This is cheap of me, but...

I want you all to know that I am reading your comments and do really appreciate all of your visits. I will be returning your calls this coming week. My girls were on spring break this past week and my dad's visiting this weekend and [insert more excuses here]. I'm sorry. :(

That’s Some Bad Hair, Harry

Have you ever gotten a bad haircut? The kind where you’re just miserable and want to hide from everyone until it grows out? It’s awful!

I had been wondering since that day mid-winter when the city had been shut down from snow/ice for 3 days and I cut my bangs in a frenzy of stir-craziness, whether I might want all of my hair short. So early his summer, I got my hair cut off. I didn’t do it right, though. I went to one of those places where the cuts cost $13, and… well… You get what you pay for…

I swear the stylist got bored or something in the middle of my cut and just gave up because my hair wasn’t remotely even anywhere on my head. There were places she clearly neglected to cut. But I didn’t know this while I was still there to tell her to fix it or to ask for another stylist. It was so different from what it had been and I mistakenly trusted that she knew what she was doing, and I left with what turned out to be a huge mistake. HG said I should go back and make her fix it, but I wasn’t letting her touch my hair again. I spent $45 getting it fixed by a stylist I trust, but even that wasn’t exactly right. He left it too long in the back and too short on the sides, all mullet-y and wrong. I found myself saying to people who complimented me on my new look, “Thanks. I’m growing it out.” Or something along those lines.

The worst part was, though, that I didn’t believe my hair looked good. It startled me every time I looked in a mirror, and being a Person of Very Small Self-esteem, I spent all my time trying to hide it or fix it and waiting for it to grow. It was awful. It was way more consuming than it should have been.

Then Pete decided she wanted a new do. She had cut her hair into a cute bob back in May for Locks for Love and wanted something more interesting. Having had the experience I had with the $13 stylist, I took her to my $45 stylist to get it done. If it was that bad for me, imagine how my poor 9 year-old would have handled a hatchet job! Since I was still wishing my hair was different, I made an appointment for me too and we went together. Before we went, we spent time looking at hairstyles and deciding what we really wanted. We printed pictures and took them with us so he could see. And when we got there, we looked at one of the hairstyle books he had and found even better choices.

The result was that he was able to finally fix my hair in a way that I really like it. It is still on its way to growing out. But now I LIKE it!

Pete, on the other hand, had 4 or 5 pictures of what she wanted and spent a lot of time with the stylist picking and choosing what she liked from each and ended up with a one-of-a-kind, self-designed hairstyle that she loves and that looks Super Cute and very grown up on her.

Lesson learned: I do not want a short cut. Remind me of that if I ever say, “Hey, I’m thinking about cutting my hair off. What do you think?”

Have I Lost You?

I feel like I'm always apologizing for being MIA and making promises to do better. If we were dating, you should dump me. If I were your best friend and you were dating... um... me... Wait. This metaphor isn't working. So let me just say this:

I'm sorry, baby. I'm a jerk. I promise I'll be there for you from now on. Please don't leave me. I need you!

'Kay?

I've Been Thinking...

Sometimes you're reading a story or a novel or something, and the author has included detailed descriptions of the story's location, the room or landscape or climate. You think, "A Real Writer* gives you descriptions of places in their work." Then later, when you're writing and realize you've just gone 2 or 3 pages without even mentioning if there is a window in the room, you wonder if you're doing it wrong.

But maybe instead the location isn't crucial. If the wallpaper doesn't move your story forward or add to our insight about the characters, does it really matter if it's striped? I don't think so.

* a published writer

-----------------

Don't worry - I intend to post about chapter (month) 2 of One Year to a Writing Life: Twelve Lessons to Deepen Every Writer's Art and Craft by Susan M. Tiberghien. It is about personal essays and inspired me to write about the time in the 4th grade when I spilled spaghetti in the milk cooler. Probably Monday...

Legitimacy and Randomness

How does it happen? How do you get to that point where you don't feel like a kid or a wannabe when you say, "I'm a writer"?

How do you write a compelling bio or query/cover letter when you still feel like you should be saying, "When I grow up, I'm going to be a writer"?

How am I supposed to find time to clean the bathrooms and fold the laundry and cook dinner and take everyone to the dentist/doctor/groomer/vet/soccer and still read and write as much as I'd like to? Maybe if I leave 2 hours early for carpool...

I submitted a very short story (I know it's called flash fiction - I just like very short story better) to AROHO's Orlando contest because they didn't ask for a bio (and because I like the idea of AROHO). That makes 3 things on my submissions tracking spreadsheet.

It's raining, and I'm supposed to be baking.

Oh! I'm So Behind!!

I am so sorry! I am so behind in my blog visiting and commenting. Please don't give up on me. As soon as I finish the giant powerpoint presentation for the Follies (which includes converting one more DVD to video, a process that takes a long time with StupidVista), learn all my lines and the rest of the songs, finish putting together my props and costumes, clean the piano room and my room and the bathrooms, and do the laundry (and then clean my room again because it will all end up unfolded in baskets on my floor unless I do something with it once it's washed), THEN I promise I will visit each of you and stay to chat for a while. I PROMISE!! PLEEEASE DON'T LEAVE ME!

Sorry

I know you're anxiously waiting for the next installment of Bel's Writing Adventure, but my in-laws are here and the Follies director is getting all anxious about the multimedia stuff I'm supposed to be working on and honestly, I haven't had a chance to write much. I promise, though, that as soon as I have something new to share, I'll bust out my keyboard and let you know. Okay?

Now, in the meantime, does anyone know how to get a Sn00kie hair bump without one of those hair bump thingies? I need to know by 1:00 today.

Thanks!

First I Called Windows a Bad Word...

Here's a little bit of Random and Uninteresting for you.

