essaying

courtesy rbus  this time. Up for another round?:

Dogs. I've never had much luck living without at least one dog, preferably two. Growing up, my dog was Fritz, a sweet dim basset hound, plus one of a changing cast of Second Dogs -- Bonnie, a Gordon Setter; Sam, a Pointer mix; Lady, a Golden Retriever -- all nice animals, mostly chosen to accompany my dad on his rare hunting trips, but none as central to the household as Fritz. In college, I acquired Mac, a white Standard Poodle, the canine version of the charismatic homewrecker that every girl loves, and he wrecked several homes before I had to give him away. Now we have Kay, a labradoodle, and Bo, a Basenji-and-something (Chihuahua? Manchester Terrier? Italian Greyhound?). Bo is the first small dog I've ever owned, and I'm fascinated by how differently one relates to a little dog than a big one -- a big dog is a pal, a little dog is a child.

Airplanes. Love airports -- shopping, restaurants, people-watching, that weird privacy-in-a-crowd bubble -- what's not to love? Hate airplanes. I want to meet the person for whom airplane seats are designed, because everyone I know is either too tall or too short for an airplane seat (I'm the latter; I usually stash my backpack under the seat in front of me so as to have someplace to rest my feet, which are otherwise an inch or two too short to reach the floor comfortably).

Barefeet. Not as achievable here in Eugene as in other places I've lived. Something that grows here leaves a dusting of near-invisible, very sharp slivers that wedge themselves into your feet and hands. They're just large enough to be annoyingly painful, but small enough to be nearly impossible to find and tweeze out, especially on the feet. Hence, moccasins, most of the time.

Coffee. Still love the flavor, but my gut is less tolerant of coffee in quantity than it used to be. My usual three cups per morning is down to two or even one. Then I switch to decaf iced tea, which I drink by the gallon. There are mornings, and I shudder to say this, when I can't face coffee at all, and prefer a nice cup of strong Darjeeling with milk.

Dutchrub. Believe it or not, I had to look this up -- I'm familiar with the action, but had never heard the term before. I've never given or received one, although I suppose posting that photo of my crew-cut crown is just asking for it.

A lot of my friends and acquaintances are writing genre fiction for e-books. I try not to let it make me too crazy, but... I just spent three years on a 35,000-word manuscript. In a very good week, I can do 2,000 words of reasonably polished prose, and most of that will require several edits and rewrites over a course of weeks or months. And these people post on Wednesday that today they're going to sit down and write, and then post on Friday that it's done, and a week or two later that it's published.

I can't really do the sour-grapes thing of "Well, I *could* write that way if I wanted to" -- I couldn't. My skill set is exactly the opposite of what's needed for that kind of writing; I can't plot for sour apples, and I'm not terribly imaginative when it comes to characters. What I like to write (and read) is slow, thoughtful, insightful nonfiction and fiction, the kind of thing that may be a bit impenetrable at first but that opens up in new layers every time you read it. (And the sort of thing that's very difficult to place, I'm afraid.)

But I've actually had to hide posts from some people who are overly fond of posting their wordcounts, or chirpy notes about "finished another chapter today, that's three this week, woo-hoo!" I get too depressed to read that someone's done 5,000 words on a day when I've been laboring over 250 words.

Help, fashion mavens --

I bought this dress a couple of months ago, thinking I'd wear it for Mom's memorial service. The memorial turned out to be much less dressy, so I've still never worn the dress.

It seems like it'll be appropriate for trade shows and such. However, I'm having trouble figuring out shoes to go with it. Boots seem too heavy for it. What it wants is midheel pumps or sandals, but I can't manage much heel at all any more -- about cowboy-boot height is as high as I can go. Flats look kind of dowdy with it, at least on me.

I could probably do a low-heeled pump or sandal, 2" max. What do you think would look right? (Keep in mind that my legs, although curvy, are definitely thick and muscular.) And do you think it should be a black shoe, or a color, or maybe even a pattern?

And if you were going to dress it up for evening, how would you do that? (If it matters, my evening bag is silver snakeskin.)

... a web-based comics interface where you can build yourself a page that looks like a regular newspaper page filled with comics of your choice. Although I check all my favorites daily, there's some sort of synergy to having them side-by-side that just doesn't quite come across by having to click to each one separately.

