Bethanie's Brain

Poor Ms. Six is still sick, still puking, and still hasn't eaten anything since Tuesday. Ms. Baby, not surprising given her general take on life, has picked TODAY to rekindle her interest in potty training. So my morning has gone something like this: "Mama?!" calls a querelous voice from the couch. "My tummy doesn't feel good." This is the signal. I abandon the work-work I'm trying to do and dash over, grab the bowl and assume the position (holding the bowl before a crouching Ms. Six whilst attempting to keep her hair out if it). Ms. Six starts dry heaving (nothing in there to come up really). Ms. Baby, who in the meantime has hauled her potty out into the living room, decides this would be the perfect time to come show everybody that she has managed to remove her shorts and diaper all by herself so she can practice potty-sitting. As a bonus, she pulls up her shirt to show off her belly button. So there I am, torn - do I congratulate and encourage t...

Last Saturday, according to my receipt, I purchased a book of 'Forever' stamps at my local post office. I mailed two things that had been sitting around waiting for me to find the time to get to the post office and buy some stamps. Then I put the stamps in 'a safe place'. And now I can't find them. Which is driving me mad, because I have something else I need to mail. ...waaaaait a second... Yep. Just found 'em. Right where I had looked at least SIX TIMES. Frickin' stamp fairies. I tell ya... .

Well, it's about time for a post, non? OK, it's past time - kids are sick, work is nutso, etc. And coincidences are coming out of the woodwork. Event 1: Best college girl friend sent me a birthday card last week and we started emailing (after an embarassingly long hiatus). Turns out she's ended up doing much the same thing as I am -- editing for non-native English speakers (although she's in economics whoo-haa, rather than biomedical whoo-haa). Event 2: Not so much an event as the general atmosphere of disorganized bureaucratic clutter at FPU lately has been approaching the itchy side of intolerable. I'm getting fairly burnt out on it. Event 3: One task set out for the Impending Vacation is to write up the content for my freelance website. I did some of that today, since I was stuck at home mopping up vomit (again) and therefore found it difficult to concentrate on actual work stuff and decided: what the hell, I'll just take an effing sick day. Event 4:...

So we - well, I - don't get to escape The South this year. Again. The Husband has no appreciation for what I will suffer for this. At all. Never having been made to live someplace he despises, he can't seem to get his mind around it. Plus, he grew up here, so he can't see that the place has any faults. I, naturally, can see pretty much only the faults. Which sounds like I'm being overly negative, I suppose, but other than my job at FPU and the fact that I can justify a swimming pool, there just isn't much to recommend the place in my book. And I don't even want to think about all the things I'll have to wait another year before I can see/taste/feel again. *wails, dies* .

So, it's July, which means we're 6 months into this year's Big, Fun, Scary Adventure Challenge . It's time to check in and see how Bethanie is progressing. Or isn't progressing. As the case may be. Here's the list. And how I'm doing with it. Complete and submit one short story. This was on the list? Er... really? Heh-heh... Well, I do have a couple stories in the works. One I actually looked at last week. But it's not finished. And the other one is finished, but doesn't resemble a short story so much as it does a sumo wrestler in a string bikini... *sigh* I have such trouble writing short... So yeah, bit of work yet to do on this front. Learn to speak rudimentary but passable Chinese (Mandarin, I guess, even though everyone I work with is from Shanghai). Here I have actual progress to report! I've got a couple of co-workers teaching me words here and there, and Chik-fil-A was handing out language CDs a couple months ago. We (OK, Ms. Six) ...

The Flat-Iron This synopsis stuff is hard work. Not that I expected it to be easy, mind. But yes, I’m still at it. I did a bit of homework on what a ‘real’ (to be submitted to somebody) synopsis should be, and what I did last week is not nearly as done as I thought it was. But – shockingly – I think it’s actually going pretty well. It was a hectic weekend, so I wasn’t able to devote a lot of time to it – not as much as I wanted to by any means, but enough that I managed to have another Revelation. Er, no, the Axe did not get happy and whack another hapless character from the plot (lucky characters). It wasn’t really a Plot Revelation so much as it was a Process Revelation. See, I’m always struggling with the Big Picture. All my life, I’ve been climbing things – trees, mountains, cliffs, icefalls – in an attempt to gain some perspective. And my lack of perspective (or inability to gain any) when it comes to fiction is, I think, the main cause of the ginormous bowls of plot spaghe...

Synopsis. Since I still felt like shit last night, that was my Revision Hell project. Try to come up with a synopsis of the story. To help keep me on track, yanno, and give me The Big Picture so I wouldn't get all dazed and confused by the details. Plus, I needed something I could stick bits of the hacked out character into. (My, that sounds sort of gruesome, if you think about it...) Well. Three failed attempts later (I kept coming up with back-of-the-book blurbs - not helpful), I finally got... something. I don't know that I can call it a synopsis, because honestly, I haven't done my homework on how to write a decent synopsis, but I think it'll do what I need it to do for now. *sigh* At least, I'm feeling better today. That really IS something. .

