I BELIEVE IN E-MAIL

When e-mail first made its debut I was like my grandmother and the dawning of the answering machine:  ‘Who needs it, if it is important they will call back.’  I did not believe that e-mail would ever truly take the place of ‘snail’ mail, but I have jumped firmly onto the e-mail bandwagon. I am a full-fledged convert, a true believer and bona fide e-mailer extraordinaire.

Perfect example: Paul and I were in the same house, practically in the same room and I was waiting to speak with him, quite patiently I might add. He finally finished his phone call - business as usual on the mobile phone, which is a whole other discussion in itself, and we attempted talking about family issues, mostly scheduling.  It was a lost cause. 

He spoke of his priorities, I spoke of mine, and we tried to coordinate what everyone else expected from us, too. There seemed to be quite a bit of overlapping and I had to confess that I was confused and fearful we would let someone’s festivus plans slip through the cracks, annoying them to no measure, and filling me with traditional holiday guilt.  His business trip to Chicago, my Safe Driver’s Course, regular work schedules, holiday “festivities’ (yes, that is in a quote for a reason, there is no stress like scheduling holiday ‘festivities’ with family and friends). So anyway, I asked ‘Can you put your schedule in writing, maybe THEN we can get this all figured out.’

I was thinking sticky note, because as much as I hate to admit it, I am at an age where I need lists to keep myself organized; his reply, ‘I’ll e-mail’. Problem solved. After several e-mails to each other while he was on the couch and I sat at the dining room table, we had a plan.We still didn’t get every activity covered and had a few disappointed people we couldn’t fit into our crazy schedules, BUT we could e-mail our apologies and a promise to catch up as soon as time allowed.

E-mail solves other problems as well: thank you notes you’ve put off for too long, quick hellos to let friends and family know you still are alive and well, reminders to your children to brush their teeth and eat their vegetables even though they live three states away now, reminders to yourself of appointments to the doctor or dentist, and forwarding every funny joke on earth to people who feel the need to do the same for you – junk mail got on board the e-mail train IMMEDIATELY.

So who is to say that an old dog can’t learn new tricks, I am a perfect example. I now embrace e-mail whole heartedly. As a matter of fact, I don’t know how I ever got along without it. Do you?

One Thing About Me

There is one thing everyone should really know about me: I get irritable sometimes. I think of myself as direct with a low tolerance for twaddle, but a number of family members have noted that I can be cranky and whiny. In addition, fair warning to anyone who may ever be an overnight houseguest, I am just not a good morning person, but that is another discussion all together.


Now I know that most of you are thinking that is just not possible for such an easygoing chick like me. You are thinking she's usually so cheerful, with a big smile and that can-do demeanor, just a picture of delightfulness ready to jump on any passing bandwagon and join in the revelry. You cannot imagine me being disagreeable, much less surrounded by an acrimonious cloud, crowned with disheveled hair and sporting a bad attitude. I know you are having difficulty perceiving me as anything but ready to greet the world with sunshine and goodwill, and you would be right for the most part, but I do occasionally become taciturn with a baleful glare instead of emoting Glinda the Good Fairy happiness. Don’t worry though, it is usually only when I am feeling underappreciated (i.e. like a live-in maid and not Queen of the Household), or if you wake me up abruptly from a dream I am loath to leave (where I am Queen of the Household and not the live-in maid), or when I realize that I am not going to live forever.


Unfortunately, just the other day I had one of those you are not going to live forever moments that make me very cranky. It was my sister Meg’s birthday, she is the baby of the family and I am the eldest. It was a weekend morning, I was lounging around in my pajamas and quite cheerful. I playfully sang her a birthday song of my own creation, and teased her about turning 39 years old. When we finished our conversation, I decided to treat myself to a relaxing bath as I had the house to myself and could enjoy the bathroom, alone, for more than ten minutes. It was just before stepping into the tub of luxurious bubbles that I made the mistake of looking in the mirror and mortality soundly spanked my plump backside.


