heheheheheeee.  One of these days you’re going to check back here and there’s going to be a link to my obit instead of my usual groveling after being gone for so long post that always follow my unexpected, unannounced leaves of absence.

But, not yet.  I’m here, though barely.  Just life stuff like everyone else and revision/preparation for a writing conference–PennWriters–this weekend. But, sometimes I can’t do it all and either the blogging suffers or my novels do–I have to choose the novels!!!  Someday I’ll find some balance.

Anyway, I do truly miss hearing from everyone and if it makes anyone feel good, I shoulder tremendous guilt throughout my blogless cycles.  I really do.  Can’t wait to get back to your blogs as well, especially.  I could read you guys all day long.

I’ll leave you with this…

I’ve blogged about driving in Pittsburgh, how people in Pittsburgh can sit at a red light for, quite seriously, twenty seconds and no one will beep at them to move their ass.  We’re really quite wonderful over here in Pittsburgh.

I’ve been grumpy, tired of Jake’s recovery.  I know that’s mean, he’s the one in pain, but now two weeks into it, I’m getting a little irritated.

I’m so irritated that when doing errands yesterday I saw a woman come out of a liquor store under the weight of a box of booze.  NOt a box o wine, but a cardboard moving box filled with clanking bottles.

And passing by her, in full grump-mode, my mind said “booze-hound.”  I had to stop and turn around to be sure I didn’t say it out loud and if I did, that she didn’t hear me. 

It was very weird to have such a random, uncalled for thought to come to mind.  It happened twice yesterday and I can’t remember the other context, but when I do, I’ll update you.

But,

At least I’m not this guy.

Apparently he was released from jail to donate a kidney to his son.  Instead of saving his child’s life, he went out to Mexico for a beer. Or a box of liquor or something fun like that.

Yes, I’m mortified at my impatience the last two days, but, at least I’m not him.

This season of AI has been disappointing in a lot of ways.

Not in terms of the top three girls, but overall the season’s lacked drama–the Sanjaya thing didn’t grab me either way.

LaKisha, Melinda, and Jordon are fantastic, but the others pale in their presence.  I didn’t always agree with prior years’ standings, I’ve always had my favorites, but it was more about me liking someone’s looks better or another’s style appealing to me more.  But these three women are so much better than everyone else talent-wise, that I can barely watch most of them.  IMO, not humble, I guess.

Anyway, the Idol Gives Back is moving to me and important.  People are already yapping about the fact the giving back is going to Africa, but the program also benefits Americans who need it.  I don’t know why people want to say such negative stuff.  I heard some guy in my office away from home–the coffee shop–say it’s an underhanded or back door way to even more commericalism.  People complain about Angelina Jolie and others who adopt at a fast rate from places that aren’t ideal–aren’t American.

While I’d like to see Angelina add an American in need to her brood, I only see good in what she and others do.  I know things can go wrong, that celebs can be bad people and just because they do things like adopt from impoverished places doesn’t mean they’re the best people in the world, but the people who do this, are doing more than a lot of us.

They’re certainly doing more than a lot of people with whom they trip down the red carpet with on regular basis. 

Any miniscule thing done for someone else–a child, no matter where they live has an impact on the rest of us whether we think so or not.  It might inspire some.  It angers others.  Why?  While the majority of us have no where near what Angelina does, many of us have a lot more than we admit. 

What little thing can each of us do for someone else?  Maybe just smile a bit more, say hi to a stranger, laugh at your child’s spilled milk.  At least I have a floor to spill it on.

Sorry for the melodrama–it must be because it’s the first day without the codeine–oh, ahem, not that I was using the codeine…but we’re all coming out of the tonsilectomy fog over here.  So look for good humor and bras, coming up soon.  Seriously, it’s coming.

And if you can’t adopt someone, love someone who does.  You’ll feel better about the world.

As you well know, periodically I’m sucked into YouTube–thanks Jaye Wells–and then I end up wasting untold hours, I mean minutes, watching useless though very funny stuff. I can’t resist piggy-backing on Jaye’s video choice.  It’s Will Farrell and his real life friend clowning around with the friend’s one year old daughter.  It’s called The Landlord.  It’s can’t miss.

Onto the videos I’ve plucked from obscurity for all you kids:

Turns out Riverdance is not only an esteemed group, or name of a musical, or category of dance–I’m not sure what the term refers to exactly–but on YouTube you’ll find Riverdance is really a cultural cornerstone of American life.  There’s a wonderful selection of Riverdance renditions.  Below you’ll find three.

First is a young man–teenager–in his basement doing River Dance.  Self-taught, yes, but we should give him at least 5/10 points for enthusiasm, lack of inhibition, and fitness.  Anyone who can rattle off two minutes and 22 seconds of even fake Riverdance is all right in my book.

