Things I Have Done in November: A List

I will have you know that I have already put three whole holiday gifts in the mail, which is very organized, don't you think?

I also completed a novel for National Novel Writing Month while tackling a high-stress, all-consuming editing project.

Additionally, I watched many episodes of Big Love. There's just something about immersing yourselves in the trials and tribulations of a polygamist family that's a good antidote to stress.

I taught a day-long blogging workshop at Richard Hugo House, one of my favorite places in all the world. It was a good class but it made me I realize I prefer longer classes where I get to know my students. (Speaking of which I have one coming up in January, so check my web site for more info!)

This week, for the first time, I also met the high-school students that I'll be co-leading to Morocco this summer. That really energized me after being cooped up in my condo for a month with my gassy but adorable pug (posing above with his special commemorative pillow) editing until I was cross-eyed, and indulging in too much polygamist soap opera. They seem like an amazing and accomplished group of kids and I think I will learn so much by being involved with them, and with this project.

And last but not least on this *spine-tingling* list, I went on the first ski of the season at our old favorite haunt, the Cabin Creek Sno-Park.

We had the exhilarating little ups and downs mostly to ourselves since no one else was out there on the day after Thanksgiving. It was very satisfying when Dave wiped out trying to pass me on a hill; I only wish we had a video if it.

In the good old days, we always skied there with our dear friends Eric and Valerie, who recently sailed off to the southern hempishere on their boat (along with their intrepid cat, Miette).

Sailing all the way from Seattle to La Paz, Mexico, they've braved huge swells, storms, broken sails, and whales that actually attacked a boat in their regatta on the way from San Diego to Baja! You can read about their adventures here.

Meanwhile I'm trying to be patient until my own next big adventure...and trying to remember that LIFE ITSELF is an adventure even if it's feeling dull because I haven't been to a foreign country in FOUR WHOLE MONTHS.

Ahem. Have I convinced you yet?

Snow-o-Rama

This weekend I was not exactly at my sparkling best. For one, I was *supposed* to go backcountry skiing on Saturday. Then I bailed because of "winter storm warnings," etc. And because when I woke up in the middle of the night, rain was falling in Biblical proportions.

These are perfectly good excuses not to go outdoors. But I know myself better than that. I know that if I do not get out in the mountains at least once a week that my outlook on life gets extremely grim.

I secretly hoped everyone else would cancel. That weather would turn them around. That they would arrive at their destination and be so miserable that they gave up in despair.

But this was not the case. They all had fun! While I, on the other hand, stayed home and got increasingly agitated, getting everyone else (dog, boyfriend) increasingly agitated along with me so that a massive fight broke out by 8 p.m.

So I made a choice. The next day I blew off all other responsibilities and went skiing. The weather wasn’t much better. It was snowing the whole time. All the slopes were a big slab waiting to avalanche so we just skied along a road. But, Glory Halleleleujah, I got my exercise and my dose of UV rays and a few mountain views and I was golden.

I stayed toasty dry in my jaunty blue Marmot Oracle jacket (pictured above). I am one of the least gear-savvy outdoor freaks around but I do know this: if your jacket doesn't keep you dry, you're doomed.

This video from British company Webtogs actually taught me a lot about rain shells that I didn't know -- for example, that all these years I've been buying "membrane" jackets as opposed to "coated" jackets - and that Gore-tex is a type of membrane. The cute outdoorsy British dude mentions Berghaus jackets (a Euro brand) as an example of a good membrane jacket but I'll stick with my Marmot, thanks very much!

And I’ll be sure to get out it in next weekend, or else.

Gray April Day Blues

You know, sometimes it is rather glamorous being a quasi-employed, underselling novelist, occasional travel writer, undiscovered rock star, and pseudo ski bunny.

