Que Sera, Sera

I landed what I thought was a dream writing assignment: unique topic, good medium, big name—what could be a real cornerstone of a portfolio piece, but instead it turned into that corner of the coffee table that you repeatedly bang your shin against in the dark.

I first received word of the assignment about two months ago and have been ecstatic about it since then. Except, for the fact that the project has been continually pushed back by the client until now, when it is of course piggy-backed on top of other deadlines and struggling to seek its priority ranking in the chaos that is my daily life of late.

I finally wrapped up the project today, or at least did what I was allowed to do with it. As a writer nothing is scarier than to hear the words, "The copy is really well put together, it just needs a light copyedit."

Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! Editing copy that is "nearly ready to go" means not only do you need to dot the Is and cross the Ts, but you need to make sure they didn't mix the two up…and then there is the bizarre grey-shrouded land of copyediting, more specifically light copyediting—how far can you go? Something can be grammatically correct, yet still painful to read and ultimately the work reflects on you, so what do you do?

Well, now that I've lamely started three consecutive paragraphs with "I" and worked in three corresponding "bullshits" – I might be bullshitting you, but I feel a little better.

And as always my horoscope confirms it:

September 20, 2006

Action you take today may significantly annoy someone else in your workplace. Other people's moods are going to put a damper on you and your work, but this is no reason to slow down or change course. Continue on regardless of others.

Que Sera, Sera – What ever will be will. Keep on Truckin' as the stoney folks say.

Archived Celebration

It's about time to celebrate FINALLY achieving archived blog status—whew! How happy it makes me to see that one of the entries is now bumped into the blog purgatory of August 2006. Ahhh, such relief to have the first entry disappear—like ripping out the first page of a diary. No matter what, the intro is required to be lame, no matter how times it is cleverly structured and preciously revised! To blog purgatory—where it belongs!

Although I am quite ashamed to so profusely discuss how much I was getting into blogging and then to let a span of 11 days pass me by. But, in my defense I've been taking care of a tween and teen and still working away—so the last 11 days haven't exactly passed, but more or less flown by with the speed of a derailed train careening downhill.

So, I guess it's just time to climb back on that horse...

Hush Hush, Voices Carry

I'm very well aware of the fact that I have to learn everything the hard way, in fact more accurately I tend to learn things in an extremely over the top hard way… Seriously, how could I not be gravely aware of my magnetism for faux pas as I literally trip through my day?

Luckily, I have learned to find the humor and take pride in my "learning experiences." I've actually been incredibly disappointed after taking a digger on an icy sidewalk when no fellow pedestrians were around, knowing that my sore tailbone was a wasted bruise, resulting in no shared entertainment. I spend much of my day wishing I had an ice pack, the ability to maintain a poker-face and David Sedaris' career. If only I could learn to parlay my socially klutzy escapades into an NPR radio show—well not live radio of course. My saving grace is that I usually only make the really big mistakes once, except for one that is…well best summed up by Aimee Mann in song. So, let's go back to the days of 'Til Tuesday and bad over-gelled New Wave hairdos to the lesson that I've been working on mastering since the mid-80s:

Hush hush
Keep it down now
Voices carry
Voices carry

"Use your inside voice" is a phrase I'm quite familiar with. Even my whisper was built for stage. Yet, I am continuously surprised by how far my voice carries.

Last night, LeeAnn, Jessica and I ran into an old acquaintance of mine that I doubted would remember me (E. is tall, handsome, an artist, poet, welder and has really great hair…so I'm sure that I'm just one of the many zillion girls that he's meet over the past few years)—and being in the midst of a very important girls night we didn't stop to re-connect.

So, today on the way back from the farmer's market I saw E. up ahead and being that LeeAnn and I have been chatting about how small Boulder is, I said to LeeAnn, "Hey there he is again." Yet, I suppose I should clarify that either I didn't simply "say" it or the thrust of Mother Nature's wind combined with the curve of the building created the perfect acoustic tunnel, funneling my every word to him as clearly as an HD radio station as he looked up directly at us and quite surprised.

When will I learn?!?! I'm vowing to repeat SILENTLY an inner mantra of "Hush hush, keep it down…"

For which path do you settle?

