Hidden In France

irresolute about resolutions

I don't take new years resolutions lightly.  If I'm going to give up on something after just a week of trying and then spend the rest of the year hating myself for it, at least I should put a lot of thought into it, don't you think? ... Although last year I did come through for myself in a BIG way doing the very thing that scared me the most.

This year will be the year of setting the bar super low. I'm just going to add one small habit at a time and devote a month to each habit before adding a new habit.  I didn't cook this technique up, I found it here. I tell you this because I also read somewhere that when you make a resolution very public you automatically feel more accountable for it. So now I have to do it, right? 

My first habit is to get younger by one day each day... before you know it, in 365 days I will be a full year younger! genius.

But really. I like small steps towards big goals. That's how I got most of the meaningful things in my life done.  Nothing happened in big vavoom moments. That's how I became a writer over the course of ten years: one paragraph at a time, trudging away, writing terrible prose, then rewriting and rewriting. And see how I casually labeled myself 'a Writer'?  The first time I said the 'w' word, I passed out. The next time I said it I my face twisted into a terrible rictus and all my muscles tetanized, then I said it again the next day until one day it didn't sound (so) creepy and self-aggrandizing.

I'm a huge believer that you can manifest things by affirming them.  Nothing magic there. It's a matter of reprogramming the brain. Changing my negative self talk (and it sounded so artificial and contrived at first) is how I went from being a pessimist to becoming an optimist, how I slowly progressed from lousy self worth to a pretty healthy idea of who I am and what I can accomplish.

**eek...patting myself on the back to uncomfortable levels** But I learned to do that too.

So many ideas about ourselves were born from repeating them from childhood (or hear our well meaning family repeat them. Mine were: Corine is inept in the kitchen. Corine is a chatter box. Corine is bad in Math. Corine really sucks) This can become the identity we cling on out of habit or because we can't imagine something different. So if it worked in one direction, why not do the same thing in reverse? Rebuild who we are meant to be, or what we want to become,one habit and one affirmation at a time.

First I had to cut through dense denial to identify teeny tiny bad habits I want to change. I could not find any, so I looked broader and came up with gluttony and sloth. Pretty crippling habits, especially when combined. 

So rather than say that I will become super fit, this month, towards fitness, I'm adding the habit of eating an apple a day and drinking herbal tea. Oh I hear your laughs...but that's a giant step away from my mostly protein, caffeine and carbs diet. 

Forget lofty pulizer prize dreams. Towards more focused writing I only need to take away one habit:  the amount of time I spend online.

That's right girlies, I buried the lead.  I'm taking time off twitter, FB and blogging.  My need to write is really a craving for connectedness and self expression. Each time i tweet or chat on facebook, or comment or get lost in your beautiful images and words, the hot coal of creativity and self expression gets a little cooler, and the burn to write is not as strong.

I realized this over the winter break.  My kids were complete zombies (okay, so was I) and wanted to do nothing other than be fed a daily dose of passive entertainment.  My type A husband being out of town, none of us had the cracking whip we've come to rely on to get anything done. I wanted my kids  to be creative and active, but they didn't have the urge and I was super lazy about being a good mother (aforementioned sloth).  My kids absorbed other's creativity by watching films, Tv and playing video games, going on FB and youtube.. and were satiated. I could see it so clearly when it was happening to them!

So cutting my daily writing on social media will be like tantric writing.  I'll hold in the self expression and creativity so that they can be , let say, funneled and then released in a bigger, more powerful and satisfying way... rather than... diluted...ewww... i don't know about this analogy.

I'm not sure what I will allow or not allow.  Too much and I will not be able to stick to it. Too little and I will only be lying to myself. But working alone is... well, lonely. So I might be back sooner than I meant.  We'll see.

Happy new year's resolutions to all of you!  Would you tell me what they are?

 

A very Californian Christmas

I'm putting my frowny Christmas face on hold for a minute. Thank you Isa, the hike in the gorgeous Santa Monica mountains, the California warmth, bright blue sky and funny gossips helped, as did Excedrin Migraine, the one and only.

 

(New slipcover on my ikea couch, ladies!  White coat of paint on the coffe table, a kite found for $12 at cost plus and voila my new décor.)

