I'm trying

I know, it's been a good two weeks since my last post. I keep meaning to write and it just keeps not happening. 'Tis the season though. The holiday madness. Things at work have been quite busy and interesting, but there will be more on that in a couple weeks, so stay tuned!
I'm trying to finish my exploratory draft this month. I do have some sort of idea regarding what's going to happen now, so it's push time. If I manage it, this one will have taken nine months, as compared to the year it took me to write the first draft of my first novel. And yes, I know, I need to hurry up and submit that first one. There's just one problem with that. I've been working on a synopsis, as that's a required part of a submission for many, many publishing houses and agents. My synopsis has been through a couple major edits, and I'm still not happy with it. It's boring. I don't know how to fix it. Maybe I should just throw it out and start over again. Hmm. We'll see.
So I fly home for the holidays on Christmas Eve. I'm really excited to be on the West Coast for almost two weeks! Here's my plan: read a lot, write a lot, spend time with my family and my godchildren (and a couple close friends), and maybe spend some time playing a cheesy old computer game. Maybe King's Quest IV. I did always love that one, with all the fairy tale and mythology elements . . .
Anyway. I should get moving, as I'm at work. I'll try to be here more often, but I always say that, and we all know how it actually goes! Change is blowing in on the winter winds. Keep a weather eye out!

random scribbles

It's five thirty. I should be going home from work now. But it occurred to me that I haven't blogged much at all this month, for all that I said I would be better. It doesn't help that the wireless internet we "borrow" at home hasn't been cooperating. And work has been quite, quite busy. Still, neglecting one's blog is not a nice thing to do. Even when there's nothing particularly exciting going on. So, let's see . . .
I went to the dentist this morning. First time in five years. I know, I know. Don't yell at me, the hygienist gave me an extremely effective guilt trip on behalf of my teeth. But then she went on to say that my teeth look really good, and I've been taking very good care of them, and she's very impressed. The dentist agreed. I do have a couple of teeny tiny cavities, but they will be easy to take care of. Easy. So, all in all, it was lovely to get my teeth cleaned. Just lovely!
Everyone at work was rather cranky today. A bit odd, I think. Something in the air, perhaps? Who knows. I wasn't cranky. Just everybody else. Perhaps it's the fact that we're really in the thick of the holiday season, with crash books jumping out at us and a lack of time due to Thanksgiving last week and the upcoming week off between Christmas and New Years. This ALSO means that the holiday parties will start up in a week or two. My company has several holiday parties. It makes the last couple weeks before Christmas pass very pleasantly, I think.
Let's see, what else . . .
I've written nearly forty pages this month. And I may have an inkling of what happens in the end of this book. I think that there will not be a huge climactic moment. No battle, no big drama. It will be a little more on the Charles de Lint end of the spectrum, where it is more about the inner climax, I think. Nor is having a hard time with her identity. She is confused about the jungle people believing she is a goddess, particularly because she wasn't sure of herself before that. So, is she a goddess, or isn't she? Is she free, or isn't she? Where is home? Who is home? Who/what/how does she want to be? I think that the climax lies in the answers to those questions. It'll be interesting to write through it. Any thoughts on the quiet climax idea? I'm hoping to finish my "exploratory" draft by the end of December. I have a lot of revision ideas already, which I think is good. But overall, I really do feel that my writing has gotten cleaner and tighter since the first book I wrote, and I'm very excited about that.
And now it's 5:40. So I should wrap it up and head home. There is freelancing to be done, and writing and making music, and some banana bread to make.