So, the discussion of having too much to blog about and too many ideas to share has completely dried up all the creative bones in my body. The creative knob in my brain has shriveled and there is no inspiration in sight. No offers up to the sacred altar of entertainment and pondering from me today. Although…whenever I find myself unable to write or too tongue-tied to fill quiet space, I always wonder if that's because I'm pre-editing myself. What you might call creative or expressive self-sabotage.

What is it that is stuck in the craw of my unconscious?

On some level I think it is relationships, but I guess it's always relationships. And not just dating but relationships of all sorts. For the next three weeks, I'm watching two kids that I nannied for about 10 years ago. And it always makes me reflect on the second most annoying question asked to singletons, "Don't you want kids?" This question is always fired about a tenth of a second after the THE most annoying question, "Don't you want to get married?" Now it's not really an issue of "wanting" is it?

Anyhoo, my response to both questions was always a knee jerk and emphatic "YES" before, but I think that's changing. Instead of thinking about how many I want or names, I find myself contemplating things like if I'm too old, or what would it do to my career and how they make the inside of your car soooo dirty and everything sticky! But, my CAREER--this scares me, when did this ever become a priority.

I feel like a pathetic anti-feminist to admit that I never thought I'd still be working full-time and not at least a part-time stay-at-home mom at my age. Yet, somehow I ended up on the career path and even own my own business. Most people would feel that earned them a gold star. Not me. Not one bit. When I went home to visit this summer it made my stomach turn to hear how proud of me people were—didn't they realize I'm succeeding at someone else's dream? Shouldn't they be as disappointed as I am? I never liked the childless, ambitious adults who were totally career focused. I always thought that there was something wrong with them—how could someone be so selfish and lead such a cold and empty life. But now, I think I'm becoming one of them. Heck, I think I AM one of them. I don't even know if I want to get married anymore. I think it takes a level of trust that I don't know if I have and that I am too old to learn.

But how do we end on these paths? I don't recall making a conscious decision along the way, but so many of my friends are in the same boat. When did I take the fork in the road that offers single-serving size bags of microwave popcorn, I don't even remember seeing it. Is this an unconscious martini-induced decision that is being made across our generation?

The generation plagued by divorce, single-parents and distrust. Or is everyone else actually really happy single?

I've read a lot about the new trends towards marrying later, and how the chronological norm is ever-evolving and that people are "nesting" later. But I don't buy it. I've seen them at Home Depot and the mall, there are people that do nest. Who are they? Did they settle like "settle"? Are they happy? Do you have to move from Boulder to Ohio, get married and come back?

Archived Disappointment

No worries, this not a "My childhood sucked rant" ahead—that would be way too vanilla and blasé for me and eliminate my need for happy hour, but instead just a little continued adulthood disappointment rant. Again, nothing I need to pay anyone $100 an hour to discuss, just some minor-level whining.

So, the whole blog experience is quite new to me. I understood (but don't want or care about) the need for real-time information about news things like politics, stocks or crock-pot recipes. But I didn't understand why people wrote blogs just for fun, especially folks like me that get paid to write all day—isn't it just unpaid work, and why do that? Yet, I have finally succumbed and I'm hooked. There is actually an inner-dialogue on loop in my mind that goes something like, "Hmm, would this be blog worthy? How would I fit this into a blog format? What's already on the list of potential topics for today—is it timely or could I save it for tomorrow? Would anyone care? Is this too revealing? Will anyone be offended—who can I try to offend? Is it too early in the day to blog—what if something better happens? Do two entries in day make me look like I have waaay tooo much time on my hands? Much like the use of waaaaayyyy toooo many letters does?" This is not to say that I make time everyday, but I at least make time to contemplate it.

OK, now I'm sidetracked thinking about what other subconscious inner-dialogue got bumped by the recent addition of the blog bit… So, anyhoo as I established in the Introduction/Exposition (T—lit vocab words for $500) my blog is new, so there are only like 6 lonely entries and no archives. Blogs entries are archived by month and year, so needless to say, I have never in my life been so excited about September 1, 2006. On this day, I would receive an archive link to August 2006 and start fresh in September, hiding what my little blog lacks in quantity. But it didn't happen. I mean did get my link—but all the August entries are still listed. Everything looks exactly the same. I am so disappointed. I still haven't met the blog quota. Still not tall enough for this ride.