Yahoo comics just added a couple of new ones -- there's one called Pooch Cafe that looks promising. OTOH, it looks like Too Much Coffee Man has withdrawn; it hasn't been there for weeks, although new strips are still posting every Monday at their own website.

It seems silly to take a daily paper just to look at the comics, plus they never run the ones I like best -- I've never lived anywhere that runs 9 Chickweed Lane, for example. But I do miss opening up the paper and reading the comics. When I'm in the kind of restaurant that has newspapers lying around for their customers, I always turn to the comics page.

In other news: Both E and I seem to have The Thing That's Going Around, which is one night of severe, debilitating nausea -- Friday for me, Saturday for E -- followed by several days of fatigue, cold sweats and queasiness. I just cancelled my appointments for the day, which is a nuisance; I was supposed to meet with my orthopedic guy to talk about new strategies for the hip, then a business lunch regarding a possible PT editing gig. Ah well -- giving a potential employer a stomach bug is not a great way to make a first impression :/

In no particular order:

- I have an agent for Girlfag! Malaga Baldi, who also represents Kate Bornstein, Barbara Carrellas and several other GLBT and alt-sex authors, is very excited about the book. We talked on the phone for half an hour or so yesterday, and I feel like she has a much clearer idea than the previous agent about what the book's about and where it's going. Unfortunately, like the other agent, she isn't too sanguine about breaking out of the GLBT/feminist publishing ghetto; she thinks she can probably place it with either Seal or Alyson. She's willing to try for the mainstream presses, though. My dream press, Godine, will only look at agented submissions.

And I'm particularly pleased by the fact that she wants me to put the "musical numbers" back in, after I'd decided that nobody loved them but me and that they needed to go. She suggested putting them in an appendix, but as I was doing so, I realized that if I dropped the weakest one, they work well as interludes between the various chapters -- and that way they don't interfere with the flow of the narrative. I'm sending the ms back to her today, set up both ways -- one with the "songs" as an appendix, the other with them threaded between the chapters, which I like better. We'll see what she thinks. She wants to get the pitch out quite quickly so that we don't slide into the dreaded between-Thanksgiving-and-New-Year's lacuna. The whole publishing world is headed to Frankfurt soon, so that gives us a week or two to put together the pitch.

- Not sure what to think about the hip and back. I had pretty much convinced myself that the primary problem is trochanteric bursitis and that it's been persisting for long enough that surgery is an option. But my physical therapist thinks that the problem is more sacroiliac than bursa. She prescribed a sacroiliac belt, which I've been wearing and which does seem to help somewhat. I'm feeling generally pretty discouraged about the whole thing, though -- the interlude of a month after the last steroid shot in which nothing hurt (much) was tantalizing, and makes it all the more wearisome to wake up every morning aching.

Part of the frustration is that I'm really wanting some exercise as part of the weight loss regime. I was getting into a nice pattern of either walking a mile or two on the treadmill or taking the dogs out for a good long walk several times a week, but it became increasingly clear that doing so was making the back and hip way worse. Physical therapist wants me to try water aerobics, which I have no essential problem with, but the kind of fitness program I've always had the hardest time with is the kind that involves having to go somewhere at a specific time for a class. I've done fine with things I do at home, and fine with going to a gym at random hours when I have a few minutes to spare, but showing up at the pool at 1P on Mondays and Thursdays, not so much. But I'm going to try it, anyway.

- I continue to be impressed with SparkPeople. Weight is coming off very slowly, and it's hard for me to be patient with that, especially when I know I could get it off faster if I could get more exercise... but it is coming off. Their suggested daily calorie range, which for me is about 1550-1750 calories, is nicely calibrated; it's enough that I can eat good meals and have *some* treats, but I can't binge or overindulge. Quite sustainable, which is what I want.

- My sister and her partner came down from Portland for brunch on Saturday. They were the first of my bio-family to come visit me here. My sister and I have gotten a lot closer in the last few years, but we still have fairly little in common; she and her partner, aside from being lesbian, are extremely conventional people (in a Facebook quiz, the word she picked to represent me was "eccentric" -- hell, she should see some of the people *I* think are eccentric!). Still, it was nice seeing them both. Ben's coming up in two weeks and I can't wait -- the thing I like least about living here is my distance from Les Dudes.