Online Wanderings

I sat down a while ago to blog. But then I thought "I'll just check a couple of my favorite blogs first" and a half hour later, here I finally am. The rampant creativity you can find on the Internet just astounds me sometimes. There are so many great crafty things out there, and so many great writers, and it's just an amazing way to find things. To learn things. Some favorites of mine are:
Inside a Black Apple - Emily's artwork is amazing and inspiring, and she has such a great voice on her blog. I hit that one every day.
Cabinet of Wonders - This one is best described in Heather's own words. "What we have here is a Cabinet of Wonders, a place where things of interest are set out, in possibly bizarre, possibly fetishistic presentation, for perusal by the discerning, who understand that presentation, and scientific interest, are all a form of magic." I LOVE it. It satisfies my itch to learn, and to explore.
Grow Wings - This is Laini Taylor's blog. She writes YA fantasy. I love Blackbringer, the one book that's been published already. Love it. The voice is entirely unique and it really drew me in. Definitely in the top five YA fantasy books I've read this year. I think part of the appeal about Laini's blog is that she's just so excited about books and about writing.
There are two blogs that sort of chronicle a first-time writer's experience. The Mortal Instruments and Feels Totally Naked Without a Margarita Shaker. Neither one is a how-to or a step-by-step guide. They're more full of excitement and passion about getting signed and watching their books become, well, books!
Anyway. That's sort of cheating in terms of posting, but I have, as per usual, several things I'd like to do today and haven't really started on any of them yet. In a nutshell, things at work are good, things at home are okay. The weather is finally moving into winter, which makes me really happy. It's time for cozy sweaters and endless cups of tea. My favorite time.
Had a dream last night, I don't remember much of it, really. I remember being in a room, my room, and being just exhausted, and then Workboy came in. I was trying to stay awake and have good conversation but it just wasn't working so he told me to just lay down and go to sleep. So I did lay down, and he laid down with me and just stayed with me until I fell asleep. There are other bits and bobs from this dream still in my head, something about packing a TV that was a computer, and someone was looking for me or something . . . It's very hazy. But that feeling of him just curling up with me while I drifted off to sleep . . . That was lovely. It has stayed with me all morning. And while it is strange because I've sort of let go of having a crush on him, it was still such a good feeling. I felt very safe. He made it okay to sleep. Does that make sense? I don't know. As per usual, I'm a little confused in my head about boys. That should be a whole other post sometime, I suppose. Time to go do some yoga. Happy Saturday!

Wednesday, Wednesday

Having a hard time controlling my anger this morning. It comes and goes, and any little thing triggers it. I was full of rage before I even left the house this morning, just because it's a mess and my b/f left his wet towel on the floor and after squishing a roach with my shoe he left it there and there was butter all over the kitchen table and just . . . AGH.
But then outside, on my walk to the train, everything was lovely. Clear blue sky, that crisp snap in the air that autumn brings, crackly leaves underfoot. Lovely. And for a few minutes I was happy. And I was happy to be going to work. I like my work. A lot. And my coworker who I've been covering for is back from vacation today, so work will be normal again! I actually worked up some excitement on my way here. But then said coworker beat me here and immediately started giving me a hard time when I arrived. I helped him carry some things to his workspace, and he panicked a little, I think, at the sheer volume of work waiting for him. But I did SO MUCH for him while he was gone. He said thanks, but . . . somehow I was hoping for more. Just more heartfelt words, maybe. I shouldn't fault him; I know I'd be overwhelmed, were I him. But it set me off again. so, back to the anger, although it is slowly ebbing away as I write this.
I've been extremely touchy lately. The littlest things can set me off into this terrible black rage. Maybe life has just gotten too complicated and I'm now on overload and that's where it comes from. But how to simplify? I wish life could just be work, writing, the lovely autumn sky, the leaves slowly changing color, and a couple good friends. And music. That doesn't sound so hard, does it? Sigh . . .
Well, the Christmas planning has begun in earnest. I bought a plane ticket yesterday, and I'll be home for nearly two weeks for the holidays. I've got most everybody's presents planned. I'm in good shape, I think. I just need to figure out how I want to celebrate Yule, and I'll be pretty set.
And now, after pecking away at this short little entry all day in spare moments, it's time for me to head home. Wish me luck . . .