Seeing myself in full dis-clothes-ure usually does not happen for several reasons: I always remove my glasses before undressing creating a visual world that is wonderfully undefined, plus the lights are usually off; I like my baths and showers so hot and steamy that the mirrors fog over, so if I absentmindedly glance in their direction my nakedness is not reflected back. It is in this fashion I have been able to maintain the body of a twenty-five year old. Have I ever mentioned that I believe God is a comedian? He is, and it was in this indecorous fashion that he sharply reminded me that I have reached an age where the dark magic of gravity is taking its toll, plus he happily pointed out that sitting on my bum at a desk all day long typing is not a form of exercise.


I quickly immersed myself in the tub, covered all my fading glory with bubbles, leaned back, closed my eyes, and practiced deep breathing exercises while my inner 25-year-old came to terms with the outer 49-year-old woman. Steam, dreams, and a promise to drink more water and forgo bread in any form, as well as the reminder that plastic surgery is an option, got me through those few awful moments where reality looked me right in the face and I was foolish enough to look back. That and the fact that getting older sharpens one’s ability (and right) to forget things, like where you left your car keys (in the car), what you walked into the other room for (who cares it wasn’t that important anyway), and the fact that physical nature eventually takes precedence over state of mind in the case of aging.


I was on the road to recovering my cheery self, mixing a happy potion commonly known as a Bloody Mary – hey, it was almost noontime AND it was a Saturday - when Paul snuck up behind me, kissed me playfully on the neck, grabbed my bottom, and cooed something along the lines of what is that nice big pillow you have there. He denies it, but I was pretty damn sure that is what he said, which made me a little irritable. He swears I transformed into a fire-breathing dragon when all he wanted to do was get a little frisky, but as I said, I have a low tolerance for twaddle, besides the maid had to get her big pillow moving and catch up with the laundry, the dishes, and sweeping the ashes from the fireplace.


Paul, being the prince that he truly is, helped with the chores while skillfully avoiding my scathing glances; he waited patiently through my stomping up and down the stairs, the slamming of various doors, the mutterings under my breath, and the brief tears. Using some kind of man radar to determine the most opportune moment, he scooped me into a bear hug asking if the sexy maid would be interested in relations with the Man of the House, while offering me another Bloody Mary and a shoulder massage.

What woman in her right mind could stay irritable under those conditions? Besides, I do not want to be twenty-five again; I am happy with the life that I am living, and I am happy to have a man who knows that sometimes I get irritable and is still willing to hang in there until he can make me laugh again. So, as long as he doesn’t wake me up from a beautiful dream with his snoring tonight, everything will remain copacetic.

NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH

Wow, I haven't posted anything here since August. Needless to say I had a busy summer, and an equally busy fall, but now that the winter is coming on strong and it gets dark early here in the Northeast I hope to have time to regularly post again.

I am writing quite a bit these days as I signed up for the National Novel Writing Month.  Have you heard of it? Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30. Of course my computer went on the fritz, because I've spent time doing laundry, dishes, oh yes, and my regular nine-to-five job, I'm just a tad behind on my expected word count, but that is part of the value of this exercise - to learn to shut everything else out for a certain period of time during the day and just write ! As they tell you on their website - Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Oh yes, I have one other problem - I am battling writing forward instead of going back to edit, but I will prevail. Make no mistake, when you wrie this way you write a lot of crap, but you can take that out later and hopefully you will have a nugget of something meaningful to your story that can be tweaked and prodded and coaxed into something worthy - but not now!



The Allan K. Smith Center for Writing and Rhetoric
Trinity College, Hartford, CT



I did attend one write-in at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, just yesterday. It was a beautiful Sunday, warm for the season, and it was inspiring to be out of my home and all the distractions it contains, and into a room with like-minded individuals intent on writing. I'm not quite where I want ot be yet, but I wrote for three hours, it was inspiring.

Honestly, I could end up with 50,000 and a hellacious story, but at least it will be my hellacious story and I can claim my mission accomplished.

Discovering a Red Headed Stranger in Austin, Texas

Paul had to travel to Austin, Texas recently on business. From the onset he was not over whelmed about spending time there. Me, I like cowboys, and barbeques, and long winding dirt roads surrounded by open, empty fields or stands of woods. Of course Austin is a city so my vision is stuck in some old black and white movie, but Paul was still concerned that Austin wouldn’t be, I don’t know, metropolitan enough for his tastes.