- The sale of Greenery is proceeding, albeit slowly. Aaron at SCB and I are very close to reaching agreement on the money part. Probably this week I'll need to set up a teleconference with the board, which I'm not looking forward to -- TXWSNBN stands to lose a pretty cushy gig when this sale goes through -- he'll still be earning his royalties, but he won't have me fronting his medical insurance, cell phone, etc. -- and, while he grudgingly admits that 17 years is a long time for me to have done this, he doesn't like the idea of me stopping. There's not much he can do about it, of course; I'm the majority shareholder, so even if he fomented a shareholder rebellion -- highly unlikely -- he couldn't stop this sale. But I hate being in conflict with him and always have.

- Freelance projects seem to be coming in quite well, without much effort on my part. I'm just finishing a layout and production job on the new edition of Exhibitionism for the Shy. Race Bannon was kind enough to recommend me for an editing gig that's going to be a lot of work and a pretty good chunk of money, but the client just called yesterday to say that for financial reasons he needs to postpone the project till after the first of the year, which is fine. I'm doing a small expert-witness gig, and I just heard from Greenery's old marketing director that he's doing a consulting project and wants me to bid on some book layouts. So I'm feeling more comfortable about the salary cut that this sale will involve; it looks like I can earn enough with freelance editing and production, plus my writing, to keep things going for a while.

Hopefully, once Girlfag gets published <knocking wood superstitiously>, I can use that to get myself some creative writing teaching work -- visiting professorships and so on, maybe some on-line teaching, and maybe the occasional adjunct gig around here. Many CW classes meet only once a week, so teaching in Portland or even Seattle is not out of the question -- take the train up, teach, take the train back. Tenure-track is unlikely at this point in my life, unless we're willing to move again, which is unlikely but not impossible -- if something came up at, say, University of Canada at Vancouver (my dream gig), or Evergreen State, I suppose we might think about it, particularly if it happened before we can buy something here.
 
Sorry for the long dump -- I should post more often, I guess.

My niece Naomi just gave birth to Hudson,  6lbs 6oz, 20", and Lyla, 5lbs 2 oz., 18". Babies and mom are doing well.

They're the first babies born into their generation in my family. How I wish Mom could have stuck around to meet them!

My niece Naomi left for the hospital this morning, in early labor with her twins, Hudson and Lyla. They're to be delivered by C-section in a few hours. Welcome to the world, guys!

(NB: They'll share a birthday with E, which will make it easy to remember.)

The hot tub is finally working!! Huzzah!!!

(E is going to drain it this afternoon, then I'll clean it, and then we will at long last have a hot tub. *Then* we can start agitating for a retroactive rent reduction for the last four months.)

Both dogs have been wired and obnoxious for the last day or so, probably because of the Umpqua fire that's darkening the sky and making the air hard to breathe.

In Bo, this manifests as neediness -- he has to be on a lap every waking moment.

In Kay, it's a bit more serious -- constant alarm/boredom barking, which is bad enough. But then I woke up this morning and found well-chewed bits of my $500 snoreguard strewn all over the living room floor.

Fucking dogs.

A more-or-less polished draft of Girlfag is now done... only three years later :/

I'm going to give it a day or two to settle, check it through one more time, then send it out to several agents who wanted to see it when it was done.

Oh my god it's done.

The memorial service was yesterday and came off very nicely -- all those years that Mom & Alan used to have big parties at their house for JCC paid off; Alan already knew who to contact to set up the awning and chairs, and instead of depending on Mom's cooking he simply called Pollo Loco and ordered a shitload of chicken, beans, rice and tortillas. Friends potlucked beverages and desserts, so there was plenty to eat and the space was comfortable if a bit windy.

The rabbi opened with brief remarks, and then turned over the (non-functional) microphone to others who wanted to say something. Andee and I, of course, were expected to do so, and both of us managed to do it pretty well before starting to cry. Mom's sister Lorie told wonderful stories about their childhood together, and some of her colleagues spoke about her professional influence, and one of her old friends from community college days talked about the 24/7 salon she ran in our living room for her college friends, many of whom were young struggling Vietnam vets. (I hadn't expected to see any of them there; Dan was a special treat.)

