Bethanie's Brain

First, let me apologize for the title of this project. For some inexplicable reason, I despise the word 'nook' (it invariably makes me think of a really annoying real estate agent) and I would not use it to describe this project except that I cannot seem to think of anything better. Gah! Second, I've been thinking about doing this for a while now. I have my desk and 'my' chair in the living room, but as writing space neither of these really work. The desk usually has work stuff, bills or kid toys all over it. The chair is often buried in laundry, for one thing, and I can see the TV out of the corner of my eye when I sit in it, for another. Plus, I don't have any of my research notes or books within reach there. By far, the biggest problem, however, is that both the desk and the chair are right in the middle of Chaos Central (a.k.a., the living room), and nobody really buys the mommy-isn't-really-here-right-now thing. I need someplace (relatively) quiet...

New Post Category: I have decided to make myself accountable for the things I want to get done around the house by posting each project and its associated details here. Sort of an online To Do list. Boring for you, perhaps, but if my list of tasks is right there in front of me, I tend to get it done. It works for work-work: So I figured why not give it a try. I can add progress photos and strike off completed items. It'll be like motivation sorta. I'll post the first project later today.

ER. As in E mergency R oom. As in the REAL Emergency Room. As in that's where I spent last evening with The Husband and poor, little Ms. Baby. It was just a bit surreal. And scary. Yeah, it was definitely scary. Although I have to say, the scariest part was before we ever left the house. Ms. Baby had been vomiting every 2-8 minutes for 7 hours straight - that's not the scary part, that's the gross part - and her pediatrician said if she seemed at all lethargic (she did) that we should just go ahead and take her to the ER. That was the scary part - being whacked over the head with 'YES, something really is very wrong with your baby'. I went sort of numb. Then I was on autopilot: pack the diaper bag, grab extra washclothes and towels for Ms. Baby to puke in, check that my insurance card was in my wallet. We're only a 2 minute drive from the hospital, so the next thing I knew I was hustling through raindrops, filling out an intake form and trying to find a pl...

Anybody know anything about Mozy ?? Mozy provides a backup service - i.e., they store all your important documents (for a fee, of course) and has just started offering a discount to faculty, staff and students of Fabulous, Private University if we sign up for a 1 or 2 year contract. I've never heard of them, but it seems like a good deal. I was going to buy an external hard drive and all that jazz, but this seems worlds easier. And cheaper (and cheaper is always good, right?). Worth it? Anyone know? Alternatively, does anyone know how to pronounce it?

(Or: QUIT IT - That Funky-Motion Camera Thing is NOT COOL ) First, let me say this: I get motion sickness really easily. Really easily. I cannot sit in the back seat of a car without keeping a constant watch out the front window. I cannot sit in the back of a bus. I can't even sit sideways on a bus (Some of the shuttle buses at Fabulous Private University are set up like this. When I see them coming, I walk instead). And if you didn't think any of the above qualifies me as motion sickness impaired: there are certain TV shows that I cannot watch because they do this funky thing with the camera where they jerk it all over the place. The camera people, apparently, think they're really clever. It makes me puke. Now The Husband - who does NOT get motion sickness (like, ever, as far as I can tell) - thinks this makes me certifiably insane. (He also thinks this means his mother, my mother and his sisters are certifiably insane. Right. Clearly. It's just us. All of us...

Heart-Shaped Pancakes. Just cuz'.

I just cut 130,000 words from Novel #1. One hundred and thirty thousand words. That I wrote. Deemed useless and gone. I'm starting over with the plot. Right from square one. It's like taking a pair of scissors to a sweater you just finished knitting and methodically shredding it because you've realized it's not so much a sweater as it is a huge, misshapen, unraveling mess. Now usually with a huge, misshapen mess of a sweater, you just rip out what you've knit and start over. Or stuff the misbegotten thing in a plastic bag, shove it into the back of a dark closet and try to forget it ever existed. Sometimes, thought, you actually plan on taking scissors to a sweater. It's called steeking , an intentional scissors-to-sweater technique used in the construction of Norweigian and Fair Isle sweaters. The steek is a well planned thing - its edges are sutured off long before the scissors appear ( well, usually ). After the deed is done, new stitches are picked up a...

Another few weary steps and there was nothing above us but the sky. ~Sir Edmund Hillary One of the first heros I ever had is gone . I shall miss him.

Because of NaNo I can't have a regular, ol', run-of-the-mill list of New Year's Resolutions. No, no, I have to have a totally dorky list of Big, Fun, Scary, Adventure-y things I'm going to accomplish this year. Whatever. I don't recall ever claiming that I'm not dorky, so what the hell. Let's have at it! Complete and submit one short story. Learn to speak rudimentary but passable Chinese (Mandarin, I guess, even though everyone I work with is from Shanghai). Learn to read/write/vaguely recognize 50 Chinese characters, plus the numbers 1-100. Complete a first revision of either NaNo 2005 (the vampire thing) or NaNo 2006 (the fantasy thing). Teach myself some basic biostatistics (since I can't afford to take a class). At least complete one read-through of the $60 biostats book I bought myself for Christmas (I did mention being dorky, didn't I?). Teach myself some basics about protein structure (since I can't afford to take a class) by reading ...