A day into his trip he phoned to say he was thoroughly enjoying himself. As it turns out Austin is quite metro. The capital of Texas, Austin is located in Central Texas, situated on the Colorado River, with three man-made lakes within the city limits: Lady Bird Lake, Lake Austin, and Lake Walter E. Long.

According to Wikipedia, “Residents of Austin are known as "Austinites" and include a diverse mix of university professors, students, politicians, musicians, state employees, high-tech workers, blue-collar workers, and white-collar workers. The main campus of the University of Texas is located in Austin. The city is home to development centers for many technology corporations and has adopted the nickname "Silicon Hills"… In recent years, many Austinites have also adopted the unofficial slogan "Keep Austin Weird"; this refers partly to the eclectic and liberal lifestyle of many Austin residents but is also the slogan for a campaign to preserve smaller local businesses and resist excessive corporatization.”

Austin's official slogan is The Live Music Capital of the World; the city has a happening live music scene revolving around the many nightclubs on 6th Street and the annual film/music/interactive festival known as South by Southwest (SXSW).

Paul was there just a week after SXSW ended but the city was still humming from the vibe. When we were young and growing up in Litchfield County, Connecticut, the live music scene, between local clubs and live venues in NYC and Boston, was alive and kickin’. I loved seeing bands perform live, having a cocktail with friends, and dancing the night away….oh how I miss the 70s and 80s, but I digress. It appears that Austin Texas, of all places, is one of the last surviving enclaves for a lot of good, live music.

Towards the end of 1971, Stevie Ray Vaughan dropped out of high school and moved to Austin, Texas with the band Blackbird. Their home base was a nightclub on the outskirts of town called the Soap Creek Saloon, a classic Texas Roadhouse. Of course, Soap Creek Saloon is now closed, and Stevie Ray has moved on up to that big band in the sky, but I thought he was worth a mention when speaking of Austin.

One thing that Paul did consider very freaky was the fact that Austin is home to the largest urban bat population in the world. Congress Avenue Bridge, which spans the Lady Bird Lake, is home to a colony of Mexican Free-tailed Bats. At dusk, from March to September, people line the bridge and lake shore to watch the bats stream out in their nightly quest for insects. I think this would be so amazing to witness, Paul stayed as far away from the bridge as possible.

There were two things that Paul thoroughly enjoyed about Austin Texas: one was Tito’s Handmade Vodka and the other was a Bacon Bloody Mary.

Tito's Handmade Vodka is produced in Austin at Texas' first and oldest legal distillery. It's made in small batches in an old fashioned pot still by Tito Beveridge (yes, that is his actual name), a 45-year-old Geologist. It is micro-distilled in an old-fashioned pot still, like they do for fine single malt scotches or high-end French cognacs. This stuff is distilled six times and it is smooth, hoo-wee boy.  When Paul got home we asked the Cascade Spirit Shop to find us a bottle. They did, and it is truly delicious and not overly expensive. Buy some now before it catches on.

Paul and I LOVE hotdogs.  While he was in Austin he stopped by Frank’s looking to try out theirs. Just looking at their website makes my mouth water. I may travel to Austin just so I can experience Frank’s first hand. I never did ask Paul how the hotdogs were, because he sent me this photo (left).  While waiting for his dog he enjoyed a cocktail called the Red Headed Stranger. It is created with house made bacon-infused Dripping Springs Vodka, Frank’s Bloody Mary mix, garnished with a slice of bacon, a hunk of cheddar cheese, an olive, and a pepperocini. Paul had his glass rimmed in pepper, like you would salt a margarita glass.

As far as the Bacon Bloody, aka the Red Headed Stranger, well I guess I am going to have to get myself to Austin and try the original with a side of hotdogs, but since my religion involves the partaking of at least one Bloody Mary every Sunday, I will try to recreate the original using Paul as my taste-tester. This will be a good juxtaposition to my beloved Shrimpy Mary served at Jumpin’ Jays Fish Café in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

From what I can tell there is much more to Austin than I would have ever imagined. Paul thinks we should go back and visit sometime soon. He thinks I would really enjoy it. I think he’s right.