So it all went quite well. I still don't really understand the point of funerals and memorial services; they seem to serve the community in some way, more than they do the individual. (Although Miles did remark afterwards that the service had given him a sense of closure that he didn't have before.)

I stayed Friday night at Ben's because Miles was working a double shift so he could get Sunday off for the service. (He's currently working selling a lint removal gadget called a Mr. Sticky, doing demonstrations in stores and fairs and stuff. Not exactly an elegant line of work, but it does make use of his acting and improv skills, and it has benefits.) Then I switched over to Miles's on Saturday night, and then back here to Ben's last night (M had to leave at 7a to start today's shift -- he's both in training for this new job and in the last week of rehearsals for his new show, so he's strung out and exhausted).

Staying with the Dudes is strange. It's a little difficult to cause them as much disruption as my stays do -- at both houses, having Mom to visit means that they get put out of their beds (Miles onto the living room couch, Ben onto an airbed in his office). Ben's housekeeping is a little slapdash but basically OK, but Miles's place is pretty awful, especially when he's as busy as he is now -- the difference is partly temperamental and partly because Ben's place was brand-new when he moved in but Miles's place is old and in poor repair, and it's hard to keep a place like that looking nice. I keep my mouth shut either way. If I'd been here a bit longer I'd have tried to tidy up a bit, or pick up a few hardware items for minor repairs, but there hasn't been much time for anything but coming and going.

Off to the Bay Area this afternoon to attend the DVD premiere of the little documentary I was in a few years ago -- staying with paulaandandrew , going to the premiere with mimesisfan . There are other friends I should probably contact but I'm feeling rather antisocial.

Home Wednesday night, back into several pressing deadlines. E and I may try to go to Bend early next week -- my mom's sister and her husband are staying there for a few days visiting family, and I'd like to see more of them before they head back East.

Someday, somehow, I WILL make two days of uninterrupted time to finish my fucking book. It's SO close and I just can't make space to finish it.

The property managers sent over a guy to fix the dishwasher, and, guess what:

He fixed the dishwasher!!!

The good news: I got the friggin' chandelier shade up. (Started on Saturday, then E had to run out in the middle for an errand; he woke up Sunday in bad shape, so I did the rest of it singlehandedly.) Net result: one second-degree burn on my upper arm from a light bulb, many sore muscles from trying to hold up a heavy chandelier with one hand while seating screws with another, and I'm not sure I like the result; whatever way I tweak it, it seems to hang unevenly. Well, we'll see -- maybe I can get it straightened out, or maybe it'll have to come down, which would be a huge freaking pain.

Yesterday, undeterred, I decided it was time to clean out the garage, which was still in post-moving chaos and was driving me crazy by making it impossible to find any of my tools. I put in a solid six hours' work on it -- unpacked a bunch of boxes of miscellany, moved some books inside where they won't be rain-damaged, set up E's gardening stuff in one corner and my workbench in another, put all his miniatures away in an old file cabinet, and cleaned up the evidence that Les Chiens have gotten sloppy about using their dog run :( Now it's a nice tidy garage -- we could even put the car in it, were it not for the fact that I've used some old trunks and folding chairs to make an enclosed path to the dog run. I could probably make a living as a professional declutterer if my body would hold up; I'm good at this shit.

I actually have a roll of wire fencing out in the side yard that would be better for enclosing the path, but I ran out of pep for that task. Another day, but not soon.

Unfortunately, I'm suffering the effects of such an energetic weekend. I hurt all over. Most of it is muscle soreness, which is fine; it's pleasurable pain. But my back is Not Happy, the burn is itching insanely as it heals, and I had to drug myself into torpor to get any sleep last night. In my drugged state, I made an ill-advised post to a friend (note to self: if you *must* post while drugged, at least hold it as a draft and review it the next day).

Also, I'm having another bad siege of hot flashes, which were awakening me every hour or so -- and apparently I was snoring from all the dust, because E was poking me awake on the alternate half hours. Must go buy some more Estroven, and start doing nasal lavage until I get all the garage nastiness out of my sinuses.