There are sun-spangled days spent in the snow; music-filled nights at bars around town; the occasional reader who tells me "I loved your book!" The nights I can stay up as late as I want reading; the mornings I spend getting to know the characters in my next novel; the freedom to do whatever the hell I want, when I want (as long as it doesn't cost more than five bucks). (Photo of Mount Rainier by Chris Olson)

Then again, there are the aimless days. When I am listless and tired from music-filled nights at bars. When the lack of structure overwhelms me. When it would be good to have an office to go to or coworkers to talk to or at the very least a dog to walk!

There are the days when I think good God, this novel will be so much WORK because it's not about ME and I have to create these people out of thin air, with all their histories and desires and lovable idiosyncracies! And after all that work will it even get published?

There are the days I stress about money and miss my high-earning past when I didn't mind selling my soul for a little security. When my health benefits were all paid for (and then some!) and that employee stock purchase plan made my money multiply like crazy.

Whoa boy, that all seems so long ago.

At least I just got some work to tide me over for a few weeks, and that will also help pay for the massive auto repair bill that just came my way. (Are there any OTHER type of auto repair bills than massive ones?) Meanwhile, in one of my less glamorous ski bunny moments, enjoy this video of me falling flat on my a*s while cross-country skiing while my friend Eric mocks me from behind the camera. (I fell again around the corner but no one saw!)

xo
Rebecca

Take This Job and Shove It II

Is it any wonder I'm having trouble going back to the cubicle? After a winter spent playing outdoors in the glorious Cascade Mountains?

In a fit of rebellion, I turned down a job at Hotel Californiasoft the other day after somehow managing to convince a group of four very serious techies that I was passionate about developer documentation and would do a bang-up job if they hired me. (Give the girl an Oscar!)

Only they wouldn't let me work from home at all. Hello? Excuse me? I don't DO the east side for work anymore. I don't DO cubicles anymore. Got that, MAN? You can take your cushy, million-an-hour, so-boring-I-want-to-kill-myself job and give it to some poor sucker who actually wants to make a living!

I do...uh...volunteering for good causes where I don't get paid any money but I get to ski! And read stories to kindergarten classes! And drinking expensive lattes around town as my savings account dwindles!

So THERE.

Honky Tonk Memories

Chaos-as judged by how much crap is being stored on my bed-- descended briefly on my condo this week. For a couple days there, every inch of my bed was covered: with books, skiing gear, clean laundry, dirty laundry,and-to top it all off - a generous sprinkling of cracker crumbs that fell out of my backpack.

Now most of it is gone except a couple books, a few cracker crumbs and, the bag that I'm packing for this weekend. I'm off to do the Hog Loppet again - that fun silly ski event in Leavenworth wherein you ski 30 kilmoters just for the fun of it, thereby rendering yourself unable to walk for several days.

Not that I have time for such frippery. Numerous deadlines are encroaching on me next week: classes to teach, articles to write, all of which I am seriously underprepared for. Who knew that being unemployed would be so much work?

Meanwhile, my band played to a small but PBR-primed crowd at the Mars Bar last night (see poster above). I played a new piano intro to one of our songs that I worked and WORKED on to the point where I knew I was working on it too much and then of course I effed it up - leaving out the cool fill that would have made me sound like a real honky tonk piano player instead of some chick from Palo Alto who who grew up playing Mozart. But at least I didn't play any wrong notes; I just left out the coolest part and messed up the rhythm the tiniest bit.

I couldn't hear myself when I sang harmony either so for all I know I could have been singing something that was totally NOT harmonic at all. But people were dancing to our songs and that makes it all a success. Plus we made five bucks apiece. With that and my unemployment checks, I am rolling in it.

Do What You Love and...You Know the Rest

So I recently scored a rather dreamy gig being writer-in-residence at Mount Rainier National Park (one of the most beautiful places in the world). I don't know if I'm offically called "writer in residence" but that's what I'm calling myself cause it sounds cool.

It involves hanging out a lot at the park; helping update and expand their climbing blog; "patrolling" the area on skis so I can write about it; helping them develop their artistic programs, and partying with the climbing rangers. Here is a picture of the "office" from just the other day.

