Monthly Archives: July 2009

IJ quote of the day 20something

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I’m so behind on quotes, y’all. But here are the selections for the three days I’ve missed.

re: Eschaton’s rulebook
it “is about as long and interesting a J. Bunyan’s stupefying Pilgrim’s Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come, and a pretty tough nut to compress into anything lively (although every year a dozen more E.T.A. kids memorize the thing at such a fanatical depth that they sometimes report reciting mumbled passages under light dental or cosmetic anesthesia, years later). But if Hal had a Luger pointed at him and were under compulsion to try, he’d probably start by explaining that each of the 400 dead tennis balls in the game’s global arsenal represents a 5-megaton thermonuclear warhead” (322).
[Bonus points for knocking Pilgrim’s Progress, for the dental anesthesia, and for the narrative framing trope of ‘if the character had a gun to his head’. Silliness. Part of the beauty of this text is that it bounces from gut-wrenchingly depressed to silly in a couple of pages.

To wit: in the middle of the roll-playing thermonuclear war that is geek-athlete Interdependence Day frivolity, “a couple ostensible world leaders run here and there in a rather unstatesmanlike fashion with their open mouths directed at the sky, trying to catch bits of the fall’s first snow” (332).

Come on, Mom.

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Me: Honey, please pick up your markers.
P: Not right now.
M: Yes please. If there are markers on the floor we might slip and fall.
P: I won’t. I’ll be careful.
M: P, please pick up the markers. I might slip and fall.
P: Damn it, Mommy. Can’t you just be careful?

Jinx!

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At the risk of having everything go downhill again, I have to say it is GLORIOUS to finally have a kid who sleeps through the night most of the time. He started having regular 10 hour nights at 27 months, but it was only 3 or 4 nights a week. Now, a year later, after having a taste but never getting into a rhythm, at 3.3, it’s 5 or 6 nights a week. He still talks and yells a lot in his sleep, but it doesn’t seem to wake him anymore. So I go back to sleep quickly. And I have to say, I’m much nicer, happier, and less stressed. My temper is more controlled and I have a lot more patience…this must be why other parents like their kids. And like parenting. And actually consider having another (let’s not go that far…)

That’s all. I’m coming out firmly in favor of sleep. I really like it. And I’m all universe-thankingly happy that there’s more of it in our house.

IJ quote of the day

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Quote nothing. The whole Poor Tony detox and DTs and seizure scene left me shaking. Physically shaking. I had to read on into relatively light ETA stuff just so I wouldn’t go to sleep with his terror in my mind.
As I read beyond Poor Tony, the page number started crawling across the page like a spider. And the hand holding the book all of a sudden looked like a wax cast of a hand, like something inhuman and dead.

That might be the best writing I’ve ever read. I’m exhausted from feeling that deeply.

Mmmmmm. Anger stew.

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Just found a couple of really good threads at mothering-dot-commmune about controlling anger and yelling. Not because I searched for those terms, of course. Not that I’m yelling at Peanut a lot or angry about 80% of every hour or anything. Of course not. Just happened upon them. Like, um, like stumbling onto four-leaf clovers. Sure. Not at all in a searching maniacally for clovers, or anything.

And the two points that came up repeatedly were pretty interesting and helpful. 1) Anger is usually about unmet needs. So if I figure out what to ask for help on, or what to address in my own life that I won’t react so angrily; and if I acknowledge that the little person in my house has needs, too, and his anger and frustration are his way, since he doesn’t have too many tools for getting his needs met, of getting me to do things.

So if I either meet my own needs or modify them, and try harder to help him meet his needs, rather than reacting as though his behavior is something to control, I may just eliminate a lot of the battles, yelling, and meltdowns.

It’s nice to remember, when I go months and months, spiraling into the “Oh my goodness I can’t handle this, how do other people do this, why am I nothing like the parent I want to be,” that there are resources for people who have the same issues. I wish I didn’t go so long between touchstone sessions. Because really, I could make this a lot easier on myself.