As a result of all the above, I'm exhausted, weepy, in pain, behind on my work, and needing to get three sales kits written, designed and assembled before I leave for LA on Friday.

But at least I have a clean garage. And a crooked chandelier cover.

Estimate from oral surgeon on what needs to be done to E's teeth: $5500 for extractions and implants. Plus whatever the denturist (yes, there apparently is such a word) wants for the temporary denture and the permanent denture, which may be the same denture.

Well, fuck. Back when I had my jaw surgery, the bill was more than $10K, and that was in 1980 dollars, and we managed to pay it. So we'll manage this, somehow... but I could wish that it had happened at a more propitious time.

And the doc is recommending that the same thing be done to his top teeth as soon as we get the bottom set squared away. I strongly suspect that it will improve his health (many of his teeth apparently have little pockets of infection around them, which *has* to be dragging down his general wellness) and his appearance, but, shit, that's a lotta dough.

Haven't posted here in a while. The "little" stuff tends to go on Facebook, but what is life but a bunch of little stuff stuck together to make big stuff?

So, in no particular order...

- Looks like we're going to stay put in this house. They still don't have the hot tub fixed, though. They sent an electrician out on Friday to rewire it, but apparently there was very poor communication regarding the problem -- somehow the person who did the estimate didn't get the message that running wires under the house would be nearly impossible, and wrote the estimate based on wires going under the house. So now the electrician wants a plumber to come out and cut the exhaust lines under the house to make room for wires (which would require that we go without plumbing for several days), and the property management firm wants the electrician to run wires around the house instead, and so on. However, they understand the magnitude of the problem -- they're talking about maybe crediting us enough money to go to the public tubs a couple of times a week (definitely suboptimal) or perhaps getting us a SofTub (better). However it gets resolved, we've pretty much run out of energy for another move. Going to suck it up and stay here till our lease expires in May, and put our energy toward repairing our credit so that we can buy something else in the spring.

- Physical therapy for the hip is working very well. My therapist here seems to understand the problem better than the one in Berkeley, and is aided by the steroid injection into the bursa I had a couple of weeks ago -- the bursitis isn't getting in the way of solving the underlying muscle spasm and weakness. I've been seeing her for two weeks now and am in much less pain. The African dance class is doing good stuff in terms of strengthening my hips and adding flexibility to my spine, and also...

- I spent much of Saturday driving up to Salem to purchase a hula hoop from a young woman there; she threw in a free lesson. I'm still very bad at it -- my record so far is seven rotations. But toward the end of the lesson, I could begin to feel what the movement was *supposed* to be (oddly enough, it seems to have to do with flexibility in the spine and hips), enough that I can start practicing at home. I was too sore Sunday and yesterday, but I'm hoping to get outdoors and give it a try today. I made a Hooping Mix for my iPod -- lots of African and Caribbean stuff interspersed with a little of everything (Elvis Costello, The Bonedaddys, Queen, Paul Simon, Dan Hicks, OK Go -- basically anything with a strong beat that's fast but not *too* fast) and am looking forward to trying it out and refining it.

- I'm liking SparkPeople pretty well. I'm avoiding the parts of it that are too cheerleadery, but I'm learning some things about my eating patterns that are genuinely useful. For example: When I'm not binging, I tend to eat too *few* calories and not enough protein. My normal diet is short on several key minerals, notably potassium (perhaps that's why my feet keep cramping during the yoga cooldown after the African dance class?). And who would have guessed that four blueberry pancakes contain more protein than three strips of bacon?

- Still working on the short sale of the Oakland place. I emailed a bunch more forms off to the consultant today. I've had to sort of place that whole thing off on the sidelines of my consciousness, because it's going to take around 60 days and if I spend too much time thinking about it I'll be out of my mind with impatience.

- All of the above, plus a freelance book production project, have prevented me from spending any time at all on Girlfag for the last week and a half. My new resolution is to make no appointments in the morning -- when I have to go to the doctor or whatnot in the morning, I come home in the afternoon and my concentration is broken. it would be better if I could make no appointments at all, but that seems unlikely.