Saturday morning

It's been a good morning so far. Leftovers for breakfast, and a big cup of English Breakfast tea with milk and honey, and the November issue of Vanity Fair, and a mixed CD that a good friend made for me a few months ago. It's been quiet, and relaxing, and good for my sanity. Maybe eventually I'll do the dishes, take a shower, get dressed, and do all those things I want to/should do today. But not yet. Right now I'm just enjoying my solitude.
It's time for some new music, I think. I've been listening to the same few CDs over and over again lately. Time to branch out a bit. But branch out with what? I don't listen to the radio much, so I'm not finding new artists that way. I do read Rolling Stone, and look up artists and bands that pique my interest, but generally I'm not really impressed with where more commercial music has been going. I'm still waiting for Tom Hayes to release some sort of recording so I can listen to him obsessively. (My dears, if you haven't listened to this man yet, look him up on myspace NOW and prepare to be utterly blown away.) I think that what I need right now, what I'm looking for musically, is something more organic. Something a little earthy, a little more real and true than a lot of what's available right now. Not asking for much, am I? If anybody out there has any good recommendations, I'd be much obliged if you'd share.
So, it's brainstorming time. I've been working on this novel for a few months now. I'd like to wrap it up in time for the first of the year. That, however, involves knowing the rest of my plot. I know I've talked briefly about this before, and what a problem it is that I don't know where I'm going. So, here we go: Essentially, my book is about a small group of slaves who escape from their owner. (Bear in mind, fantasy novel, so it takes place in an alternate world.) My characters flee through the desert, into the jungle, where they encounter some primitive tribal people. These tribal people are convinced that two of the escaped slaves are actually jungle goddesses and try to kidnap one of them. The escapees flee further into the jungle and are found by an envoy from the jungle emperor. He and his retinue "convince" my characters to go to the secret city in the heart of the jungle to meet the emperor. From here, I'm not sure what to do. Do the slavers from the desert city show up and demand their property back? Do my characters go back to the desert city and lead a citywide uprising against slavery? And what happens with the jungle emperor? Why does he want to see them? I think he tries to keep them; it goes along with the whole escaped-slaves-confused-for-jungle-goddesses idea. How do they escape? What do they do? Where's the climactic moment? Maybe there's no big showdown, no uprising. Maybe they just escape from the jungle city and decide to go their separate ways to find the homes they lost when they were captured by the slave traders. But a book without a climactic moment is lacking something. Maybe the climactic moment should be an inner struggle, not an outer one. I do focus on one escapee in particular. Her name is Nor. She has a really difficult time with the concepts of freedom and family since she's never had either. So maybe the climax is just her learning how to make decisions for herself, learning how to want, allowing herself to feel what she wants to feel. Hmmm. Thoughts?
On a further writing note, I was sitting on my stoop reading the other night and got an idea for another book. How many of these are floating around in my head at this point? Quite a few, I have to say. Sometimes I wish I didn't have to do anything except sit around my apartment and write. How amazing that would be . . .
Unfortunately, reality intrudes. I've got some things I'd like to do, so I'd best go do them before the BF gets home. But first, more relaxing, more reading, more music . . .

Autumn

Autumn is desperately trying to reach New York City right now. It happens in fits and starts. A chilly morning here, a rain squall there. It's creeping in, slowly but surely. And it's lovely.
I've been feeling pretty anxious over the last couple of days. Somehow half of October has slipped past me and I haven't DONE hardly anything! There's so much I wanted to do with this month, and I just don't think that there's the time for all of it now. I suppose that's what I get for being an overachiever, but still, I'm disappointed with October, so far. And I foolishly accepted a freelance project for this weekend (I've got to learn to say NO!), so there's not much hope of working on things in the next couple of days either.
What else is there to say? Things have gotten all twisty and complicated in my head and my heart. I'm pretty confused, and a little scared of the intensity of what's in my mind right now. I'm seriously contemplating some pretty big changes. Hard changes. We'll see.
On a lighter note, I did manage to visit my sister, and learn the Saint-Saens Sonata, so that's at least a little progress on my to-do list for this month. And a friend of mine just got a new job at Simon & Schuster that she's going to love. Congrats, D!
There's a lot more that I'd love to say, but right now I just don't have the time or the words. And since I'm sneaking time at work, I'd best get to it . . .

