Feedback
Yesterday, I received the evaluations from my writer in residence gig, as well as a pile o pages of the writing we produced together. If feedback is good, feedback from human beings ages 5 through 12 rocks!
Some highlights:
It made me feel like a beater writer.
Cim wos fon. (I believe I’ve seen this etched into a bathroom wall somewhere).
Writing isn’t always boring.
I liked that there was no homework.
She seemed to really know what she was doing.
I really love how Kim came in and taught us when she could have been doing something else.
She helped us feel confident and I think she liked it.
Nothing has changed. I don’t want to be a writer.
And my top fave:
I thngck I am aosom ritr.
Wish You Were Here
Last week for spring break, my sis was in Florida, I was in San Diego. Both of us with husbands, kids and grandparents in tow, both of us performing the full vacation-with-family experimental theatre catastrophe. Naturally, we shared our experiences via text message. Here are some of my favorite lines and photos from the week.
Our flight is delayed.
Don’t think this family will be doing that.
Give ‘em more cocktails.
–
Just realized I forgot my running shoes. Guess it’s a eating and drinking only vacation.
Eating and drinking you excel at. Go for it.
–
How’s your day?
Disney World is a lot like skiing. People are stressing and yelling at their kids and calling it fun.
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Huge party in the room next door last night. Husband in shit-ass mood. Noodle on sugar-only crack freak-out diet. Day two baby!!
Crack diets are just so tasty!
–
Notes from today: grocery shopping with half-drunk grandma and four-minute sex with husband.
Check! Check! And done.
–
Post getting soaked by Shamu. Done in by Sea World.
Nothing but sanity here.
–
And now I know I never need to ride a roller coaster again.
Good thing to learn at 40.
–
Karl says you’re in as my sister wife for his high school reunion.
Score!
–
Beach church.
Crap church.
–
I just ate at a Japanese restaurant where the “special yum sauce” was ranch.
Globalization baby.
–
Legoland penance for last night’s drinking. These rides may cause nausea and dizziness.
Sit with dad and act handicapped.
Won’t be hard. I feel handicapped. And he just offered me codeine.
A little mid-afternoon gift.
And I’ll get a bumper sticker: I did Legoland on drugs.
The only way to travel! Ting!
Ting!
–
I am a cynical bitch. Fireworks and cheer are lame.
Watch out for drunk pedestrians.
–
Your boyfriend.
I wondered where he got off to.
He is here looking hot.
I’ll share him with you.
Sister wives!
I get shotgun!
For scenes from the last family vacation we all took together, see My Hawaiian Vacation in Quotes
My Book Gig Weekend in Photos
Gig 1. Thanks, Grass Roots! I dug that.
Quarterly meeting of Nestucca Spit Press. Did I mention the stars?
Spontaneous and uncontrollable desire to run free on the Oregon beach + persistent impression that I am invincible + plenty ‘o vodka + the dark of night + giant rock = OUCH.
Recovery. Thanks, Nana’s. Love you.
Dressed for your book gig already but want to walk the beach? No problem. Sneakers and socks over tights and skirt = unadulterated sex appeal.
Nye Beach. Always. Makes. Me. Happy.
Book Gig 2. Thanks, Linn Benton! You are fabulous. Let’s be friends forever.
My favorite gnarly Oregon mountain pass + snow + dark + vintage Counting Crows & Nine Inch Nails = Awesomeness.
Home.
I love my job.
My Favorite Christmas Tree Ornament
The sad thing is, I’ve had it for 15 years and nothing has changed.
My Favorite Moment From My Book Touring Weekend
Old crusty guy approaches me in a bar. “Mind if I sit down?”
I agree. He pulls up a stool, creakily climbs aboard. Small talk ensues.
“How long have you lived in Newport?” I ask.
“Well, 15 years,” old crusty guy replies. “But the first seven years I was a wino. I wasn’t really here. So I’ve actually only lived here eight years.”
Right there with you, dude.
Fall Fruits
This is what Captain Daddy brought home from his deer hunting trip over the weekend.
A far cry from what he normally delivers to my kitchen during October, which looks like this…
…and turns my house into a butcher shop/early-Halloween house of horrors/biohazard.
Curious.
Have the blacktail deer been finding midlife strangely stagnant and attending floral arranging classes to spice things up? Was there a bouquet dispensary set up in a tree stand in south-central Oregon by a remorseful ex-hunter who thought he was willing to trade his wife for more weekends wearing camo until it actually happened? Is Jupiter in retrograde?
We may never know.
I’ll just enjoy these pleasant blooms and their lovely aroma while they last. The season of death, after all, ain’t over yet.
Recent Words of Wisdom From the Four-Year Old
Mom, where are you going tonight?
To a restaurant downtown.
That’s boring.
Where do you think I should go, Boo?
London.
Mom, I told you, we have to a-gree, not un-gree.
Mom, I love you. I love you to the lamp, and then to space, and then back to the
floor. But I love sissy to space, then to the lamp, then to the bed. So I love her
more, you know.
Mom, remember when you crashed into that car?
Yes, Boo, I remember.
You need to watch where you are going.
Mawwaige
“All marriages are happy. It’s the living together afterward that causes all the trouble.” –Raymond Hull
“One study found that simply having a husband creates an extra seven hours of housework a week.” –Newsweek, “I Don’t: The Case Against Marriage.” June 21, 2010.
Overheard at a 50th wedding anniversary party. A guest: “How did you two make it this far?” The bride: “Well, we never wanted to get divorced at the same time.”
Overheard at a 70th wedding anniversary party. The bride: “My, those first fifty years were hard.”
“My opinion of gay marriage is exactly the same as my opinion of straight marriage: It’s impossibly difficult and sure to end in agony.” –Kate Braestrup in “Marriage and Other Acts of Charity”
“If love is blind, than marriage is a real eye-opener.” –Unknown
Raise Your Hand if You’re a Deviant
Remember when you thought your parents had done the dirty deed twice—once to make you and once to make your sister?
And then at some point the illusion shatters. Too bad it’s usually far before the whole concept can be, ahem, appreciated.
A friend shared this story with me last week and I have been laughing ever since.
She and her nine-year-old son were driving in her car. They passed a billboard promoting safe sex. “Mom, what’s that about?” he asked.
“It’s about birth control,” she replied, being an open and honest sort of parent. “I’ve told you about it before. It’s what you use when you are having sex so that you don’t get pregnant.”
“I know,” he replied. “Which means you are doing it just for the fun of it, which is weird.”
She said she thought she’d remind him of this story on his 21st birthday. I say–wedding toast.