Dossie just turned me on to www.sparkpeople.com. It's a very comprehensive, free support site for people who are trying to lose weight and/or increase fitness. It doesn't give you a specific diet to follow; it lets you set your own goals, then suggests ways to meet those goals. There are support groups for people with special needs (people with chronic pain, people with sleep issues, people from Eugene, etc.) and chatrooms and wikis for connection to real human beings when you need it. I'm very impressed with it: my new goal is to lose 30 lbs. in the next year, which seems to me to be realistic, healthy and conservative.

They start you out with a two-week warmup, during which you pick easy, low-impact goals (mine for this week are to eat two fruits or veggies a day, to get ten minutes of aerobic exercise a day, and to reward myself). Then you get on to something more serious, but I don't yet know what that is.

If you decide to try it out, I'm lipstickbutch there.

I seem to be on a getting-healthier kick -- last night I went to an African dance class a mile or two from here. It was big fun, if for no other reason than that I've never before been to an exercise (/dance/tantra/yoga/whatever) class where I actually *liked* the music. (Note to self: start accumulating African music; I really respond well to the sounds and rhythms.) My inherently poor coordination was, of course, an issue, but the class is small, the other attendees are all women of a certain age, heft and mouthiness, and everybody was super-supportive. Today I'm a bit sore but not too bad, and most important, the hip isn't one of the things that's reproaching me. I'll definitely be back.

... our counteroffer on the house was accepted. It's now in the hands of the short sale consultant and the bank. Should take 30-60 days, maybe as many as 90. Short sale consultant thinks our chances are excellent -- she has an 86% success rate with our lender, and we're not asking for a huge amount of money as things go these days.

Assuming it goes through, my next step will be to tackle the credit repair thing very aggressively. With luck and skill, I should be able to pull it all back up to where we can be in a position to try again next year ::crossing fingers::.

Hopefully this whole nasty chapter will be behind us soon.

Inspired by cocobuttr , E and I played hooky this morning and took Les Chiens down to the lake (Zumwalt Park, a few miles outside town at the Fern Ridge Reservoir).

It's kind of a long walk from the parking lot down to the water and E had a hard time with it, but it's one of the most beautiful spots imaginable -- dim forests of pine, oak and volunteer fruit trees with a tangle of blackberries underneath, then some swampy areas with cattails, then an open meadow with queen anne's lace and grass and wildflowers, and then a little beach -- one small sandy cove surrounded by more abrupt falls held up with tree roots.

This being the last week of summer for local schoolkids, it was crowded compared to the last time I went: one family of two grown-ups, four kids and two dogs, and a couple of hikers who appeared briefly and kept going. One small powerboat with a water-skier that went by twice, once in each direction. (Last time, I was alone except for two teenaged boys who took a short swim and then went home.) Lots of waterbirds, grebes and ducks and herons; last time I was there, I heard a loon. Hot sun, but plenty of shade, and the water is warm and lovely.

Kay wasn't even willing to wait to get down to the actual lake -- she waded into the swampy part and splashed around in the cattails. Then, the minute we got within eyesight of the water, she tore down there and was happily swimming back and forth, tail waving in the air, by the time we joined her.

Bo dislikes the water, but ran around madly, marking every single tree (and there are a lot of trees there), sniffing at everything, running just for the joy of it -- he's *really fast* for such a little guy. Eventually he got so overheated that I carried him into the water to wet him down. I've never been sure if he'd be able to swim if he had to, as little bodyfat as he carries, but it turns out he can -- quite competently, straight as an arrow, headed for dry land. He didn't absolutely hate it -- didn't struggle to get away or anything -- but he was clearly just barely tolerating it. He was noticeably more comfortable afterward, though.

Meanwhile, Kay was in ecstasy. She climbs down into the water, then does this amusing thing of bending her hind legs to dunk her butt, then takes off swimming, head high, drinking as she goes, occasionally getting water up her nose and coughing like an old man. I broke a stick off one of the snags and threw it for her, and she was in ecstasy -- half poodle half labrador adds up to a lot of retriever blood, and you can see it in the proud expression on her face as she grabs the stick and starts carrying it to shore.

Every time I take them there I feel guilty for not taking them there more often. It's Doggie Disneyland, the best imaginable place for dogs, and not bad for people either.