Evidence for nerdiness

Does it make me a super dork when, after writing a long blog post or chapter, I hit the spell check to find there are no misspellings and think, “Yes! Take that language!”

Back to work!

It’s back to school time for students everywhere, but now that I’ve graduated, it’s back to work time.  Though this could be a real bummer for most people, it makes me exceedingly happy on a few counts.  The first is, of course, the benefit of having a full time income.  This weekend I celebrated by treating myself to some new work clothes. It’s time to stop dressing like a student and more like “sure you deserve a raise and a promotion.”  The second now I have my afternoons and weekends all to me, to work on my writing and photography projects.  This is probably even more exciting to me because the free time gives me the chance to set a writing schedule, and I seem to do best when I sit down to write at the same time every day.  My goal is to be at the library four days a week, and now that my husband is going back to his night job, I won’t feel guilty for leaving him.  And lastly, in related developments, I guess I can begin that tedious exercise thing again.  Let’s hope for a productive fall!

The power of series

I’ve fallen into the trap again, that dangerous and alluring trap of the book series.  I blame Holly Black and Kathleen Duey for the recent trip down this tempting path.  I bought the first book in the series of each author to help me prep for the SCBWI Summer Conference, but they’re kind of like Pringles: once you pop you can’t stop.  After reading the first books, I had to then go buy all the rest of the ones in the series.  For Holly Black’s books, I was able to get the whole set, but for Kathleen Duey, I could only get the first two books.  The third book isn’t out for publication and, maddeningly, the second book ends in a cliff-hanger.  Can the next book get published already?  I’m waiting anxiously, here.  Better yet, can I be Kathleen’s critique partner?

“I’m sorry, we don’t have time for dessert. We’re going to the ER.”

Let me preface this post by saying that all involved parties are okay but yes, that is indeed the line I used on my waiter on the other night.  My friend, Lisa, and I had dinner plans for Friday two weeks ago.  She called to say she was on the way, starving, and that, oh, by the way, we might have to go to the emergency room after dinner.  “Sure,” I told her, having already spent my entire afternoon at the vet’s office, racking up a ridiculous bill.  “Bring it on.”  Boy was it brought.

Lisa was suffering from a mysterious hand ailment, and having not physically injured it, this was cause for concern.  After eating a lovely dinner at one of the local Italian places, we decided to go get “The Claw” looked at.  I bet the waiter never heard anyone turn down dessert using the ER as an excuse, but what can I say, I like shock value.

We drove down the the Marina del Rey Hospital, thinking that a smaller hospital might have a less crowded emergency room than say, UCLA.  When we got to the hospital there were an array of characters waiting to be helped.  The general procedure for the ER might have been okay except that it takes forever to get anything done.  We’re not talking the ER of the TV show.  We’re talking the reality of settle-in-this-is-gonna-be-a-long-night ER action.

When we first got to the ER, the admissions people ask for your ID.  They make you fill out a whole form.  Fine, except “The Claw” happened to be Lisa’s writing hand.  I helped her fill out the form, and we finally got to sit down when they called to a new admissions window to give insurance information.  We sat down again and this time the wait was longer.

We finally got called in to a little room, and got all excited thinking we were moving on to bigger and better things.  Alas, we just sat in a tiny room while a nurse asked questions about prescriptions etc.  The nurse happened to be a total jerk.  He asked Lisa to give him the name of the prescriptions, and after she gave a story about why she was on one of the meds, she said, “I guess you don’t need to know that.”  The guy says, all snotty, “If I didn’t need to know it I wouldn’t ask.”  First of all, she was just referring to the story, not the name of the medication, and second, the nurse’s job is to make people feel better, not antagonize.  Gah.

The nurse then asked Lisa to rate her pain on the Universal Pain Scale.  Yes, such a thing exists.  It’s got like six languages and frowny faces showing pain intensity.  Lisa then made what she calls “one of the worst mistakes of my life” and tried to be nice by saying “four” on the pain scale.  Not only was this a vast underestimate, we would look back on this moment and wonder if a “six” would have sped things along.

Sadly, after jerk nurse was done with us, we were discharged back to the waiting area.  Then we waited.   A little girl, in to get stitches, counted the eighteen, or was it nineteen? fish in the fish tank.  Some guy and his friend had on those dust masks.  Luckily there was no visible blood or I might have passed out.  Three more hours passed.

At long last we were called and we finally got to go to the back!  The doctor pointed to a bed in the middle of a hallway and told Lisa to sit down.  He then pulled up a chair for me and said, “Oh yea.  This is the ambulance entry point, so if you see anyone coming, just jump out of the way.”   Are you kidding?  No pressure there.  The doctor then said, “There are four people ahead of you.”  Four people = 1 more hour.