The second clip warms my heart because in light of all the destruction at VT and the general worrying parents of college aged kids must be doing this week–more the normal amount, that is–I thought this clip would bring us back to the real activities that occur at college on a daily basis.  For your thousands of dollars, your children stay up late in the dorm, laugh hysterically at some guy dressed in his female friend’s Riverdance outfit, dancing his little heart out, doing nothing to stretch those dollars into something concrete that might in the end help pay back those loans.  But it sure is fun.  8/10 points for wasting dad and mom’s money in such flagrant fashion.  The kids look remarkably sober–so I gave them an extra two points for that alone.

The third clip is the real tacquito my brothers and sisters.  I’m not sure there’s a big difference between the three examples.  Well, okay in terms of sheer entertainment, the self-taught guys are more fun the real thing.  But damn, if only I took up a little Riverdance, I bet I could shed six pounds a day.  They ought to put a Riverdance segment into this season’s biggest loser where that Michael Flatley comes and just beats the dancing hell out of the contestants.  I can feel my thighs getting thinner just watching the clip. Nine out of ten.  I can’t give full points when no one really smiles and they look as though after the dance they’ll shuffle off to some torture chamber.  It’s very pent-up for dancing…I dunno. 

So have a good weekend, everyone.

I sort of am.

I’m a sucker for a sale.  I married a salesman afterall.

My poor roommates in Maryland had to suffer my inability to say no to Mormons and anyone else who came to the door. 

Upon opening the door, had I made instantaneous identification of person as salesman or preacher and slammed the door, my roommates might have been spared.

But at the time I also had a selfish streak running through me and the minute the guy at the door started yapping, my mind created an image including his wife, four starving kids and elderly parents he was fending for and I’d think “I can’t ask this guy to leave,” my heart would seize and instead of hardening it and sending him on his religious or magazine proffering way, I’d ask him to wait a moment.

Then I’d tell one of my roommates the door was for them.  Apparently, the image of N. being pissed at me for seven hours didn’t pop into my mind as readily as the one of the preacher’s family.

To this day, if I don’t hang up on telemarketers within the first half a second of the call, I have to listen to at least half their spiel and then make up a fib about why I have to go.  I have assumed alternate identities on the phone, too. 

“Is Mrs. Shoop there?”

“No.”

“When’s the best time to reach her?”

“I dunno, I’m just the babysitter, man.”

What is my problemo?

This all brings me to two current tv advertisements.  One’s for LifeAlert (the new name for the device that came to fame with the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,” ads). And the second is for Lipitor which is peddled by Robert Jarvik, creator of the first artificial heart.

Let me say, I’m sort of interested in the LifeAlert device.  I’m paranoid about fire and would love to have that thing around my neck at night to have my trusty firemen just a finger’s touch away.  But of course, one of the kids would accidentally set it off and we’d be on the black list at the firehouse and that’s no list to be on, I’m sure.

The device is a good product, definately worth it for elderly people or anyone with mobility issues, I’d imagine.  The darned thing sells itself, far as I can tell.

But at the end of the ad, they plop C. Everett Koop, sitting at a desk, looking like colonel Sanders, telling me to buy it.  Very disjointed, not a great pitch-man, but like I said, the item sells itself.

Then there’s this Robert Jarvik character and his Lipitor ads.  My goodness, he has soft gentle eyes, a soothing voice, and he created an artificial heart for land sakes.  He’s mesmerizing.  Makes me want to dial up my doctor just to check if maybe I’m not in need of the Lipitor.  I mean, it’s possible.  Statins have been recommended for MS sufferers in some circles.  And Robert Jarvik is making me call.  He is.  Maybe I could use an artificial heart while I’m at it.

But I did some research on him in preparing for this post and it turns out he’s not done anything impressive.  Yes, he plunked a plastic heart into the chest cavities of two men or so, but it never worked and there’s a community of unimpressed Docs, I guess, this article seemed to indicate.

My point is, it doesn’t really matter.  Jarvik has pizazz and the sales of Lipitor show it.  Poor, C. Everett has the charm of an arm chair and LifeAlert is selling itself.  I suppose you just need one or the other to be good–the pitchman or the product.  Or, you simply need to corner me, just long enough for your family tree to set down roots in my head.  Then you’ve got your sale.

Okay, this is very weird.

There’s a bird–very pretty in its fluffy brown, mocha, and tan feathers and piercing red beak.  But, for the past few days it’s been ramming itself into two windows on opposite sides of the house.

And it watches me watch it do that as though very normal behavior for both of us.

Today, in major frustration over my path to novel publication I thought I might have way too much in common with the mentally challenged bird.