I'm not really getting paid, naturally, because that would be much too practical for me. As I've said before (or some variation on it), "Do what you love and you'll be forever f*cking broke."

Happy 2008

OK! I think I have finally recovered enough from the holidays to blog again. My waistline, perhaps, has not recovered from the many pounds of cheese, potato chips, and pizza consumed during my ski trip to the Methow Valley in Eastern Washington--but I overcame my post-holiday blues during a single day of frenzied closet-cleaning and am now back to my usual level of productivity. (Sleep: Nine hours per day. Work: Four hours per day. The rest: Who knows?).

My trip, thank you very much, was delightful - full of blindingly blue skies, powdery white snow, freezing temperatures, and mountains seemingly devoid of people except for us.
They all teemed along the groomed cross-country trails on the valley floor. On "The Methow Valley Community Trail", you can ski for miles and miles past farms, through forest,over charming country bridges draped in snow.

The smiling, spandex clad skate skiers probably teemed along the many other groomed trails too - however, we were too cheap go on those trails, since they cost you a whopping $20 a day. Besides, we hate people.

And once we stepped off the groomers,it was as if we had the entire valley to ourselves. Including one area with wide-open powder slopes and expansive views (only minutes from the road) that we yo yo'd up and down with great gusto, because what more could you want? (Except maybe a lot of money, a book on the bestseller list, a vacation home on an island, and eternal life).

Now I'm back in cold, rainy Seattle where there is no structure in my mostly-unemployed life except that which I create myself. However, I've mostly gotten used to that, carving a structure out of nothing: one that consists of sleeping a lot, spending much time in coffeeshops, working on the feeble second draft of the novel I wrote in November, applying for fun and rewarding-sounding jobs that pay next to nothing, and both dreading and anticipating my return to Hotel Californiasoft two months hence.

When, just over a year ago, I returned to the place from which you can never leave, I meant to have an alternative plan in place by now: one in which I had my ideal combination of jobs and was supporting myself with them but alas, I'm still figuring out what that combination looks like, and failing to make money at any of them.

Though I must send a shout-out to the store "Yeah Baby" in Fairfax, California, which sold 16 copies of my book (on consignment) in under a month! So it's not fair to myself to say I'm not making "any" money doing things I love. I earned enough from those sales to pay for two tanks of gas! Yaay me! And yaay Yeah Baby!

It feels great to know my book can fly off the shelves in the right circumstances. On that positive, caffeine-fueled note, I bid you adieu. Until next time, enjoy this wacky ski video starring yours truly!

Safe Despite Lack of Safety Bars

Drat. Is my (working) vacation already over? Nooooo! I want it back! I could live in a place like the Alta Lodge permanently. Comfy room with a view of the slopes...











Four-course meals every night... My own smiling ski guide to take me out into the backcountry every day...











... only to return to the hot tub which has even more stellar mountain views than my room. Meanwhile, mail went unopened, bills went unpaid and the ongoing bureaucratic snafu that is my life continued without me, while I -- sans cell phone and laptop -- soaked blissfully unburdened as it all piled up at home.

Well I'm back now. But too damn bleary to do anything halfway productive so all I can really do is gaze upon my photos and remember the good old days yesterday when I was skiing in Utah (yes, that tiny dot is me.)










You'll be happy to know no thunderstorm materialized in Salt Lake City as I flew in. However, I am sorry to report that there is not a safety bar to be found ANYWHERE at the Alta Ski resort. This made for some tough times for this not-so-intrepid-wanna-be-travel journalist who was running low on Xanax.

But I only spent half of one day riding those those metal deathtraps before realizing I needed to hoard the Xanax for the return flight (in case of more so-called thunderstorms), so on Friday afternoon I threw in the towel and took a freakin' nap. The next two days I spent getting to the mountain tops they way humans are supposed to: ON FOOT.








xo,
Rebecca

Get Me a Safety Bar, Pronto!

