expected, and then were miserable the whole next day. Of course, it wasn't as bad for me as it was for Ian because I'm unemployed right now and I didn't have to sit through eight hours of work, meetings, or anything like that.

Anywho--last night, before yoga, I was grumpy. It was a really sour mood. I'd managed to stave off some of the negative feelings that came from the six (count 'em--six!) rejection letters I got over this weekend because I also got an acceptance from Necessary Fiction (I'll let you know when my story is up on their website) and a notice that I'll be getting my copy of the journal Aethlon in the mail soon, in which appears my poem, "Curling." But then I checked the WSU jobs website, where I've been monitoring my application for an assistant job for about a month, and the damn position was filled. That led to a little ranting and raving. I mean, it's one thing to be rejected in a field where you know you're still growing and the competition is fierce and tastes vary dramatically, blah blah blah. It's another to be completely brushed off by a job for which you're insanely overqualified, which you would barely need to be trained for. Granted, I know that the overqualification might have disqualified me (I have as much education as many of the department's professors), but it still hurts. Especially because it means I might not get a job this year. In my little college town, jobs are sparse, and most of them ask for a two-year commitment; I'm only here eight more months. The eight months thing is cause for celebration, but the unemployment tempers it, huh?

So. There I was, straight off of a hissy fit, rolling up my yoga mat and heading to class. I kept hoping that yoga would have that magical effect where you spend the whole time so focused on balancing and the burn in your muscles that you couldn't think about anything else if you wanted to. I sat down quietly on my mat and waited for class to begin, trying to stay upbeat. The instructor had some poppy music playing, which I assumed she would change to the echoey yoga stuff she usually plays, but as we started to find our breathing, she didn't. Instead, while the instructor gave her usual speech, my breathing started to match some nineties song with encouraging lyrics. She made extra emphasis last night on respect, for ourselves and our bodies, and being compassionate with ourselves. She always tells us to throw judgment out the door, along with comparison and expectations. But being compassionate with ourselves--that just sounded like a good idea. And then when she played Aretha Franklin's "Respect" during our first flow, I couldn't help smiling.

Honey Bear

Isn't my husband the cutest? This picture was taken two summers ago, but I just love it.

We've been married almost four-and-a-half years... more like four-and-a-third. When we were hitched, I was twenty-two (I know! So young, and yet I did not think so at the time) and he was twenty-four.

He's at work right now. I have cake decorating class tonight and a bunch of errands to run this afternoon so I won't get to see him until 8 tonight. I miss him already.

I Heart Squirrels

Have you ever stopped on the street to chat with a squirrel? Maybe just to see how close you can get before they scamper away? Sometimes I just watch them run the telephone wires, those little acrobats. If you've ever seen a tall woman with curly hair, most likely wearing a backpack and a dress, standing on the sidewalk staring at the sky, that was probably me, and I was probably actually watching a squirrel.

In fact, I love squirrels so much, that I wrote a story about them. Sort of. It's also about my grandmother, and it started as a poem in the style of James Tate, but I submitted it last year to both my poetry prof (with line breaks) and my fiction prof/thesis advisor (sans line breaks), and my thesis advisor liked it more, so it became a short story. In fact, it got published on Monkeybicycle.net a little while ago. Check it out!

Book Recommendations

So, sometimes on Bark I post about books you really ought to read. Check out my recommendations here.

Arsenic and Old Lace

Sometimes, I forget how much I love old movies. My husband isn't one to watch and rewatch the same things (with the exceptions of Simpsons and Futurama reruns), and partway through most black-and-white or musical features, he tends to pull out his laptop and split his attention between the movie and his endless search for coupons (I mean, news... he's on the computer reading the news. Is that it, honey?) That's fine, for the most part, but sometimes it starts to irk me that he's not enjoying it enough to really watch. But last night, though his side of the bed was aglow from the computer screen, I didn't really care. I was too engrossed in Arsenic and Old Lace.

You see, I'd spent the weekend staying with a friend who is also an old-movie lover, and she'd mentioned that she'd had a hankering to watch the movie (of course she had; it's almost Halloween!), but we didn't get the opportunity to watch it together. And then I realized that I couldn't remember the entire plot; how did it end? Had I seen the whole thing? I had to find out. I went to my Netflix instant queue, and guess what? It was the very first title.

If you haven't seen this movie, I highly recommend it. It's my favorite Cary Grant picture, as far as I know. North By Northwest is pretty good, I guess. Though I adore Sleepless in Seattle, I've never gotten on the An Affair to Remember bandwagon. I saw him in something where he was a cat burglar. Bits and pieces of various roles. As a serious actor or a heartthrob, he doesn't thrill me. But as a comedian, boy is he worth watching.