(Yeah. Right.)

So Peanut and I just need to practice asking for what we need.

Gotta go and tell him I need 12 hours a day of peace and quiet so I can read and write. He’ll tell me he needs 16 hours a day of sheer frenetic activity and sensory stimulation.

We’ll see how that conversation goes.

It takes 100 auditions…

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In my theater and film days, we talked about how you need 100 auditions to get one job. And the role isn’t the point: auditions are your chance to act and you should get joy from those opportunities because heaven knows that the right place right time thing isn’t in your control. The audition is the gift and getting a job is just a bonus.

So now I’m supposed to remember that writing is my job and that the chance to listen to the voices in my head is a gift. That I don’t write just to get published, and that I have to keep working while the Universe takes care of the right place right time stuff. I may sell novel number two before anyone wants the one I’m sending around right now.

Got five more rejections this week, which means I’m at 15. A mere drop in the Universal bucket, as folder-teeming-full-of-rejections measures go. Just 85 more before someone picks up the book, right? I appreciate the “no”s that come with notes, and the handwritten notes that say “I just have too much work right now but just keep trying because this will find a home.” I don’t appreciate the form letters as much, but I understand and don’t hold grudges. Spouse is enraged by the few who return my own letter with just a handwritten sentence on it, but I appreciate the paper savings. Yet I have to say, I really resent the one flyer I got, with my name penned onto a line that might as well have been designated “poor sucker”, that extolled the virtues of paying $700 for a conference so I could have an audition with all the agents getting paid to listen to me.

That’s why I wrote a killer query, agent people. Take me on or don’t, but don’t send me a flyer asking me to pay money for your time.

Makes me appreciate the two agents who are willingly reading my first 50 pages. Really appreciate them. Because they’re doing their job. May they find the right books for them, whether or not it’s mine. They deserve the best because they’re giving their best.

Me, too.

IJ quote of the day 20

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“…even though Schtatt deep down believes that the substance-compulsion’s strange apparent contribution to Hal’s erumpent explosion up the rankings has got to be a temporary thing, that there’s like a psychic credit-card bill for Hall in the mail, somewhere, coming and is sad for him in advance about whatever’s surely got to give, eventually” (270).

Boy, oh boy, even within the spoiler limits we can say foreshadowing…like foresmacking us up against the head, given the opening scene.

Roller coaster ride

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Know what I don’t like about parenting? That even the awesome stuff lasts about 12.5 seconds before it pivots violently and bashes you in the nose.

Know what I like about revisiting Infinite Jest this summer? The AA aphorisms about one day at a time and one minute at a time and that it’s okay to want and that any moment no matter how unbearable, is really only one moment and is, actually, bearable.

Is there a 12-step program for parenting? Other than getting a nanny or day care sitch or stun gun?

IJ quote of the WEEK

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That’s right. Incredible book full of intensely memorable quote, but this is our first quote of the week.

“Pat M. encourages newer staff to think of residents they’d like to bludgeon to death as valuable teachers of patience, tolerance, self-discipline, restraint” (271).

Why quote of the week? Because the painful suicide stuff I’m tucking away in the deep recesses of “I hope I never need to access this.’ And because Gately’s perspective via Pat M. grants the insight that working at a halfway house is like parenting a small child. ‘Cuz that patience and tolerance and restraint stuff? I didn’t have that before the small terrorist took over our Ennet House. But clearly I’ve developed some of each, because I’m not constantly feeding The Spider.

Mazel tov on being 25% through Infinite Jest. To those of you not reading, go do it. 10 pages a day, friends, and you’ll be granted brilliance and patience and a restored sense of humor. Or suicidal thoughts. You know. One or the other.

What the h-e-double-hockey-sticks?

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I don’t understand it. I’ve been missing dozens of things lately, and I got them ALL today.