Do you ever have one of those days where you’re tired? Say, perhaps, where you took a 6:30 a.m. flight and are therefore not only sleep-deprived but emotionally drained, having risked your life in the stormy skies in the wee hours of the morning on only one cup of very weak Seattle’s Best "Coffee" served to you by the airline?

You get to work, and you really do make your best effort to work, yet you are so distracted by the Internet because your brain is so fuzzy it can’t focus on the xyz site collection object and how it determines whether the wxy list should be formatted on the zw3@!#$ing server.

But the Internet provides no relief. Because on a day like today when your ego droops with your eyelids, it only reminds you of your inadequacies. You read blogs and think: that person is a better writer than me. Look at digital photo albums and think: that person is a better photographer than me. Read your friends’ emails and think: they are having more fun than me.

Then again, I’ll be dropping off cornices in the Wasatch backcountry in a few days. Well, more like tumbling my way down 15-degree slopes while everyone marvels at my lack of skill and pretending not to be scared on the ski lifts. I’m perfectly fine when the ski lifts have safety bars on them. WHY DON’T ALL SKI LIFTS HAVE SAFETY BARS ON THEM? Don’t they know that people like me have nothing better to do with their brains then concoct panic-ridden fantasies about how they’re going to jump off a ski lift? Plus, it's just not safe without a safety bar, now IS IT?

Shakin' and Skiin' and Savin' Dough

My life continues to be in a weird limbo state but things are shaking and moving. (In some ways. In other ways, they are still as a pond in a Zen garden.). I'm starting the freelance writing thing again. The rusty wheels are creaking into motion with ideas. I've even scored myself an assignment (of sorts) to go to this ski seminar and write about it.

In other writing news, I had lots of fun providing the "literary entertainment" at Centerpoint's recent fundraiser and posing as a "writing professional" ontheir career panel on writing last week. Any time I sit in front of an audience of hopeful writers, my heart goes out to them. Writing=pain! Trying to be a writer=pain! Even when you're a rich and famous writer like me=pain! So I want to do everything I can to help them.

My muse, however, has been hiding out. I've gotten sick of tracking that b*tch down, so whatever. Let her stay in her palapa in Mexico or wherever she is, drinking Negro Modelos and flirting with the help. There are plenty of things I can write without her - like blog entries and query letters. And extremely uninspired first-person essays (another recent project of mine.) Here's a sneak peek from a never-to-be-published essay about my trip to Patagonia last year:

"So I’d reluctantly let myself be dragged out of the tent into this wild day and now I was regretting it. I comforted myself with the thought that the group of Chileans we passed on our way up here would probably die before us. Several members of their party were wearing jeans and they were moving slowly. We, on the other hand, were clothed in the latest in REI outerwear, but were were still going to die. I was sure of it. And we wouldn’t even get a good view in the process. "

Meanwhile, I also edit boring technical documents for absurd amounts of money and I continue to get out into the snow every weekend, dragging my poor boyfriend along for the ride. This weekend, our adventure consisted of staying at the Mountaineers Lodge at Stevens Pass, which was an absolute laugh riot. The venerable Mountaineers club of Seattle loves nothing more than to control its memebers with a plethora of rules, regulations, and bureaucracy, not to mention making them rise at insanely early hours for any activity.

So I suppose it should have been no surprise that we were awakened at SEVEN AM by a BREAKFAST CALL that involved a loud clanging of pots and pans that even the most tranquilized of Mountaineers members (and I think I can be included in that category) could sleep through. Not only that, we had to do CHORES after breakfast, after which we were released on our own recognizance.

At least it was cheap. And there we were, right in Stevens Pass, and we took a lovely snowshoe trip up into a lakes basin, which, although it was right near the ski area was quiet and covered in freshly fallen snow. We were the only people around, and surrounded by the tracks of all sorts of little animals. There is nothing so peaceful, I think, as the mountains in snow. I would never survive the gray Seattle winters without it.