My alarm clock is set for 5:30 am on January 2, 2008. It did not go off this morning. Nevertheless, I woke up promptly at 5:25. And I'm still up. And I see no hope for going back to sleep until bedtime tonight. It is too early to make coffee, since the sound of the espresso machine will wake everybody up. It is too early to go last-minute Christmas shopping, since none of the stores I need to go to will open until 7:00. It is still dark out. Not fair, I say, not fair at all.

Why is it that some abandoned project suddenly looks all sweet and interesting just when the going gets tough on some other project? Why is that, huh?

I am a rabid perfectionist. I either do something well or I don't do it at all. Sometimes, this a good thing. For example, the medical editing part of my job requires unflagging, single-minded, obsessive attention to detail. Being a rabid perfectionist and doing things well or not at all is practically a pre-requisite for the job. However, this quest for perfection can also get WAY out of hand and make me crazy about things that just aren't that important. For example: Yesterday afternoon. In the midst of submitting a paper to a journal, I discovered that we would have to suggest reviewers - that is, give the names and contact information of people we think are knowledgable enough to judge the science of our paper. After I got over being annoyed that the stupid journal didn't put anything about that in their Instructions to Authors (where it bloody well should have been), I dutifully emailed the Boss Lady to ask who she wanted to suggest. And as usual, I told her just to ...

I wrote 17 words yesterday. Seventeen . Pathetic. I got distracted playing with yWriter - free and fabulous software for organizing your novel. Yes, FREE! And, really, I think I like it better than the stuff I paid for... Unfortunately, 'playing' does not produce words. Hence, the ungodly early hour of this post. Must make words, if I want to move my little ladybug along. Go, ladybug, go! OK, this isn't producing novel words either. I'm off.

New category: Things I Wish Someone Would Invent Not me, 'cuz I haven't got time to invent, patent, etc anything , but I've created this lovely label under which I shall post my ideas for anyone who DOES have the time. Feel free to steal the idea and run with it. Idea No. 1 - Shopping Cart Cupholders It would be great if shopping carts just CAME with cupholders, but I'll bet that's expensive and would totally screw up how the carts nest into each other in the cart corrals. So the next best thing would be some sort of attachment that I could purchase (or rent) that would hook on to an existing shopping cart. Why? Because I haven't got enough arms to juggle the cell phone, the baby's snacks, the baby's drink, my coffee, my purse, the baby's toys, and/or Ms. Five's various items all at the same time without losing my mind and my patience - not to mention somehow getting fruit roll-ups, lunchables and string cheese into the damn cart before every...

Look! Up there! At the top of the posts! It's a ticker! Cute, eh? I'm finding is that it's not just the having a goal and a deadline that's keeps me hitting the keyboard, but it's also a lot about the moving of little widget thingys. Hey, whatever keeps you motivated, right?

Well, this was an interesting NaNo. I finished later in November than ever. I finished with fewer words than ever. If this trend continues, I won't finish next year at all... But, this year , I finished. And, as usual, I learned a whole lot. 1) Deciding to sit down and write is like deciding to have a baby . No really. As in: there's always a reason not to. With babies, it's: "I have to finish my degree first" or "We have to buy a house first" or "Let's get a dog first". With writing it's: "I'm too tired" or "I should really clean the kitchen first" or "Hey! Let's go scrub bathroom grout!". There's always, always an excuse not to do it. 2) "When" doesn't matter, but "where" does . My vastly prefered writing time is in the early-early before anybody else wakes up. It's quiet. I can focus. There are no distractions, but there is lots of coffee. It's a good...

You know that 8,000 words I wanted to crank out between Friday and Sunday - I actually did it! How? I have no idea - other than sheer bloody mindedness. I mean, there were distractions galore. Everyone is still sick. The Husband was gone part of Saturday and Sunday. The Mt. Everest of Laundry took over most of the house. Our TV died and we had to buy a new one (according to the TV watchers, anyway - I'd have been fine without it). So I had every excuse to give up on my lofty goal and settle for the minimum 1,667 each day. But I didn't, and now I'm back where I'm more used to being during NaNo - a couple days ahead. Not that I won't squander that over Thanksgiving, but hey, that's what a cushion is for, right?

I have yet to write a single word today, which bodes un-well for my previously advertised word count goal for the weekend. However, I have large piles of laundry and live with a bunch of people who think they need clean underwear every day (I know, I know, WTF??!?). But laundry is underway and I'm about to be myself --- armed with this: Yeah. That's, like, an inch of froth standing up over the edge of the cup. Clever, aren't I? Er, yeah, whatever. The trick is to let the froth set for a good five minutes before you dump the espresso in. Yum, yum!

My word count goal between now and Sunday night: 8,000 words. Chances of me actually achieving said goal: slim to none-ish. I mean, I have work-work to do. I have house-work to do. I have two sick kids. I have a sick husband. I have a sick self. I have email to catch up on. I have phone calls to make to family and friends. In other words, I am almost certainly setting myself up for failure. But what the hell. It's NaNo. Anything can happen. So, here we go. Word count as of this morning: 25,677. Ready? Set? GO.

Save the Earth! It's the only planet with chocolate! I didn't. Somebody at NaNo has it as their sig line. And even though I've labeled it as such, it's not technically a Bumpah Stickah either. But it should be.