It’s very clear the bird has business to attend to in the house.  But he can’t communicate it and even as I stand there looking around the room, trying to figure out what’s in the house that he wants to get at or why the hell he needs to take a path through the house instead of around it, he just keeps ramming away, getting nowhere.

This is where I am in my writing.  Novel writing, anyway.  Something isn’t getting across to agents and editors and I don’t know how to remedy it.  It’s not that I don’t want to, but with disparate criticism, what am I supposed to do?  Whose advice do I take?  Do I simply trust myself and keep querying?  But changing my manuscript–trusting one person over another hasn’t resulted in my books being sold to editors.  Is it a wrong agent match?  Maybe it’s as simple as I just don’t know what the hell I’m doing and never will.

I do write by instinct, mostly.  Not that I don’t tear the manuscripts apart, butchering them in whole and part, splicing them back together or reinventing out of whole cloth.  I might bitch about the revision process but I’ve never avoided it, thought myself above it, but what if it’s just fruitless?  What if I’ll never communicate to the fricking idiot looking at me from the other side of the glass–that thin sliver of barely there glass–what it is I’m doing?

I believe in this book wholeheartedly and will continue to shop it to other agencies.  But today’s put an emormous dent in my will to write another (I’m on number 7.  Don’t think I’m being a spoiled baby giving up after number 1).  And yes, I know all the stories of best sellers requiring 100’s of submissions and all the rest.  I hate to even entertain this type of pouty post because I think it’s bad Karma, sends the wrong signals into the universe.  Because tomorrow I’ll end up back at the computer writing as though I know what the hell I’m doing.

But, for today, for right now, I’m sick of writing for no pay off other than the “manuscripts in the attic for the grandkids” angle.  I’m just tired of it.  I’m sick of being the f’ing brainless bird.

 

Okay,

These five days post-op have thrust me directly back into newborn baby mode.

Not me as newborn baby, though I might have shed a tear or two in complete horror at Jake’s insane screaming while attempting to jump out of the bed while still completely sedated–not asleep, but not in the there and then, either.

You know the drill.

Newborn baby means you can’t leave the house without making arrangements that would humble the pentagon in their detail and flashing blood red WARNING signs all over the forty page “note” you leave whomever is sitting with the kid while you go out to clear the cobwebs from your brain and then wonder if you’re in fact alive at all.

But this was a bit different in that I didn’t have the nine months (or seven as my pregnancies seem to allow) build up to isolation.  Nor was I in the post-partum fog that allows a mother to function as though perfectly normal to never change one’s clothes or shower until the late afternoon hours let alone talk to anyone with any sort of civility and genuine engagement in what’s being said.

I thought what I felt–the sudden smack in the face of “wow, I can’t go anywhere and someone’s pawing at me 24/7, I’m up every two hours in the night, etc.–might be similar to what parents who adopt might feel.

Not that adoptive parents don’t jump through excrutiating hoops, rings of fire, and what amounts to emotional torture and nearly unbearable paths to bring baby home.  But adoptive mothers’s bodies probably don’t provide that winding down of life–the mother-to-be who is too tired to stay at the party past nine, naps everyday after work, and searing back pain that is just asking for post-partum isolation. 

I guess, when you adopt, you’re just suddenly–in a physical sense–blindsided by the change.  And perhaps the protective fog encasing the mother’s brain isn’t available to the person who didn’t give birth–that mother or me in the case of Jake’s surgery is suddenly thinking, how the hell did this happen?  What the hell is happening?  Where is my life?  The one that doesn’t require what amounts to “permission” to leave the house?

If I’ve offended anyone with the adoption analogy, I apologize.  But I just kept thinking I felt like I had a newborn again but in a shocking sort of way…anyway, the subsequent posts should be coherant, non-offensive and happy so hang in there with me.

And very soon, I’ll be back to your blogs.  I miss them.

Hi guys,

I’m checking in really fast and I apologize again for not going to everyone’s sites.  I will just as soon as the smoke clears.

The tonsilectomy went fine, but the anesthesia made Jake insane coming out of surgery.  Like straightjacket material.  Weirdest thing I ‘ve ever seen…I’ll do a real post on that soon.  And also the bras….They’re coming soon.

I’ll leave you with one interesting tidbit I gleaned from something called “Morning File” in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  It’s a collection of informational bites regarding the use of cursing conversation.  Lots of little pieces from different studies, etc.  But what I found so funny was this part:

By The Numbers

“Seventy-four percent of Americans said they hear profanity in public either frequently or occasionally, according to a year-old Associated Press-Ipsos poll. And 67 percent said they were offended by it. Meanwhile, an almost equal number (64 percent) said they use the F-word anywhere from several times a day to a few times a year. Which would seem to indicate that people would rather say bad words than hear them.”