Busy, busy

Obviously it's been a busy couple of weeks. I keep meaning to write but somehow the time just slips away from me and it keeps not happening. I also no longer have internet at home, so I must sneak in my blogging time at work. Poor me, poor me . . .
This last weekend my boyfriend and I went upstate to visit my sister before she moves to Las Vegas for her fabulous new job. We had a great weekend, I think. A long bike ride on a couple of stylish Del Sol cruisers, an afternoon shopping in Kingston (across the water in Canada), a long walk, a two-hour boat ride on the St. Lawrence River. I have something terrible to admit, however. I would have had a better time had my boyfriend not gone along. Now, I promised myself when I started this blog that I wouldn't be one of those bloggers who only talks about her love life, and I intend to stay true to that. So I won't go into details. I will just say that it would have been even more relaxing and fun without the testosterone present.
That said, I'm very excited for my sister! This new job is a great opportunity. It's closer to our family, focuses on a number of things she's very interested in, the pay is better and so are the benefits . . . There's really no downside. Thank goodness for Las Vegas!
I've been lacking in motivation lately, and I can feel it. I've been a little sluggish, a little nonproductive, and that tends to make me cranky. So I've made an ambitious to-do list for this week, and a larger one for the month of October. Can I do it? Who knows! But I'll do my best, that's for sure. Last month I accomplished some of my list. We'll see if this month I can do a little better. The current list, as it stands:

--write forty pages
--brainstorm the plot for the rest of my book
--learn the Saint-Saens Sonata on my clarinet
--visit my sister
--clean out the drawers in my old map-drawer roll-top dresser
--make two collages
--submit my book to Tor and Simon & Schuster
--learn three new songs on bass, and work on my slap technique

Did I post my September list? I honestly can't remember right now. If I did, then it's obvious that there's some overlap between months. But we'll see what I can do.
And now, I should run home so I have an hour to myself before the partner-in-crime arrives . . . But don't worry, I won't be so neglectful in the future. No long silences, no absence from my cyberhome.

Totally irrational

Today, I am having an irrational day. I can't help it. I'm not sure what happened to my mind, but it's just not itself today. I'm wildly all over the place. This morning? A little bleary-eyed and tired, but chipper nonetheless. Lunchtime? A break with the work crush to celebrate him finishing a big work project, wherein I smoked two menthol cigarettes (!) and somehow told my work crush that I could, and will, write thirty-seven pages in my book this weekend. Thirty-seven! And then I ate lunch, a lovely gouda-with-cumin and avocado sandwich on wheat bread. That may have been the most stable moment of the whole day. This afternoon? A total inability to focus on anything other than http://theblackapple.typepad.com/somegirlswander/ because I wish I dressed more like that. AND THEN my work crush decides it would be amusing to tell me he's been emailing with some other girl for hours and that's why he hasn't been emailing me, and I should try to guess who it is. I told him I didn't believe him. He told me he was upset that I didn't. That right there should have made it blatantly obviously that he was lying through his teeth to get a reaction, but I got all riled up. I know he was looking for the reaction. I know he wanted to see if I would get jealous. And I STILL couldn't help it. He got more of a reaction than he bargained for, I think. I stopped responding to emails. Then I had to take something to him, so I went downstairs and did so and tried to be friendly. So what does he say? "Let's bail early. We could go get a drink. Just you and me. And my new friend." I'm sure that my cheeks went cherry red. I said something to the effect of "I have to leave now," spun on my heels, and left. I heard him behind me make some noise of worry and discontent and I didn't really care.
Why does he have to be so good at pushing my buttons?
Anyhow. I apologized for reacting irrationally, and he apologized for thinking it'd be funny in the first place, and I think we're okay. Except for the fact that I actually reacted that way. It was a little too illustrative of my crush. And he asked me why I got mad, of course, to which I replied "It's not a good idea for me to answer that," and he said "That's what I thought." See? NOT GOOD, ladies. Not good.
So. Irrationality has totally taken over today. And I'm at work thirty minutes later than necessary because it just felt really wrong to go home to my boyfriend while I'm angry about my work crush. I'll leave in a minute, I promise.
But what was I thinking promising to write thirty-seven pages? How will I do that? I don't even know what happens next! AGH! But speaking of the writing, an editor friend of mine is looking at this new one. What I have typed so far. No, not in a submission way. She doesn't edit fantasy. She is going to give me feedback, though. An industry professional is going to give me feedback. I'm pretty excited for that! Well, and nervous. But it'll be good. She's really nice, and she edits entertaining books. So we'll see.
Now that I've forced myself into a little more rationality, I think it's time to go home.

