Stop Quotation Mark Abuse!

Well I partially solved the winter wardrobe problem by spending my entire savings account at Benneton the other day for the purchase of four sweaters and a winter coat.

Now at least I have the basics.

I didn't even really know Benneton was still around. I do recall shopping there when I was about 12, thinking the sweaters were beautiful, and very-well folded, and exorbitantly expensive. I remember them costing about $200 apiece but this can't be right since they now go for about $40. Perhaps it just seemed that way because back then I only got a dollar a week allowance.

I also remember going on some rant about Benneton ads back in a graduate school class - oh yes - when they were featuring people who were HIV-positive in their ads. I don't remember what I said exactly, although I probably used the word "otherness" a lot because that's a word they like to use in grad school. No doubt it wasn't nearly as entertaining as the oral report (ahem) that I gave on sex toys, pontificating on the sociocultural implications of vibrating dildos as I waved one around in front of the class.

Those were the days.

So back to me. I want to direct to you to a blog after my own heart -- The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks . Those of you who've been privileged to ride up the elevator in my condo with me know that one of my favorite pastimes is dissecting the grammatical errors in the flyers created by the condo board, which are often full of unnecessary quotes. They are fond, for example, of using the phrase "We are sorry for the inconvenience." So clearly they are not sorry at all, not for the inconvenience, and not for perpetrating ghastly punctuation on those imprisoned in the slow (and might I add, dangerous elevator).

Perhaps, like Lynn Truss, the author of the very entertaining Eats, Shoots & Leaves dreams of doing, I should create stickers to post on offending material. "Stop quotation mark abuse!" or some such thing.

Or maybe I should just get a life.

Winter Wardrobe Blues

You know, it's a good thing the paparazzi aren't stalking me anymore because I'd probably end up on some worst-dressed lists, or on Go Fug Yourself or something.

I did OK during the summer with the addition of an all-purpose denim skirt and black capri pants to my wardrobe. Those, along with the many halter tops I seem to own, did just fine.

Winter, however, is another matter. I did buy one nice sweater - a soft, gray, long thing. But it poufs out in the middle and makes me look pregnant (not that there is anything wrong with looking pregnant, mind you, if one IS pregnant). If one can't look thin AND stylish, is it better to look thin? Or stylish?

In any case, I have to wear the thing, because the rest of my sweaters have 1)shrunk in the wash so that they reveal my torso in a very unflattering and out-of-date way 2)are from Value Village and look like it. The winter pants in my wardrobe, moreover, are 1)stained 2)have malfunctioning zippers or 3)give me diaper-butt.

Sigh. How did it get this way? I love the winter but not when I have to go out looking like such a fashion reject. Used to be I had many sweaters, in all sorts of shapes and sizes. I wore miniskirts and tights and boots to work all the time! Have I gotten old? Is that why I don't feel like wearing miniskirts anymore? Or is it just that the pair of Target black boots I have are much too uncomfortable to wear for more than five minutes?

Luckily I'll be heading off to Mexico in a month and I can bring back those tank tops and the denim skirt for a few days. Not to mention my pink bikini, for whose sake I am now working out every day.

But coming up soon I will be taking the stage again so it is more important than ever that I find some cute outfits to wear. That's right, my rock and roll career has awoken from it's comatose slumber! I'm playing keyboards with a country outfit fronted by a very talented songwriter who tackles those good ole country themes like war, drunkenness, betrayal, absent fathers, hardscrabble small towns, and hardworking horses.

And I'm especially excited because I get to sing a song about a woman who 1)takes off her wedding ring than goes to cheat on her husband, but 2)then there's a tornado, and she 3)rushes back to find her house destroyed and is worried 4)that her husband has died in the tornado and 5)that her wedding ring is lost forever but then 6)her husband turns up and 7)so does the wedding ring, and 8)she realizes what a fool she'd been and all she needs is her husband and family to be happy, so screw the damn tornado.

I mean, I was BORN to sing this song even if I've never been in a tornado, or had a wedding ring, or a husband, for that matter. The only question is, what does one wear to sing such a song? Should I follow Dolly's leopard-printed lead?

--Love, Rebecca
Today's blog entry brought to you by numbered lists.

I Heart Vacation

Why can't all of life be like vacation? Sleeping 11 hours a night, waking up to freshly-brewed coffee, sightseeing all day, ignoring all mundane wordly cares such as bills, where-in-hell-is-your-career-going, that article that's due why you seem to be incapable of love, etc etc.



But, on the positive side of things, all my limbs are intact, bodily organs are functioning, Seattle is awash in fall colors, and they had a copy of my book in the Williamsburg Virginia Barnes and Noble!

Most of the time I don't even LOOK for BreakupBabe anymore because more of than not, she's not there. The thought hadn't even entered my head when I walked into this B&N but then GalPal #2, sneaky little devil that she is, went and looked for it - and found it! So of course I signed it with great ceremony as all her family gathered around and they put the little silver sticker on it that says "Autographed by author."