Doesn’t this just sum we Americans up perfectly?

ps–I don’t know if it’s correct to say “we” Americans or “us” and I don’t have time to look so if anyone knows which is right (and I might have spelled tonsilectomy wrong…dooooonnn’tttt haaaave tiiiiiime.) feel free to tell me.

Hi everyone.  Thanks so much for all the congrats on the award.

I’ll post a bit here and there the next few days, but my son Jake is having his tonsils removed tomorrow and this promises to be a memorable experience.  Either he’ll shock the hell out of me and have somehow borrowed someone elses pain thresh-hold for the event, or he’s going to be so upset when he wakes up that his stiches rip out due to his vomiting at the site of the IV, etc.

I’m voting that he shocks the hell out of me with his guts and bravery.  I’ll keep you posted.

And as far as the bra post goes–it’s a comin’.  I’ve got some good stuff for ya all.

See you soon.

Oh, and watch Friday Night Lights, would ya? 

 

 

 

The brutally honest and extraordinary, snappy writer, Jaye Wells, shocked me this morning by including me in her list of awardees for the Thinking Blogger Awards.
 

Jaye said:

“Kathie makes me laugh out loud. She is responsible for making me rethink my choice in underpants. She’s also a damned good writer. If we were sisters, she’d be the smart sister with a bright future, while I’d be the sarcastic problem child. “
(Wearing Vera Wang as per my award show fantasy demands and white cotton Hanes) I must say I’m stunned by Jaye’s flattery and empowered that I’ve had such deep influence in the life of another writer.  I mean, to be able to affect change in the arena of undergarments, to know I’m making a difference, well, it leaves me tearful and without appropriate words.  So, just thanks Jaye.

It’s now my turn to pass on the good will and award some of my favorite blogs. But first, some background about the award:

The Thinking Blogger Award is an effort to build a network of blogs linked together outside of the usual search engines. Here is how it works (sort of like a meme):

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that tickle your grey matter.

2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme;

3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative gold version if silver doesn’t fit your blog).

So, while there are many blogs with whom I could bestow this award (take a look at my blogroll for others I love) I’m limited to five:  Soooooooo, here they are:

1. My Brilliant Mistakes–Cindy Closkey’s blog fills the gaps of my writer/stay-at-home-mom life.  Cindy reviews plays, offers (the recipe only, you’d have to set up an appointment to get her to make you the real thing) and critiques cocktails, travels, has her own businesses, performs in plays, molds other writers, and went to MIT.  Yes, just linking to her blog makes me feel smarter.  Cindy is the cool girl with the brain power that could end the world’s energy concerns…If it could juuuusssst beeeeeee harnessssssed. 
2. MG Tarquini, Genre Neutral—Mindy is a writer so gifted and talented that she’s drawn the attention of Miss Snark.  Yes, several times, Miss Snark has pointed her readers in Mindy’s direction and anyone who reads Miss Snark, knows damn well, if she points in your direction it’s often not good news.  Mindy is an exception and her blog of disparate, though gripping bites of information never dissapoint.
3. Judy Schneider’s Writing Lab–Judy’s blog is new.  But as any writer will soon find out, Judy’s experience in the writing world is anything but novice-like.  She’s a fantastic support person, a marvel at ferreting out plot problems, and helping writers inject their work with heightened tension.  As Co-author of The Frantic Woman’s Guide to Life and other works, she can wrestle your house into order while prodding you to whip your manuscript into shape–good enough shape to secure an agent and get the freaking thing published already.  Can’t put a price on that.
4. Working Stiffs–Working Stiffs sounds like it might pertain to the down-trodden working man, but it’s home to published and unpublished authors of mystery, suspense, thriller and even Women’s fiction.  Nancy Martin, Rebecca Drake and other Pittsburgh writers, published in various form, contribute there giving the reader glimpses into the minds of devious writing processes and murderous as well as joyous journeys into and through modern publication of books.  Okay, I contribute there, too, but as a small piece of the pie, I don’t feel as though I’m awarding myself.  And if I am, well, oh well.
5. Becky the Absentminded Housewife–Becky is fantastic.  The woman has three children–small kids–a husband and she is a costume maker.  Can you imagine?  She fashions the funniest (enormous boobs), most beautiful things a person could ever want to dress-up in.  Even makes a person who hates Halloween, take a closer look.  Maybe that fairie costume isn’t so innappropriate for the supermarket…It could work.  With the right undergarments, I suppose.  But, more than that, Becky is a fabulous writer who as far as I know has no dream of publishing the great American novel.  She’s just insightful, funny, and honest about life in the exotic world of Nevada–all for the benefit of us!