Post vacation

Sorry I've been a little quiet. I got back from vacation late on the 8th, and haven't had much time to myself since then. Work's been busy. Quite busy. And my boyfriend has started his new job, so he gets home earlier than he used to. Before me now, most days. I've thought about writing, it just hasn't happened here.
Instead, I've been writing every day on my novel. I'm around 130 pages in, which is great, and my goal for September is to write 40 pages. That might not seem like much to some of you, but between working full time, playing two instruments, and having a live-in boyfriend, 40 pages is a lot! I feel good about this novel, too. I think my writing is both tighter and stronger that the first book I wrote. But I'm getting close to the end of what I've got figured out. There's going to be a lot of brainstorming over the next week or so!
Vacations always call for some rebalancing time afterward. I did have a great time. Rose's baby Raelyn was born, my grandparents were in town, I got to spend a lot of time with my godkids, and I got some good time with some of my closest friends. Good vacation. But I found myself wondering if it was a dream, even the first night back here. Oregon is SO different than New York City, it's like visiting a different world. So my first couple days back were a littl wonky, to be honest. Life is going okay, though. I am getting motivated again. I made a list of goals for September. Included are:

-relearning the Hindemith Sonata on my clarinet
-figuring out three Anais Mitchell songs on my bass guitar
-writing 40 pages
-submitting my first novel to Tor and Simon & Schuster (yikes!)
-making 1 collage

We'll see how much of it I get done. That's a pretty good list, I think, especially given that I was on vacation until September 8th. I'm shooting for all of it, of course, but add work on top of that, and the freelance I keep accepting, and we'll see what happens.
Last night I dreamed about what-if boy again. I don't remember much. There was a barbeque at somebody's house. There was a lot of food and beer. It was late evening, and what-if boy called to tell me he was on his way. I was really excited. I don't remember him actually showing up though, as we all had to leave for some reason or other. The only other thing I remember is walking down a city street and glancing down to see some stuffed animals clogging up a drain, so I crouched down to pick them up but then at least one of them was a real cat. Weird... The night before I had some sort of Buffy the Vampire Slayer type dream. I know it had a full story arc, but I can't remember it now...
Well. I'd best go do some writing before the boyfriend gets home. I know this was a little rambling; I'll try to be a little more coherent next time.

It's a girl!

On September 1st, 2007, at 6:36 AM, my younger sister Rose gave birth to her first daughter, Raelyn Michelle Schutz. She was in labor for approximately fourteen hours, and everything went really well. Raelyn was crowning for about forty minutes; that was the hardest part. But everybody's healthy and happy. She has a full head of inch-long black hair, just like her mom did when she was born. She has monkey toes, like her dad does. And she's perfectly beautiful. So, although I've had godchildren for twelve years now, I am officially, really an aunt. Isn't she lovely?

Saturdays

Quiet Saturday morning? Check. Good indie music on the stereo? Check. List of things to accomplish today? Check. However . . .
Unfortunately, my laptop has acquired some sort of virus/worm thing. I'm running a scan right now to find the infected files and remove them, but I've done it twice already and it doesn't seem to be working. I may have to suck it up and go BUY some protection for my computer. Sigh. That's some busyness I didn't need. There's plenty on my list for today and tomorrow already! Writing, cleaning, making music, reading, a birthday party at the beer garden, a letter to write to my friend Sarah, a book club meeting, AND 100 pages of freelance. I couldn't say no, I'm getting paid a really nice rush rate . . .
So what am I doing poking around on my blog when I should be doing something? I'm not sure. I guess I just felt like talking to somebody without really talking to somebody.
I'm reading Madame Bovary for my book club. (The book club is all about reading classic literature that we somehow missed in college). I'm enjoying it some, although it'll never be in my top five. But Flaubert's emotional descriptiveness is impressive. It's very easy to get inside the words and really understand how the characters feel, I think. I can really empathize with Emma Bovary. Haven't we all, at some point or another, looked around and thought, "Is this really my life? How did I end up here? This isn't what I wanted, what I thought I would be, at all!" How many of us have felt trapped by the circumstances of our lives? I'm only 120 pages or so in, so I can't say what I think of the book as a whole, but so far it's definitely worth a read. I'll let you know what I think after I do finish it.
There's this blog that I love. Okay, there are several blogs that I love, but today I mean Inside a Black Apple. It's at www.theblackapple.typepad.com. (Forgive me, I don't know how to make it link yet.) Go look. Her artwork is quirky and lovely and a little surreal all at once. On Tuesday, she'll be updating her Etsy shop, and I so want to buy an original! Wish me luck on that. Her pieces sell like hotcakes!
And now, I will quit procrastinating and go accomplish things . . .

