Stalking the Dog Park
08
March
The Girlwonder

I had to change my deadline for one of the books I’m writing, knowing that there was no way in hell I’d get it done by the end of the month when I have an 8 day vacation coming up next week. This gave me a small breathing break this weekend and I was actually able to get out of the house and do fun shit like normal people do (at least that’s what I hear they do).

First up was Alice in Wonderland on Friday. I did not see it in 3-D but it was a fine movie nonetheless. Still, my complaint remains that if you aren’t actually going to stay true to the original story, you ought to call it something different. They didn’t have to call it Alice in Wonderland – how about Alice: Return to Wonderland or Back to Wonderland or Alice in Wonderland II even? Because it certainly was NOT Alice in Wonderland.

The most egregious departure was when they butchered the original Jabberwocky poem. I mean, sure, fuck up the entire storyline, why not go ahead and change the poem as well? I have memorized two poems, both Lewis Carrol poems (you’d be surprised how often memorized poems come in handy for distracting you from uncomfortable things like annual exams or standing in a line and freezing). It pisses me off when people alter classic stories because it’s like they are saying they could do it better than the original creator. Still, it was a beautiful movie and I greatly enjoyed when disgusting things happened and the parents who brought their toddlers would gasp. I enjoyed thinking about the therapy bills they just incurred now that their children will have dreams about running over rotting severed heads…and did anyone else think it was weird that at least three eyeballs got plucked out? That Tim Burton, he’s such a character!

Saturday was dinner with the fam, followed by the nicest day of the year so far – warm and sunny. We (the dog and I) went to the park and took a hike, then watched some friends play volleyball and spent a half an hour in the dog park during little dog time. Later I met an old college friend for a drink (or two). It was such a great day!

Tonight I’m going bowling for the cheap Rock and Bowl night. Tomorrow calls for WORK and more work. IN fact, today is my last free day until vacation. I need to write like 7 chapters between now and then to make my next deadline.

Speaking of dog parks – a cute boy who is too young for me (hence the boy, but I assure you he is over 21) goes to the small dog group. Now I have someone new to stalk from afar.

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Whispering to the Chihuahua
28
February
The Girlwonder

At the best of times, I’m practically the laziest person on earth. Sleeping is my favorite hobby. I watch too much TV. I play too many video games. I love to curl up with tea, a blanket, the dog and a book. I should have been born a three-toed sloth. Working is …work, not fun and so since there’s lots of other things I’d rather be doing, I spend as little time working as possible. This year has been terrible for me from an emotional standpoint (dad, dog, etc…) and so I’ve been working even less than usual. This is very, very bad. Especially since my publisher just reminded me that the deadline I set for the latest book doesn’t work for them and I actually have two weeks LESS time to complete it. That means, basically, that I need to write an entire book this month.

This is overwhelming and so my brain doesn’t want to deal with it, but the truth is – it’s not going away and if I do insist on changing the deadline, I’m only putting off the inevitable. I must write this book. If for no other reason than that they already paid me half of the money up front to do so.  So basically, this month is going to be just like those weekends where I park my ass in the chair for 11 hours on a Saturday while everyone else is out playing and having a good time because they worked all week, except instead of 2 days of forcing a very willful and uncooperative brain to focus, I get to do it every day. For a month. Wheeee.

Now that my poor old dog has passed, I’ve decided that it’s time to really train my little dog to walk properly on the leash, to heel and most of all, not to jump on people when they come over. My mother lent me Cesar Millan’s book which I tore through and loved. It really changed my perception of what my dog needs to be happy and how I see him – less of a cute, little, hairy, mostly retarded person and more of an animal, a dog. In just three days of lead training, he is heeling and walking so much better. The pulling is nearly eliminated. Every day I try to challenge him with a situation, whether it’s being calm in the face of something really exciting like going for a walk or seeing a cat outside, or sitting quietly on the couch next to me while someone eats something delicious nearby. It makes me sad that I didn’t know better how to handle my Chow’s aggression with other dogs and how to socialize him so he could have had a more fulfilling and active life. I won’t make that same mistake with Tsunami, plus walking him every day is good for me too. Now I look for situations with other dogs or loud and unexpected events so that I can test and train him. I know that eventually I will be able to walk him without a leash and not worry that he will go into the street or chase a neighborhood chicken. We watch episodes of the Dog Whisperer every night now to keep me inspired. He’s also learning to be a good traveler and to ride in the car without getting sick and barfing all over everything (his name is Tsunami for a reason).