Lisa and I passed the time cursing the Universal Pain Scale.  Then my worst nightmare came true and an ambulance came screaming up.  I jumped on Lisa’s bed.  “Tell me if there’s blood.  I can’t look,” I said.  We held our breath.

“Oh,” Lisa said.  “I think you’re fine.  The woman is texting.”

Sure enough, the stretcher rolled out with some old lady on it and she was texting away.  The creepy male nurse said, “It’s a parade.  You put a smile on my face.”  Despite the levity, it still wasn’t quite the right thing to say.

Finally the nurse decided to attend to us.  He gave Lisa some pain medication, which I had been asking for for twenty minutes, and told us it would take another twenty minutes to kick in.  The real doctor finally showed up and pretty much said, “we don’t know what the problem is, so please consult with your regular doctor.”  I’m not kidding.  Five hours and no diagnosis.  Awesome.  We were discharged by a male nurse with way too long fingernails for someone in a hygienics-related field.

I’m not sure what the moral of the story is except maybe cheat the Universal Pain Scale.  You’re not going anywhere without saying at least six.

Graduation, among other things

Wow, it feels like I’ve been gone from the bloggosphere for forever, but it’s really only been just over a week.  First of all, I’m sorry for my absence.  In a quick recap, I’ve had the following things to deal with over the last week: 3 trips to the vet (the first: diagnosis, the second: get foods to convince my cat to eat, the third: picking up the food that my cat actually liked), a trip to the emergency room with my friend (post to follow tomorrow), photographing an Indian engagement ceremony/party (pulled together in 2 days while my husband was out of town), a power outage or two, tea with friends, first chapter critique, writing a long synopsis, then a short one, writing my final exam for my last class ever, reading two books, shooting a wedding, picking my husband up from the airport which meant I could finally sleep again (I didn’t get any sleep when he was gone) but also picking up his Switzerland-zombie virus.  Commence sleeping/popsicle eating/nose-blowing.

So yeah, I didn’t do much blogging but it was a busy week.  I’ll try to do more frequent updating and not abandon all you readers out there.

In parting words, today is my official college graduation.  What will I do with my time?  Ha.

Utter darkness was never so annoying

Yesterday morning I woke up at 4:15 to the sound of my computer’s battery backup beeping away because we had lost power.  In my half-awake, half-blind state I found a flashlight and made the beeping stop so I could go back to sleep.  I kept hoping the power would be on when I woke up for real, but alas.  The hot water wouldn’t work and I didn’t want to have a cold shower in the dark, so I ate breakfast in the glow of my laptop and then just went to work.  It was an inauspicious start to the day.

Here’s the thing though – when I was little I used to love power outages.  My family would light candles and huddle together on the couch and tell stories while some storm or another raged outside.  I miss that.  But sadly, a power outage on a work day doesn’t seem as glamorous.  Especially when it’s not caused by a storm.  And when the DWP is literally across the street from you, it’s kind of a slap in the face.

There I go apologizing again

I’ve been bad at this blogging stuff lately.  I’m blogging, of course, but I haven’t had time to sit down and do the super awesome posts I had planned.  For example, last night I was all set to write a scintillating Resource Thursdays post but then, alas, photo business work caught up with me.  I love the business that my husband and I run but whew, it sure gets busy sometimes.  So, I have no special post for you today but you’ll forgive me, right?  Have a great day!

I’m jealous

My husband is going to Switzerland today.  I’m taking an exam on the philosophy of metaphysics.  Fair?  Not so much.

Eating

On a completely random note, here are a few pictures I pulled off my camera the other day.  Not surprisingly, my family loves food.  What’s surprising is the kind of things they go after.  Case in point, my cat.  I discovered him on the counter after attacking cornbread.  Cornbread?

When Bunny gets a carrot, my dog has to have a carrot.  His jealousy has made him fat, but I figure vegetables are good for him, right?

Close-up of the rabbit.  I couldn’t resist.  Note the carrot juice-stained lips.

2009 SCBWI Summer Conference

As promised, here are a few pictures from the 2009 SCBWI Summer Conference.  I know they’re long overdue, but I hope you enjoy.

Mara Bushansky and me.  This was day 1, still bright eyed and well-rested.  That would all end soon.

Writers Sara Wilson Etienne, Mara Bushansky, Rita Crayon Huang

Here’s half of Israel Sanchez, who won the Illustration Portfolio Showcase, writer/artist Andy Mitchell, and writer Charlie Cohen

Rita and illustrator Ken Min

Jennifer Bosworth and me

There were a lot of creative costumes at the Blue Moon Ball, including the Blue Man Group!

Sara enjoys the wild rumpus in her fantastic Where the Wild Things Are costume

Me and Esther Hershenhorn

Me and Edith Cohn

Rita and me

One of my favorite parts of the conference was a mini lesson on plot and structure from Holly Black. Here are Rita, Holly, and Lee Wind