Hmm

Titling a blog entry is not as easy as it seems. Especially when you're not sure what you want to talk about. I had a couple of things I wanted to discuss, but now that I'm here I'm just . . . distracted. Listening to Fiona Apple and musing over how good her first album still is. Wondering when my partner-in-crime will get home and how grumpy he will be due to losing his subway pass at some point today (that he just bought three days ago!). Thinking about all the things I'm trying to get done before my vacation, which starts in less than two weeks.
Today passed in an uncomfortable haze. I have a huge amount of work I'd like to accomplish before my vacation, so the people left behind aren't slammed while I'm away. And this work just doesn't seem to be happening quite fast enough. I'm sure it'll happen, but still . . . My work crush was grumpy today. He's trying unsuccessfully to quit smoking. Granted, he's cute when he's cranky, but he also tends to be less social. Lately my apartment has seemed cramped and, well, not how I want it. But I'm severely limited in what I can do with my space because it's not only my space, although I have many ideas on what I'd like to do . . . I want to get my novel submitted to at least one publishing house before I go on vacation, as well. This means some work in the evenings. It also means that I wish the TWENTY-EIGHT people or so who have looked at my myspace blog containing my synopsis would actually comment on the thing!
But the crux of my haziness today, I think, is the dream I had last night. It was about a boy. My what-if boy. In my dream, we were at some sort of vacation house on a river. It was nighttime, and we were sitting in the boat docked by the house. A little boat, some sort of speedy open-topped thing. And we were talking, and every so often he would move to hold me or kiss my neck, and then he would stop. "I can't, I just can't." The air was imbued with his tension, his distress. It happened several times and then he left. He ran. Because he couldn't deal with the emotions that being near me brought up. Because he was with someone else. Then there's a fuzzy dream section, something about the house being full of water and other people being there and I was hurt because he was gone. So I went looking for him. Took my boat up the river, which quickly turned into this marsh area, huge trees growing out of the water, other boats tied up to the trees and to long docks. I went to this huge building where there was some sort of interactive art display and I knew, I just knew that if I could get through it fast enough and well enough that I would find my what-if boy and things would be right. So I tried, but these two hippies (for lack of a better term) stopped me and said, "He's with her. You have to let him be right now." They took me back to their camp where there was a fire, or maybe just a multitude of candles, as their camp was a sort of shack built of wood scraps and tent material, and consoled me, kept me company for a while.
I know it's just a dream, but I woke up distraught. And his distress, his frustration in the boat has stayed with me all day. Hence the haze, hence the distractedness. It's amazing how hard it is to let go of people sometimes, isn't it? I don't really know what else to say. I wonder, and wonder, and he haunts my dreams.