My Mexi-cat, Apollo, has been frustrated and unhappy since we moved here because he’s been forced from a very active, outdoor lifestyle, to being an indoor cat in a house the size of a refrigerator box. To this end, I’ve decided to … teach my cat to walk on  leash. I have a dream that I can take him and Tsunami for walks every day and everyone will be happier and healthier for it. Seriously. He’s smart and motivated to leave the house, so I think with a lot of patience, I can do it. I started today by making him wear the harness for an hour to get used to the feeling. We will do that every day for a few days until he doesn’t care about it anymore. I’ll keep you posted.

So now it’s Sunday and I’m proud that I worked on the book at least a little bit today. I have to go to Radio Shack and then the pet store (for a cat walking vest, I shit you not) and then I am going to see Shutter Island with a friend. I really have had an exciting weekend already (for me) – I went into SF for happy hour with my friend and her coworkers, followed by incredible Burmese food and then a night at the theater where we saw a performance of Death and the Maiden (among other pieces). I felt so cultured, I had to come home and make tuna casserole and wear my sweatpants and wifebeater tank.

That is all.

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Dog Day Afternoon
23
February
The Girlwonder

Thanks for the kind words for the passing of my beloved Chow. He lived a full life – he was well traveled and was able to experience International crotch sniffing. I know he’s in a better place now. I miss him terribly.

That said … it’s been eleven years since I first brought him home as a foster Chow, and in that time there were very few days that I wasn’t mentally tallying the hours until I had to get home and let my dog out. That’s eleven years of being restricted from leaving the house for more than 7-8 hours at a time. Eleven years of no overnight trips anywhere.

Now when I have Tsunami with me, I don’t have to go home at all. The cats are fine on their own as long as there’s water and kibble. So yesterday I buckled Tsunami into his sweet new seatbelt harness and off we went! We went first to the pet store where we bought a SMALL bag of SMALL bites kibble. This will probably last him 2 months or more. We also stocked up on training treats to prepare for learning to heel and walk properly on the leash.To that end, I also have two seasons of the Dog Whisperer to watch.

Overall, it was a  long but productive day. I woke up this morning thinking about all of the change that’s happened since the first of the year – I downsized a few friends, quit the pool league because I didn’t want to invite any additional drama into my life, my dog died and my father is sick…work has been steady but all over the place, travel, tech, lifestyle. I realized that this year is a year of change and rebirth. I just have to have faith that wherever it all ends up, however far it goes, it was all meant to be. I guess I just need to let go and let Dog.

While I was at Les Schwab yesterday having the banshees that live in my wheelwells serviced, I saw a pack of hippies (think Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem band from the Muppets) traveling by rooftop across what must have been a fourplex. I felt bad because they probably didn’t even know they had a roof-hippie infestation and once you’ve got them, they are SO hard to get rid of.

Tonight it’s art class and then baked ravioli with chicken sausage for dinner. A nice night of whispering to dogs and using my new shedding brush on the cats. It’s so gratifying to remove all of that hair that would have ended up on my black clothes, that I’m afraid I might brush them all until they’re naked. And frankly, since someone horked up a hairball on the duvet the other night, they would deserve it.

Wow. My life is incredibly boring. Thanks for reading anyway.

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Best Laid Plans
21
February
The Girlwonder

I’ve been meaning to write more but this week I had to have my dog put down and that didn’t leave me in much of a writing mood. Also, funny thing happens when your hobby becomes a career – it’s not nearly as much fun to sit at a computer and blog when you’ve been sitting at a computer and writing for what feels like weeks and weeks. I swear, if I never see a computer again, it would be fine with me.

ed note: exaggerating for effect, there’s no conceivable future that would include me not being online. Without the Food Network recipes and Google, I’d starve to death and possibly be unable to figure out how to get my pants on correctly.