My dream day involves sleeping late, reading a book, practicing yoga, having a fabulous home cooked breakfast, going for a walk on a glorious day in the greater S.F. Bay Area, talking with friendly humans (young and old), eating a fabulous home cooked lunch, more reading, napping, more reading, another venture out of doors, a delightful dinner prepared by someone else, and a chance to put my feet up and write.

I got every single one of those things. No sitter, no bribes, no compromising major philosophies, no yelling, no wanting to knock myself into a coma just to get a break.

Plus, I got the part I never, never fantasized about but will now, every time: awaking from a nap with a small, perfect creature next to me, who then, upon waking and seeing me reading, thinks books are a good idea and (get this) reads to himself while I finish a chapter in my own enjoyable book.

Are you serious? Infinite summer, indeed.

*Oh, yeah, it was hotter than crap today and I felt sick most of the day and I feel badly that I didn’t clean or make the world a better place, but you wouldn’t know it from my already rosy memory of the day.

IJ quote of the day 18

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Even with all the wrought Joelle text, some really rough and painful stuff as well as some terribly important bits vis the Entertainment and the suicidal thoughts of the addicted, the quote of the day is from the ‘Putative CV of HP Steeply’:

“5 months, Newsweek (11 small features on trends and entertainment until her Executive Editor, with whom she was in love, left Newsweek and took her with him)”

Stop. I can’t take it. Snorting masticated nectarine through my nose already. Seriously. Stop.

IJ quote of the day 17 (belated)

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For my own personal nostalgia: “Or just down in Harvard Square at Au Bon Pain where all those 70s-era guys in old wool ponchos play chess against those little clocks they keep hitting” (213).

And for those of you who have no such nostalgia: “there’s a deep and temendously compelling dignity about the old man’s demanor w/r/t the PUSSY on his arm, and Ewell actually considers approaching this fellow re the issue of sponsorship, if and when he feels it’s appropriate to get an AA sponsor, if he decides it’s germane in his case” (210). What with Pat’s refusal to define addiction specifically enough for him, and all.

Olallieberry Cardamom Crisp

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We had a lovely day picking olallieberries at Swanton Farms yesterday. They just opened their second patch, and the berries will be good for at least another two weeks.

Here’s what  Peanut and I did with half of the seven pounds we picked.  Crisps have no crust so it is much easier to let a toddler handle the whole recipe. Feel free to use blackberries or raspberries instead, though cut the sugar a bit.

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Olallieberry Cardamom Crisp Recipe

Filling:
* 4 cups olallieberries, cleaned and stemmed
* 1/2 cup organic brown sugar
* 3 Tbl whole wheat flour
* 1/2 teaspoon cardamom
* 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Crisp Topping
* 6 Tbl unsalted butter, cut into half-Tbl chunks
* 3/4 cups organic maple flakes (or brown sugar)
* 2/3 cup whole wheat flour
* 1/2 cup organic steel cut oats
* 1/4 tsp salt
* 1 tsp ground cinnamon
* 1/4 tsp ground cardamom

Post-baking Topping
* 6 Tbl ground flaxseed meal
* 4 Tbl maple flakes (or use brown sugar)

Adult: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Everyone: Wash and dry hands. Smear stick of butter into an 8×8 or 2+quart baking dish. Use paper towel to smoosh butter into every corner and along sides. Make the Topping by putting ingredients into bowl and smooshing with hands until it’s just crumbs. Set aside. In another bowl toss the filling ingredients as gently as you can. Pour the berry mixture to the buttered baking dish and sprinkle with the crisp topping.
Adult: Place the baking dish on a baking sheet in oven (to catch any juices that might spill during cooking) and bake until the top is well browned and the berries are tender when pierced with a knife, about 45 minutes.

Cool for 5 minutes and sprinkle the flaxseed meal and maple flakes on top. (Cooking flaxseed ruins most of its health benefits, and sprinkling it on makes the topping too uniform.)

Serve plain or topped with plain yogurt, frozen yogurt, non-dairy frozen stuff, freshly milked and skimmed cream (best, hands down), or ice cream.

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