This morning I was sorting through my floppy disk files again, looking for the little poem I'd seen the other day that I thought I might clean up and enter in Cheerios Spoonful of Stories contest next March. I didn't find what I was looking for, but I did find a folder containing a file that I didn't want to keep so I told Windows to delete the unwanted folder, which was living inside another more important folder with all my files from the floppy disks on it. And Windows said, "You want I should permanently delete this large, full, important folder that contains the other little useless folder?" And I said, "Sure!"

...

Then I said, "Oops." That was when I called Windows a bad name, but right after that I thanked Windows for not living in a vacuum and not really meaning permanent when it said "permanent."

Then I spent the next 2 hours recovering my files. That didn't go so well, but the upside of the bungled recovery process is that I now have 1 - 3 extra copies of everything I had deleted. Ever. From my flash drive. I'm calling it quits for today, I think.

Today I Am Wondering

• How to make a boring dialogue-driven story into something compelling to read.
• Whether the story is actually compelling.
• If it is possible to lose talent!
  
• Whether we've scheduled Pete for too many activities this fall (it's really only Tuesdays that are full...).
• Why it has to be 90º+ after Labor Day.
• Whether 2 Honey Buns and 3 cups of coffee is really a good breakfast.
• Whether Lulu's potty regression is only because of all the changes in her little life or if she needs a doctor.
• Whether Pete's warts will clear up before her self esteem suffers and/or before Follies.
• Who's going to clean this house.
• Why I'm not motivated to work on my story (maybe see the first bullet...).
• What I could work on instead.
• How to work on the computer but stay offline.
• Will our "free" roof really be free?
  

I'm So Glad I'm Not 20 Anymore!

This week I started sorting through all the stuff I pulled off of the floppies I have from when I was young and creative and prolific. Apparently I was also dramatic and passive aggressive and needy, too, because, included with the real Hoodeler poem (the not-real one is here, I'll post the real one tomorrow) and the scary short I wrote for composition class about a home invasion, are "love" letters to my high school boyfriend. Our 3-year relationship ended when I moved here from there, and apparently I took it really hard, harder than I seemed to believe he was taking it. I can't remember if I sent him any of these letters that I wrote him on my old Smith-Corona word processor (and saved, for some reason). I hope not. If I did, no wonder he was glad to be rid of me!

Warts and All

This past week, Pete has been complaining about the little bumps on the back of her hand and some more popped up on her face around her mouth and chin and seemed sort of inflamed. Pete is growing up, in some ways too fast but I'm not going into that because creepy people search the internet for topics like that and EW!, so Husbandguy and Pete and I looked closely at the bumps to be certain she didn't just need to wash her face better, and we all decided that they weren't pimples. I wanted to take her to the doctor yesterday, but that was Lulu's first day of real school (it went really well - more about that later) and I wanted to be available for Lulu, so I took Pete this morning.

She seemed kind of keyed up. I don't know if she was nervous or excited or relieved, but she was loud and silly and adorable on the way there and while we waited for the doctor. Turns out she's got some warts, what we suspected. Not the kind you see on Halloween witches (those are called filiform), but just some everyday flat warts. The doctor recommended we see a dermatologist about the ones on her face, but she went ahead and froze the rest of them (she had some on her knee!). The doctor brought in a steaming cup with a cotton swab poking out of it, and Pete said, "What's that hot liquid in the cup?" The doctor explained that it was actually cold (she even said, "really cold q-tip"), and I launched into an explanation of liquid nitrogen that was probably totally unnecessary. Poor Pete! Apparently liquid nitrogen really hurts when it comes in contact with your skin. Pete was very brave, though. I can say that even though she complained and cried and tried to refuse treatment because she ultimately held my hand and counted with me and let the doctor kill the warts on her fingers and hand and knee. Then she got a bunch of Bugs Bunny bandages and I took her to lunch at the salad place she likes, where she tried to eat without bending her fingers.

Then she went back to school with her battle scars and wondered if she would be able to get out of doing a lot of work since she couldn't bend her fingers well and probably couldn't hold a pencil. She did say that she thought she might be able to turn pages...

So You Know...

My girls went a whole week without watching TV at all.

I Am Not Really Okay with This

Promises, Promises

Saw this somewhere. Suits me, I think.

Today I will be witty, charming and elegant. Or maybe I'll bump into things and say "um" a lot.

I'm Coming Back

Not that anyone noticed... sigh...

Busy Tuesday

It's hard to find time this week to write. The girls are both on spring break and I'm more than just Mom at the moment. I guess I'm not doing anything new, just more of it all: taxi driver, social planner, chef, mediator, dictator... You know.

I'm trying, though.

Wait! Don't Leave!

I have to admit that I was actually on vacation this past weekend and had to schedule 4 quick posts in a short time on Thursday to keep up with my commitment to post 1-a-day. The rest of the poems this month won't all be hurried like those were (some will, though) so stick around. Okay?

Unfortunately I was drinking coffee when I read this.

Check out the Grandpa's post (http://wordmechanic.blogspot.com/2010/03/be-careful-where-you-put-things.html) from yesterday. It's hilarious. Be warned, though, hot coffee in your sinuses hurts... As a person with low self esteem (PwLSE), I particularly felt the first one.

...and I was like, "Basic cable and a minivan? What is this? 1992?"

I'm so funny. Listen to this joke I told:

We were trying to make dinner plans on a recent Friday with some Catholic friends of ours and I told the husband that they needed to decide where to go since they were the ones with the diet restrictions (no meat on Friday) and he said that I should decide since we were the ones who invited them and I said that I had picked a place but their no-meat thing had...

Oh never mind. I think you had to be there. Instead you should enjoy this photo of my Tiny Gardener.

This Is Not What the Sunrise Looked Like this Morning

(In real-time, it's Spring-ish.)