So yeah, the dog thing was horrible. When someone dies, at least for me, it brings up all of the regrets you have about not being a better… in this case, parent to my dog. I think about all of the ways that I failed him over the years, whether they are realistic or not. In light of this, I am now overcompensating with my little dog. He had a day of beauty the day before yesterday, a bath and nail clipping, then he got a new seatbelt harness because I’m worried that I’ll slam on the brakes and snap his little doggie neck by accident if I keep tethering him with his leash in the car. I also bought him a pony and Ducati. I was going to purchase a three story doggie mansion but I thought that might be overkill. I don’t want to go crazy, you know?

Meanwhile, in the world of never-ending work…I am at the halfway mark for my latest book, which is a relief. Now I can start focus on this other horrible, horrible, book. Both are due at the same time – one is 50% done and the other is .02% done. I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat about it. Bad.

In other news, because I’m insane, I’m going to none other than Cabo San Lucas for spring break. I know, I know – Spring Break, College kids, massive parties and the Girl Wonder – one of these things doesn’t belong. Still, I know it will be fun and I have an idea on how to avoid the crowds and college kids. (Hint: it involves an underground lair and copious pharmaceuticals).

Well, that’s all the news fit to print. Now I need to get my spareribs into the crockpot and get to work.

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The Time Has Come
13
February
The Girlwonder

not to talk of shoes or ships or sealing wax but for me to get back to blogging.

I need all of the cheap/free therapy I can get these days.

So what’s been going on with me?

Well, my father is still dying which I am not dealing with all that well.

My dog is also dying and next week if he doesn’t respond to the medication that the vet gave me, I will need to have him put to sleep.

I found some redundancies in my Friends staff and had to make some cuts. It’s true that downsizing and the economy hits us in unexpected ways. I weeded out my FB friends, my IM contacts and while I was attempting to phase someone out of my life like they do in the restaurant business (by slowly cutting their hours) ultimately I was confronted and had to find a nice way to tell someone that I thought they were a crappy friend and that I felt our relationship had reached it’s apex. Awkward.

But good things are happening too.

I put one book to bed – I am now officially the author of two books and by this time next year, it will be four, possibly five. My only goal with this so far, is to start getting enough in royalties every quarter that I can move somewhere cheap and not have to worry about scrambling for work.

I started school – taking my art class and my web design class. I am taking creative writing and art over the summer with the idea of creating a portfolio for admissions into a grad program. I’m sure it won’t hurt that I’m already published even if it is only in non-fiction (which pays way better than fiction, I might point out). I’m hoping to get into Berkeley’s masters program, to live off grants and royalties and advances. I believe if I play my cards right, I could stay a student possibly forever.

I bought a TV. I did it. I broke down and bought a new TV. I’ve been trying so hard to be frugal and responsible but I couldn’t take it anymore. I work hard and I felt I deserved a TV big enough that I could read the text on my video games. So I bought one – a 32″ Panasonic – nothing extravagant. It is glorious.

My old TV, a 20″ LCD one, is now my new computer monitor. I’ve hooked up the laptop into this frankenstein mess of wires and connections so that when I’m at home, I have a giant monitor, a full sized keyboard (complete with the letter H) and a mouse. It’s lovely.

I went and saw Alice in Chains. They were amazing. Not the best concert I’ve been to in the last year – The Pogues win that honor but they were still great. Man in the Box brought the house down.

So that’s the good and the bad of  the last few weeks, anyway.

In other news, I’ve decided to downsize my wardrobe. I pulled a ton of stuff out that I need to put up on eBay this week because it’s all like-new, name brand stuff. I figure even a few bucks is better for my wallet than donating it all. (I might add that I don’t need the tax break, last year according my taxes, I made -$35. That’s right, negative). I am attempting to create a closet wherein everything matches. To that end, I’m limiting myself to buying in three colors (black, white, gray) with occasional exceptions (brown mostly but I did just buy a hot pink sweater because I know the color works for me and the cut was very flattering – plus it’s DKNY and was on sale for $14 at Macy’s).  I know this is strange and not what normal people do (my campaign to become a normal person is temporarily suspended) but I think it will be practical in the long run and help curb my need to shop when I get depressed or am feeling deprived.