Thus did I feel the glow of stardom once again, if ever so briefly.

The other highlight of my vacation was spending a day at the Washington DC museums by myself - romping through the National Gallery - so airy and full of bright colors, touching the moon in the Air and Space Museum, stopping for delicious fry bread in the Museum of the American Indian...

There is something very special about going to museums by yourself. All that art for you to take in at your own pace, no one to tug or bug you or tell you they want to leave. The book Artist's Way recommends that aspiring artists go on weekly "artist's dates," where they do creatively stimulating outings by themselves. I love this idea and have always aspired to do the weekly artist's date but have managed maybe twice in the 10 years since I read that book.

That day in DC made up for a lot of lost artist's dates. More sobering was my trip to the Holocaust Museum, and then, following that, dragging myself to see all the memorials in the unseasonably high heat and humidity, practically keeling over as I dutifully joined the crowds at the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam War Memorial.

Then there was the trip to the Shenandoah Valley. Once the camping portion of the trip began, of course, is when it became freezing cold (AND WHEN WE REALIZED THE FALL COLORS WERE NOT GOOD THIS YEAR. I SAID I WAS GOING TO KICK SOME ASS IF THEY WEREN'T. DIDN'T I? DIDN'T I?) But nonetheless, Dave and I managed to have fun, getting in only one jet-lag induced fight, exploring the Appalachian Trail, freezing our asses off, marveling at the Deliverance-style accents we heard, etc etc.

That's me above, looking oh-so-pensively out at the nearly nonexistent fall foliage from Hawksbill Mountain and deciding whose ass to kick. This is the HIGHEST mountain in Shenandoah National Park at 4,000-something feet, these mountains being all ground-down and rounded by age unlike our youthful and still erect Cascades.

Rebecca

O, When Will My Bed be Clean?

Ah yes, pardonnez moi for being so long absent. I have been busy doing Lord knows what. Learning how to dump over in a kayak and not drown. Visiting family in the Bay Area. Working hard for one insane week at Geeksoft headquarters only return to my sun-dappled life of leisure this week. Rewriting yet again that article about backcountry skiing that I struggled with so hard the first time only to have it come back and BITE ME IN THE ASS.

As I've said I-don't-know-how-many-times before, DON'T BECOME A WRITER. Unless, that is, you want to suffer constant rejection from snooty editors who don't even bother to reply to your query letters (never mind that you are a published NOVELIST, ahem!); constant self-doubt and guilt; and the fear that you will never ever make a living doing what you love because most likely you WON'T.

I should have listened to my father when he told me to become a computer programmer. But if he wanted me to be a computer programmer why did he feed me the Great Novels from an early age instead of, say, programming manuals? Why did he tell me that I could be ANYTHING I WANTED TO BE, pay for my college tuition, and not make me do any chores, therefore ensuring that I would grow up impractical, lazy, and unfit for anything except daydreaming?

Hmmph.

Methinks perhaps I have been travelling a bit too much. You can always tell how recently I've been on a trip by how much crap is piled on my bed. When in a state of post-travel disarray, I keep the rest of my condo relatively neat and dump everything on my bed. Sometimes I can hardly sleep for the piles of luggage, shoes, books, magazines, toiletries, that threaten to push me off the side.

Right now the pile is medium high due to last weekend's whirwind trip to the Bay Area. As soon as I get it cleared off it will be time to embark on my next trip - nine whole days in Washington DC and Virginia - a part of this lovely country to which I've never been! I'll be visiting Galpal #2 in DC and then hiking around in the Shenandoah Valley hopefully where I better see some great fall colors or I'm gonna kick some serious ass. Got that Mother Nature?

Meanwhile, tentative work on the new potential-possible-novel-in-progress continues. Coming to a bookstore near you in 10 years!

xo
R

Waiting. Procrastinating. Daydreaming.

Sigh.

I am in a phase where I am just WAITING. Waiting to hear from people who - damn them! - should be rushing to call me. To hire me! To stock my book! To buy my articles!

But my inbox remains stubbornly clean except for spam.

Meanwhile, Dave and I did host the best beach party ever on the face of the planet last Saturday. The weather cooperated too, spreading sunny splendor over his verdant lawn and lovely little slice of beachfront property (oh we thank you parental types for your financial foresight back in the day when you were drinking martinis at lunch, making Boeing great, and snapping up property that would one day make your children gazillionaires, that is if they could afford the property taxes, which they can't, but still, they can at least throw great parties!)

Then, on Sunday, we enjoyed the great weather further by paddling in and around the Arboretum. There were so many people there that at I felt like I was on a water ride at Disneyland but we escaped by paddling across the lake (nearly getting run over by boat traffic in the process) to the shores of Laurelhurst, where I was going for a very peaceful swim alongside the kayak until the cursed milfoil (invasive, foreign weed!) got so thick it started wrapping its tentacles around my neck, suspiciously like a giant squid, and threatening to drag me down to the bottom of the lake.