Must keep it sharp, doncha know... So yesterday was something of a bust for Revision Hell, because - of course, story of my life whenever I start a writing project - I got sick. Again. By the time the kids were in bed, all I wanted to do was go to bed myself. I did manage to chop out the several chapters that were in the axed character's POV, so I got the manuscript down to 64K. Then I pasted in a couple of scenes for one of the characters who will be shouldering part of the story in his place, so I'm up to 65K. And then I called it a night, because my throat was sore, I had bodyaches, and my head was starting to feel distinctly balloon-like. I'm still not feeling that great, so it's good it's a work-at-home day. If I really start feeling bad, I can lay on the couch and I won't be infecting co-workers with whatever-the-fuck this is. :-p Anyway, the plan for this evening is to work out what other scenes I'm going to need to make up for the axed POV and, i...

Day One of Revision Hell went surprisingly well. I am shocked, in fact, at how well. Not only did I wield the Plot Spaghetti/Bullshit Pruning Axe with a ruthlessness I had no idea I possessed, but I had A Revelation. A sad revelation, but a revelation nonetheless. But let me start at the beginning. First, I discovered that I had already lopped off the last two-thirds of Novel #1 back in January when I had the original realization that the story was too big for one book. Yay! I was down to 86K already - yahoo! Then, as I was thinking about the story (whilst making spaghetti for supper - how ironic is that ?), some little bits of story drifted into some bits of things I've learned about writing in the last 6 months, there was a gentle collision and then BANG! - the Revelation exploded into my brain. A major character has to be cut. Ouch. Double ouch, 'cuz he's one of my favorites. One of my darlings, in fact. And now I'm embarrassed, because I can't remember who ...

Revision Hell, That Is So Joely's hosting Revision Hell between now and July 31st... well, not "hosting" per se... but... well... yanno, it was her idea! So I'm nominating her as Hell's Hostess. :-D Here are my personal Circles of Novel Hell: Polish ('til it shines like the top of the Chrysler Building...) Circle I Limbo Add Details, Emotion and Other Pretty Things Circle II Whirling in a Dark & Stormy Wind Villian Boot Camp Circle III Mud, Rain, Cold, Hail & Snow Cardboard Cut-Out Characters Circle IV Rolling Weights I'll-Finish-It-Later Scenes Circle V Stuck in Mud, Mangled River Styx Character Arcs That Don't Circle VI Buried for Eternity River Phlegyas Pruning Dead Limbs Circle VII Burning Sands Plot Spaghetti Circle IIX Immersed in Excrement Plot Holes Circle IX Frozen in Ice Design your own hell The Goal: Revise something. For me that'll be Novel #1. Why? Well, mostly because I can hardly make it worse. Eh-heh. OK, I know, I k...

So I'm reading this book: Genghis Kahn and the Making of the Modern World . It's fascinating, and somewhere in there is a discussion about the Mongol religion -- part of which involves a diety of sorts called the Eternal Blue Sky . Cool, thinks I. I mention to one of our postdocs, who happens to be from Mongolia, that I'm reading this book. We proceed to have this long discussion about the Mongol invasion and how everywhere she's worked over the years - Afganistan, Pakistan, Russia, Egypt - people still remember how their homeland was conquered by Genghis Kahn (or, as she says, Chingis Kahn). And then she goes back to her cube, and I finish submitting the paper she came to ask me about in the first place. Then I email her to let her know and she emails back and says something to the effect of 'now we just have to pray to the Blue Sky Father (or the God) that it gets accepted'. Now that may be a literal translation of the Christian 'God' or it may be ...

Fruit First, the fruit: check it out - I HAVE PLUMS!!!! There are a bunch more getting close on the tree and evidence on the ground under the tree that a bunch more got ripe recently (the squirrels beat us to 'em ... damn squirrels). Hopefully, the ones I picked will ripen a bit more by themselves, otherwise we might be having a pucker-fest instead of a snack... Fauna Second, the fauna: The South has no shortage of Bugs of Gigantic Proportion. Found this lovely early one morning - thankfully dead - on my doorstep. My ancient camera is not capable of the sort of close-up that would really give you nightmares, but you could see every last one of the thing's eyes. He/She had one HECK of an abdomen (or thorax or whatever that bulbous, brownish bit is...). I think it died because it came too close to the house -- an unintended consequence of having to spay the foundation for ants. This is why I don't like using pesticides. You never know what you're going to kill, and I...

I know. It's been an age in blog-time since I've put up a real post and I have a list - a long list - of obligations I have not fulfilled. But I have my reasons for blowing everybody off. I do! First, I had a birthday party to orchestrate. It was a smashing success, even if I did question my sanity (repeatedly) for have nine - NINE - 6-year-olds in my house at one time and then stuffing them full of sugar. I mean, there was a spontaneous robot parade, fercrissake. But. Nothing got broken, there weren't too many tears shed, and there were no (permanent) injuries. And it was fun (in its own special way)! Second, Ms. Baby insisted on bringing home more microscopic (and illness-causing) friends. So there was vomiting. And diarrhea. Oh, and then there was a case of sun poisoning (The Husband brought the sunscreen with him on the boat, but didn't use it - brilliant). Think subcutaneous blisters. It was fucking gross. 'Nuff said. Third, ... well, shit. I've f...