I’m planning a birthday vacation – true, it’s a working vacation (tax write off, bitches) because it’s for research for one of my books, but it’s still a vacation! With one of my best friends, which makes it so much more awesome.

On the downside, it will be my birthday next month. Probably because several people I know died this year plus my dad’s stuff and my dog, I’ve been obsessing about aging, dying and death. I’ve also been considering how my life is vs. how I wanted my life to be at this age. That’s some sobering contemplation, I’ll tell you. The  good news is that that’s led to some good fodder for my actual fiction novel I’m writing and the bad news is that it’s depressing in real life.

But generally that’s how writing works anyway.

Category: Therapy, Twaddle  2 Comments
So Unfair
19
January
The Girlwonder

Remember when I went out on a blind date with a midget/dwarf/little person this summer? I might have stuck around a little longer if he were Rain Man (and now I feel better knowing i’m not the only one tricked into dwarf dating).

Category: Madness  3 Comments
Stockpiles in the Bunker
18
January
The Girlwonder

I probably think about deleting my Facebook account about… 45 times a week. Every time I read (or enter) an inane status update, every time I get a friend request from a friend of a friend who doesn’t actually know me and every time I get invited to join a cause, donate money, fan a page or start a farm. I want to delete my account but I don’t for three reasons:

1) I use it to keep in touch with people I care but who I never call because I suck like that.

2) To at least peripherally acknowledge said people’s birthdays (without FB, I’d have no idea when my own birthday was let alone my friend’s birthdays)

3) To find out about any particularly important events that have taken place in the world.

And so this is how I found out that there was a big ass storm heading this way that could drop like 20 inches of rain. So I stockpiled food so that I don’t need to leave my house. I even bought bottled water because if the electricity goes out, the pump to the well won’t work. See? Prepared and organized! It’s my new thing.

To that end, I dumped the buffet that I was using as cupboards on Craigslist and added my $6 desk that the hottie at the thrift store sold me and now that I finally have my office chair back from the compound, I actually have a WORK space. I am sitting at my desk right now! I havent’ worked at a desk since the last time I held a real job which was August, 2006. Holy crap. That means in August it will be four years of supporting myself more or less through writing. Wowsa.

Yesterday was the day that I got the chair so I set the desk all up and then went through the house and reorganized under the bed to accommodate more crap that I had to shove under there. I have all of my reference books on the desk, along with my bills and paperwork. Yesterday I got more done at home than possibly well, ever. I can practically feel the NYT bestselling novel creeping its way to the surface of my brain.

As part of my stockpiles, I made “easy” Moroccan chicken for dinner last night and made couscous for the very first time ever. I had no idea how stupid easy it was. As for the chicken, the easy part was buying the baked chicken from the supermarket and using canned peaches instead of apricots but it ended up being quite excellent (olive oil, garlic, brown sugar, OJ, canned peaches and red wine (altho I used balsamic) vinegar for the sauce). When I get done typing this post, I’m throwing together the split pea and ham soup. I even turned down an invite to Indian food at the best tikka masala place in town so I could cook (responsible! organized!).

Why yes, this could be one of the 7 signs…

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Get Off of My Lawn
13
January
The Girlwonder

Yesterday I started my art class at the junior college. I’ve never felt so old and depressed in my life. Not about the class; the class looks fun. But out of the 20 or so students that will be making the semester journey with me, I’m one of four returning students (that’s what they call us old people) and 16 eleven year olds. At least, they look eleven. And kind of act eleven. I have taken a vow of silence in order to not become one of the annoying “old” students who monopolizes the conversation in class and acts like a know it all. I hated those students my first go-round in college and since there’s already two in my class, I find that I still hate them just as much.