Sneaking Time

That's right. I'm sneaking time. I should be writing right now, or typing the already-written pages of my spiral notebook, or something. But I'm worried. I don't know where my story is going.
I've always been a bit haphazard of a writer. I'm very motivated and driven about writing every day (well, nearly every day). But. I don't really plan out my stories. I don't outline, don't brainstorm possible plot variations, nothing like that. Usually I have a character or a moment show up in my head that I just can't ignore, so I put it down on paper, and then it just keeps swelling and growing and moving and all of a sudden it's a story. Like I said, haphazard.
I know it might be a good idea for me to experiment a little with outlining. It just seems to defeat the purpose. I mean, you don't plan an act of creation, right? It's an organic thing that just grows out of the dark side of your subconscious. So a part of me thinks that to plan it takes away from the magic of the moment. Another part of me thinks that's silly, but currently the side that holds fast to delusions of writerly romanticism is still in charge. You know, typewriter, glass of wine, empty apartment, only the muse for company . . .
Which leads me to my current worry. I don't know how the novel I'm writing is going to end. The first one I wrote, I knew the beginning and I figured out the ending pretty early on. I just didn't know how to get from point A to point B. I'm sure that every novel I write will be a different experience from all the others. Nonetheless, I'm worried. Where is my book going? What happens if I get to the end of the ideas I've got and then I get stuck? (This fear is pretty groundless, since I'm fairly good at keeping the pen moving no matter what. But still.) I think I've got a good start on this one. Interesting characters from a couple different backgrounds, and (I hope) it says some interesting things on the concepts of home and family and freedom. But where does it GO? Agh.
I've got a short story or two that I wrote last spring that I've been meaning to type up. Maybe I'll post one of them here after I get around to that typing. Might be interesting to see what people think, to see if they work or not.
And now, I should get that pen moving before my domestic partner turns up underfoot . . .

The Beginning

Today I am reveling in the West Coast-ness of the weather. It's blessedly cool for an August day in NYC, blustery winds, a light but constant rain that just feathers down onto the city. How very Oregon. And the breeze sneaking in through the storm door and the open window is lovely. A breath of fresh air in my studio apartment, which has been gasping for breath in the humidity of the last week.
I feel like I should say something introductory about myself since this is my first post. What to say, though? How about a little summary. I'm an Oregon girl living in the wilds of New York City. I've been trying to bust into the publishing industry on multiple levels for a while now, and last fall I got my first "real" job. I work in the production editorial department of a major publishing house in the city, and I love it. I'm also trying to get published, which is a whole different game. It helps to work in publishing in the sense that I understand much more of what goes into a book now, but working where I work is not going to get me published. My writing has to stand on its own two feet. There's still a ways to go before I get published but I feel like I'm getting there. Let's see, what else? I'm also a musician. I currently spend quality time with my instruments alone in my apartment. I keep meaning to find a community orchestra or a rock band, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet...
Well, that's enough of that.
Last night I went to the beer garden with my boyfriend and several work friends. We had a great time, as we always do at the beer garden. Then we came home and promptly got into a fight. I'm not even sure what it was about, really. It started out as an innocent conversation and morphed into something much more sinister. In the middle of it I got a text message from a friend who we'll call K. K and her boyfriend were among the revelers at the beer garden an hour earlier. Her text said this: "He just dumped me." WHOA. So I put my argument on hold and called my friend. She was crying in a bar. I couldn't just leave her like that, so I made up with my boyfriend and jumped in a cab. Twenty minutes later, I was at the bar with K, drinking more beer and getting wept on. We talked for a while about the stupidity of her now ex, and cursed him up, down, and sideways. Then something peculiar happened. K asked if she could kiss me. I was NOT expecting that! But I let her. (Please don't jump to any crazy conclusions here. My b/f and I actually have a kissing rule, because we have friends we kiss hello and goodbye. So, it may be by technicality only, but there was nothing wrong with letting K kiss me.) Then she told me that she's attracted to me and she's wanted me since one night when we hung out a couple weeks ago. This was quickly moving into dangerous territory... I managed to shift the conversation back to cursing her ex and whatnot, thankfully. And we went back to her apartment shortly after that, where there was a lot more crying and a little more beer drinking. Then, since I had already told her I would stay, I did the safe thing. I waited for her to fall asleep before laying down on her bed.
This morning there was a fifteen-minute rush to get out the door, and she thanked me at least thirty times for coming over and making sure she was all right. No weirdness, no further mention of attraction, nothing. Thankfully. That could've been awkward and/or complicated.
So here I am at home, short on sleep, loving the weather, wishing I had the energy to go on a walk in the rain. Maybe later. What a night!