Finally, these days, I am all about saving money. I have never really been frugal in my life, not least since I became a full-time employee of Geeksoft five years ago. But the times they are a changin' and even though I pull in a good hourly rate, the fact is, my employment is now much more unpredictable and I'm not getting paid for my vacation. And I'm headed away from the full-time corporate routine.

I asked my friend Michelle, of Anti 9-5 Guide fame, how she managed the financial challenges of being a freelancer. And she said, she's been freelancing for so long now that she's just naturally frugal and doesn't "buy anything." Well, my problem is the opposite: I've been on Geeksoft's payroll for so long, I'm naturally profligate! But people can change. Proof of this fact: just last week, for the first time in I-don't-know-how-many-years, I started making my own lunch.

With that scintillating fact, I will leave you - breathlessly waiting for more.

xo
Rebecca

Ski Lifts Don't Like Me

Good gray morning to everyone, to all my (five) fans, to the academy...

Thanks to Shel for her suggestion of a good book about blogging to use for my blogging class! I bought it from InsertNameofGiantEtailer here right away.

If anyone else has suggestions they'd like to share, share away. Here are some things I'm looking for:

As an aspiring writer, if you were to take a blogging class, what would you want to know?

If you are a blogger who has lots of readers, what did you do to promote your blog?

What makes a good or a bad blog?

Do you get paid to blog? If so, who do you blog for and how did you land that gig?

In other news...I'm off to try to ski 30 kilometers this weekend in that world-famous death-defying ski race known as the Hog Loppet. Actually it is not a race and it is not death defying in any way unless of course you fall off the ski lift on the way to the top of Mission Ridge, which is where the non-race starts. I don't get along well with ski lifts so this is always a possiblity.

In fact, a couple weeks ago when I went skiing up at Olympic National Park's beautiful Hurricane Ridge, I managed to fall off both the so-called ski lifts there, one a rope tow and one a Poma lift (a metal bar with a tiny seat that you "sit" on while you leave your skis on the ground.) At least I had the sense to let go of the Poma lift before it dragged me all the way up the stupid mountain. Yeah, cause I'm cool like that.

I did manage to find a bit of corn snow on the south side of Hurricane Ridge where there were no barbaric ski lifts and no people, except for the jealous snowshoers at the top who watched us swoop [ski slowly] down the sixty-degree [20-degree] slope. Ah, yes. Beautiful views, sun, snow, and solitude. You can see my "ski instructor" (aka a famous rock star going incognito), making his way back up the slope here.

Anyway, so back to this weekend. I'll be out there at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning, attempting not to fall off a ski lift and to ski farther than I ever have in my life.

xo
Rebecca

I Heart Being Alone

I am rather sad about ending my beloved blog, Breakup Babe. But life goes on, does it not? Besides, now that I’ve rid myself of the name, I’m sure that I will find true love INSTANTLY, like the second I walk out the door of this coffee house onto the icy cold street.

Except I wouldn’t know true love if it whacked me in the head with a ski pole. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been “in love?” Longer than most of you have been alive. I hear it’s horribly overrated. That is chews you up and spits you out, leaving you older and more scarred than ever before, with a new piece of hideous baggage that has dirty underwear sticking out of it.

Strangely, however, the protagonist of my next novel is going to be “in love.” Some of you people might need to remind me what it’s like to be “in love.” My ancient memories are dim. But I thought it might be a lark to write about a “good” relationship for once, since I will probably never again be in one in my whole damn life. (I'm not asking for anyone's pity! I heart being alone! Hear me? HEART it!)

In other news, I’m off to the hills this weekend to exercise some of my fledgling backcountry ski skills and hopefully not get caught in any avalanches. It’s going to be a nice, toasty 15-degrees, with temperatures plunging at night. Luckily there will three of us (me plus two cute boys!) crammed into a two-person cabin so I plan to stay plenty warm.

Have a good holiday weekend.
Xo
Rebecca