There’s one know-it-all suck up (tell us about your background in art and what media you like to work with, professor) and there’s one super old guy who’s never taken an art class before and requires extremely specific instructions about everything (now how do I know I’m buying pastels? Does it say so on the box?). Sigh. Do not kill anyone with my protractor, that is my singular goal this semester.

I love being on campus though. Love it. I did some work in the food court yesterday and watched three geeks play some Magic type card game. I wandered halls looking at student art work. I enjoyed the spacious seating and outlets in the library and finally for the first time in my life, I got a cute student ID photo taken. I can’t wait to take more classes. If I weren’t so busy with writing books right now, I’d add at least one more.

Meanwhile back in Stick Your Head in the Oven land… I had met this really good looking guy a while back and then didn’t run into him again until last week right before my trip. He was still really good looking but this time he had … a wedding ring. THIS is exactly why I have put a moratorium on dating. As soon as I saw that (he must have slipped it off last time we chatted at the bar), I made my hasty exit. No thanks.

I’ve decided to get serious about this whole “work” thing and that means having a space where I can really sit at a desk and work on my computer. In light of that, I went to my favorite thrift store to find a shitty computer desk that I can stuff into my 2X2 kitchen. Lo and behold, the hot thrift store guy was working. After stalking him a little a few months back, I found that he, too, has a girlfriend and so he became one of the untouchables. But that did not stop me from letting him sell me a desk for $10 – then he put the moves on me at my car. Yeaaaaahhhhh…no. Not interested. Even more interesting (read: off-putting) is that I offered friendship instead of illicit fornication and he replied with “no, to me that’s worse.” So being casual friends with someone is somehow worse than sticking your pee-pee into them behind your long term baby momma’s back… nice. Some days I wonder if I’m part of the human race at all.

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Another “Coincidence”
05
January
The Girlwonder

I think it’s an unsurprising and fair assessment to say that I’m not the best at money management. I never have been and most days it seems I never will be, despite my dedication to Money Magazine and the myriad times I’ve read, “Girl, Get Your Money Straight.”

I’m also under a slot of stress with deadlines whizzing by because there’s been some days recently where I’ve been so despondent about my father’s impending demise that all I can do is cry and feel awful, make tea, cry some more and then watch Star Trek TNG.

I’m trying to get ready for this trip I’m taking on Friday so yesterday was errand day – make a new house key for the sitter, go to the bank, etc… I worked in the morning, turned in my errant chapter and off I went into the world.

Right before xmas, I had a payment due on my Nordie’s card and since I don’t have a bank account, I’ve had to have various people make payments for me. So what happened was that my friend called in a payment for me and the CS person debited the person who made the payment before. Since this was from an almost totally unused account and I wasn’t expecting anything to be debited from it, I didn’t give the owner of the account the money and so it became overdrawn. Now, since I didn’t know that the charge was coming through, thus I didn’t know it was overdrawn, by the time I got the overdrawn notice from my friend, I was also charged an extended overdraft fee – so now the account is $40 in the hole plus $70 in fees and growing. I went to the bank again yesterday to talk to the manager about reversing the original charges and removing the fees. Then I’d just take up the matter where it belongs – with Nordstrom (who said that there’s no way for them to refund me bank fees). The whole situation is very stressful.

Errands proved almost fruitless – bank manager blew me off and said he call me (no one who has ever said they would call from a company ever has), I drove all the way out to nowhere land to go to a computer repair place to see if they had brackets that would reattached the letter H to my new laptop’s keyboard after Apollo ripped it off but my computer is too new, the consignment shop owner I need to meet with about selling my dresser never showed up at work, etc… I was just spinning my wheels.

Then I come home to my landlord calling me to say that she went to cash my rent check and there were insufficient funds (I did finally get a bank account after xmas) and so I looked up my account online and lo and behold, part of my brain being on vacation without me resulted in my forgetting to deduct my phone bill from my account balance and now I was $112 short on rent.

Did I mentioned that the department of education sent me a bill for $107,000 yesterday? Yes. That would be my student loans (it’s a long story but net-net= I should have paid better attention to those financial aid counselors in college).