OK, check it out, y'all - Joely's got a huge GIVEAWAY going! There are free books to be had and a $10 gift certificate to Drollerie Press , and all you have to do is post a comment on her blog between now and June 15, which is this coming Sunday, so don't delay - go check it out now!! .

So Ms. Almost-Six has completed kindergarten and now I have all this Stuff piled up - cool little art projects, worksheets, report card, diploma! I'd like to do something with it besides let it take up space on my already-cluttered desk and collect dust. Scrapbooks are an obvious solution. You'd think. But the very idea of scrapbooking makes me shudder. Don't get me wrong - I think scrapbooks are neat. I think all the little doo-dads and stickers you can buy to decorate scrapbook pages are really nifty. I love the thought of organizing all the Stuff into something that resembles a Story. But I know just what would happen if I bought all the nifty doo-dads. They would take up space right next to all the Stuff on my already-cluttered desk and collect dust. My wedding album is a perfect example: I've been married almost nine years and all the wedding album Stuff is still sitting in a plastic bag on an already-cluttered shelf and collecting dust. So I won't go there....

This is TOO COOL!!! Australian author Simon Haynes has made copies of the first book in his Hal Spacejock series available for download FREE!!! Yes, FREE!!!! Get it here. I've been waiting to read this book for ages, but it's really expensive if you're not in Australia, so it's been pouting away on my Amazon wish list. No longer!! Off to read! .

One of the things about Life South of the MD-L that drives the poor brain stark, raving mad is the fact that recycling is RARE. To put it nicely. They do it in Itty-Bitty City proper, but here in HSH, you are shit-outta-luck. So, because we do what we can to not leave a totally gigantic footprint on the Earth, we used to drive a few miles down the road and across the county line and take our recycling to one of IBC's drop-off locations. Until they closed it. Well, they didn't close it. Not exactly. No, instead, they brought the dumpsters inside the six-foot-high, razor-wire-topped fence, so you could only drop off your recycling during 'normal business hours' - 8:30-4:30, Monday thru Friday - which is just so incredibly convenient if you have a job and kids and such like. We didn't give up though. No, we've hung on to our recycling for the better part of 6 months thinking The Husband would load up the back of the mini-van and take it on his way to the job si...

After yesterday's unexpected news that my sister-in-law is going to have twins, I sent her a little list of good things about having twins that she could focus on to try and diffuse some of the shell shock. Then I decided it would make a great Thursday Thirteen - if I could come up 13 things... I figured I'd probably have to resort to google to get all 13, but I managed to come up with all of these myself. Yay, me! :D So here they are: 13 wonderful things about twins. And if you can think of others, by all means, please add to the list in the comments and I'll pass them on to my sister-in-law! Thirteen Wonderful Things about Twins 1. These days, you find out WELL ahead of time, not on their birthday! 2. Two kids, one pregnancy. (And if your pregnancies are anything like mine (miserable), you know that's a wonderful thing.) 3. Two kids, one labor ! Yahoo! 4. You get to open twice as many baby presents! Wheeee! 5. I couldn't find anything on their website,...

So my sister-in-law, Ms. Beautiful (no, really, she is), has a three-year-old and finally convinced her husband that if they were going to have another kid, they might as well do it now. So they've been trying. A few weeks ago, Ms. Beautiful was in town on a visit from the Land of Palm Trees and Long, Sandy (Non-Rocky) Beaches otherwise known as L.A., where she lives. She talked lots about babies and then made the Big Announcement: they're pregnant! And then she flew back to the Land of Palms and Beaches and emailed a couple of photos from her trip and everything was peachy. Today, my mother-in-law called me and said, "Are you sitting down? If not, find a spot and sit." "What? Why?" I croaked (I lost my voice over the weekend). The first thing that popped into my mind was that something awful had happened. "Ms. Beautiful had her ultrasound today," she said. I could hear some weird undertone in her voice that I couldn't quite identify. Amus...

Or: Bethanie Gets an F- in Woody Plant Identification There are a lot of flowing shrubberies and trees south of the M-DL - I mean, a LOT . Many, many more than in Yankee-land, where I grew up. Consequently, I cannot identify many, many of the flowering lovelies. And that is my excuse for what follows. You see, we have this lovely cherry tree in our side yard that bloomed beautifully last year: Aren't those blossoms gorgeous?!?? Simply stunning! Then we got a late frost, and the budding cherries ended up looking like itty-bitty burnt up marshmallows. They're the little black things in the photo on the left, which are hard to see, so on the right, is a photo of my pears, which suffered the same fate. It was very sad. Heart-breaking, in fact. But this is not that story. No, this is the story of this year, the year we did not get a late frost that killed everything. The year that everything bloomed beautifully. The year that Ms. Almost-Six came up to me and said, "Ma...