Nonetheless, I have enjoyed my many swims in Lake Washington this summer, courtesy of aforementioned beachfront property. Slipping from the kayak into the water (or jumping in from the dock), looking down into the peaceful (scary) blackness of the lake, looking up to make sure Dave is still there paddling next to me as I do my cross-city swims (Bellevue to Mercer Island!), adjusting to the temperature, and - at last - stepping out of the water exhilarated, the days worries washed away by whatever scary bacteria is in the lake.

And now. Well right now I am just procrastinating. I should be working on my next novel, you know, the one that is finally going to make me famous and let me escape my benevolent master, Geeksoft -- or at the very least I should be looking for a job that will pay the bills when my forced 100-day break comes up in December instead of waiting to hear from non-profit employers whose jobs I desperately want, the salaries of which wouldn't pay for pellets for a guinea pig (good thing I don't have one anymore, but remind me to tell you about the failed guinea pig empire of my youth) but anyway, it's easier not to do all that practical stuff and just daydream the morning away.

Finally, you should go out and buy a copy of the paperback version of Beachglass by Wendy Blackburn - not least because it's a very good novel: sad, funny, satisying -- but because yours truly has a BLURB in it. Yes, that's right. My first blurb! I'm so proud.

Post Labor Day Blues

I returned from the long weekend on Monday and still have barely regained consciousness. Yesterday was a Lost Day. I went to the office but my soul was somewhere else, hiding. I was catatonic, unproductive, grumpy. Everything reminded me of my own creeping decreptitude and eventual doom.

All except the fact that I did write 1,000 words in what is my next-sure-to-be-discarded manuscript! During that hour-and-a-half period of the day, I escaped to a parallel world where I was Lord God Creator of the Universe and only my characters suffered and decayed and had stupid dreams and I floated above it all in my latte-induced omiscience.

The weekend was spent recreating in that giant playground that is my backyard. Paddling glacial blue-green lakes and hiking along trails populated with bears and eye-popping views.


(The bear, who we dubbed Carl, is not visible in this photo -- of Lake Ann taken from Maple Pass in North Cascades National Park-- but that's because, unbeknownst to us, he was right behind us on the trail).

There was a wee bit of tension in our REI tent since co-captain Dave apparently, envisioned having time to "relax" on his vacation while I pictured it as a nonstop three day marathon of strenuous mountain-related activity ending at midnight on Monday as we collapsed exhausted into our beds.

We worked this situation out by - how do you say -- "compromising." I am not very good at this "compromising" though I tried to do it with a modicum of grace. I therefore only complained quietly three or four times - instead of the usual 25 -- when we came home early on Monday for "relaxation" purposes rather than squeezing every last drop out of the weekend.

Next on the docket comes a kayaking class so Dave and I can learn to rescue ourselves should our sturdy kayak (pictured above on Diablo Lake) capsize and so we can learn about tides and currents and such so as not to get swept under bridges like those kayakers in Boston! And so I can continue my quest to become jock of all adventure sports, master of none!

Summer Reading in Sun-Deprived Seattle

I am really ready to start writing another novel. I mean REALLY.


(Photo of edited draft of BreakupBabe by Leslie Duss).

The thing is, since our whale-tastic vacation, I've been dreaming about whales again. Almost nonstop. Big, barnacle-covered, bad boys.

They're both awesome and frightening in my dreams, so close that I'm afraid of falling in the water and getting eaten by one. You know what THIS means. It means there is an idea under there, bubbling around in my self-conscious, that is about to erupt and take over my life.

I have been reading some of our more bestselling authors lately. Jodi Picoult for one, Nicholas Sparks for another. Yes, Nicholas Sparks, OK! Just get over it! Someone gave me The Guardian and though I put it off I ran out of novels and started reading it and now I can't stop!

Though I find myself struggling, at times, with the ludicrousness of the plots (Picoult), the crudity of the writing (Sparks), these are books I'm dying to get back to at night. These writers are skilled storytellers. Sparks, in particular, proves you don't need a fancy plot to make a gripping story.

His writing appears so simple that he makes it seem EASY and you know when something seems easy it's not. Which reminds me of one of my all-time favorite writers, Alexander McCall Smith. Now here is a true master. With his No. #1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, he writes stories that are funny, sad, and uplifting with a structure and voice so seemingly simple you think "I CAN WRITE LIKE THIS!"

And of course you can't. So at first these stories are inspiring and then they are truly depressing - when you sit down to write your own simple, beautiful masterpiece only to produce garbled nothingness, but I digress.

In other news, I have too many effing blogs. I need to rein in my sprawling Web presence.

In other, other news, while we were on our whaletastic whale-watching trip, co-captain Dave channeled Jacques Cousteau to narrate this Academy-Award winning video "The Sea is a Lonely Place." The narration is hard to hear and gets drowned out (no pun intended, ha ha) completely after the first half but you can still see some whalies swimming around.