Add the financial stress (how can I get the money to pay the rent and buy dog food and still have gas to get to the airport?) to the whole “my father is dying and I may never see him again after this visit” stress plus the “I’m writing three books that I’m way behind on and my clients aren’t too happy with me either right now” stress and I had a full melt down last night.

But after my BFF talked me down and I was calm again (and watching Star Trek TNG, my current poor man’s opiate), I looked up at the ceiling and straight up told the universe – you need to cut me some slack if you want me to get through this because I’m at the very, very end of my rope. And I was thisclose to putting my head in the toaster oven (I don’t have a real oven – still).

Twenty minutes later – that makes it about 7:30 pm, perhaps later, a received an email about a direct deposit – part of an advance on a book that I thought I wouldn’t see until at least February. So in a day or two everything will be fine again for a little while. I can pay my bills, feed the dogs and buy some foundation. Another crisis averted through universe manipulation.

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It’s That Time Again
01
January
The Girlwonder

Thank God the holidays are over. Really. I was the ultimate grinch this year. I bought presents for two toys for tots kids and that’s it. I baked cookies and only gave them to two people. I threw the rest out. I didn’t buy or make or send a single card to anyone I know (although I did send three xmas cards to soldiers serving overseas). There were no holiday decorations, no tree, not even the wreath I said I was going to buy. I couldn’t wait for the season to be OVER.

Now it’s New Year’s Day and time for resolutions. (If you’re wondering what I did last night, party animal that I am – I ate too much fancy cheese, drank some ginger ale and watched a lot of Star Trek TNG. I might have also had some Ben and Jerry’s).

I got up and cleaned and organized my kitchen because one of my resolutions involves menu planning. That’s the other thing I did this morning – planned the next week’s worth of meals and organized my cookbooks.

My father’s surgery didn’t go well and I’m taking a trip to see him next week. He’s been told that there are no more treatments available. My father turned 60 last month.

It made me think of all the time I waste, vegging out, zoning out, spacing out – doing nothing, sitting on my ass, trying to avoid responsibility or leaving the house (that’s mostly an effort to save money, leave the house = gas, sometimes food, purchases, etc…). I think that there are better things I could be doing with my time and for myself.

Did I mention that threw out all the junk food this morning? Yep – all of the stuff I had for baking cookies and treats (goodbye remaining Nilla wafer left over from rum balls and goodbye hot fudge!). My one remaining treat is some hot chocolate mix that someone gave me for xmas with homemade marshmallows and a candy cane. I will have that tonight after dinner.

As an incentive, I am redoing my two family recipe books and to atone for my appalling lack of holiday spirit (no matter how understandable), I am going to make some gifts for the people in my family and my dearest friends and give them to them throughout the year at random intervals. A few years ago I stopped feeling constrained by holidays and birthdays for gift giving. Isn’t it more delightful to receive something unexpectedly anyway?

So the menu planning dovetails nicely with my diet – I must lose the weight I’ve put on since returning to the land of delicious cheese and gourmet pizza. I am transcending the need for food through the use of tea. I have a pretty tea pot and am on the lookout for some nice tea cups. I have 9 kinds of tea to suit any mood. Instead of snacking between meals, I shall have tea. Loads and loads of tea. (well, maybe I will make little tea sandwiches because I can but they will be healthy like watercress or smoked salmon).

Meanwhile for my professional resolution I will write a best selling novel and also, stop accepting book deals to write on topics that I know nothing about. Turns out that’s a lot of extra work.

I will make the leaderboard on the pool league.

I think that’s about it. It’s going to be a very, very hard year for me as it is and I don’t want to overwhelm myself with too much.

I will tell you this though – I spent about 20 hours with much consternation over the fact that I have no tea kettle – I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to make tea without one. I tried heating up water in the microwave but I only have a 2-cup measuring cup that’s microwave safe. Finally, after much deliberation the answer came to me in an epiphany: I could just use a pan to heat up the water on the stove. Wow. I don’t know if this is better or worse than the time my key fob battery died and I couldn’t figure out how to get into my car … until it dawned on me that I could insert the key in the hole and turn it.

Category: Twaddle  2 Comments
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