 

This afternoon I guiltily unpacked my teeny-tiny tree from its box in the garage.  I don't have ornaments so I made a few with whatever I had on hands and had tons of guilty fun doing it.

Yes my friends, this year again is another botched attempt at reconciling Christmas and Hanukkah in my head and feeling guilty in two religions.  

I laugh at this... our dog manages to be in every picture but I don't see it until later. Maybe she was signaling to me that the broom was also going to be in the picture. Ah!

I made those with silk paper and styrofoam...call me Martha. And was careful to put the menora and the tree in separate rooms so that they don't have to look at each other.

My husband is not with us for Christmas. No sweat off his back as he does not wring his hands over religious holiday identity as I do... and has the nerve to be out of state working on a documentary of poverty in America, thus totaly robbing me of my right to feel sorry for myself at Christmas time. Grrr.

I wish you all a happy, merry, holy everything lovely.

Meltdown alert

First art, then angst if you have the patience.

I luuurve this... the artist is Jennifer Mercede and you can buy her work on Etsy 

ha! I really enjoyed posting such a looong image :))

Fantastic!

So fun!!!

had such a weird week, people.... which led me today to take my first yoga class in a year.  Badly needed. My spine is in rigor mortis over here. When i want to look to the right I have to bring the whole body with it, feet and all.

Here are a few things that took place in the last week, not in order of importance.

I bought everything to furnish an apartment in Portland where my family will be commuting for the next four months.  I mapped out everything, noted all the weirdo Swedish names and bought everything down to the potato peeler, trash cans, beds and bedding at Ikea.  It was all purchased on Saturday and it was delivered in another state the next day. Merci Ikea Portland, you rock! The budget was under $2500. When the production is over we will donate it all to a woman shelter. It feels so much better than renting furniture, and we won't be basking on Formaldehyde. 

I hosted a dinner party that same saturday but first had the meltdown of the century. My eyes were puffier than my gougères.

I had a huge fight (a mezza voce one which in a way was hilarious looking back on it) with a librarian when I returned my library books.  This was a week ago and the books are now MISSING! Do you think it is possible retaliation? Could people do these kinds of things?  In fact they do. That asshole better not mess with me.  YOU DO NOT MESS WITH ME...  or else i cry really really loud. (i'm known to do that)

And on Sunday my husband left for Portland so now it's just me and my boy at home. I do not like :((((

Voila my friends.  Once again I have demonstrated a total lack of sang froid in the face of change and medium-to-low adversity. The plan is to handle it better next time.

 

Productivity-obsessive-compulsive

There is such a thing as POC, or Productivity Obsession Compulsion.  The only reason I can make such anoutlandish claim and practically add a new chapter to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder or DSM is because I got it (the affliction, not the manual). 

I do not measure how valuable my day was by how loving I was to my family, how helpful I was to my friends or how generous I was to this cause or that one.  Not even by how many books I sold. No, I measure the value of my day on how much I got done. 

Here is how it gets tricky: Nothing has to be done well. It only has to be done fast and in large quantity. If I've shoved giant piles of leaves from one side of the yard to the other, written 7 pages-albeit crappy ones-, tweeted to the wind, coaxed my kid into finishing that lame project, driven him all over town looking for a video game I disapprove of, cooked a flop of a three course meal (They don't like octopus with creamy polenta after all), then only can look at myself in the mirror at the end of the day. I have been productive! 

Today I got little done ( my husband showed me how to use his camera and we took a walk, ate leftovers for lunch and I wasted time on the computer the rest of the day) and I feel antsy and guilty.  I feel as though I wasted my precious day.  I was a bad girl. Hence this blog post which is really an attempt at cramming some productivity into my day and assuage the guilt.

Pathetic.

I often think of my fantasy life, the simpler life that I dream of. But if I were to be placed in a small village in France and have everything confiscated from me, all my toys and distractions, all those things I click with, look at, and make stuff with, how long before I get island fever?  1 day?  Five minutes?   Would I be able to look up at the sky, count clouds and smell the boursin? If I don't start learning to be happy with a slow life, slow food, slow thinking, slow travel now, it isn't going to happen on its own.

When it comes to being green it's not enough to Reduce, Re-use and Recycle. But it's not enough.  First you have to Refuse. Same thing with being sane. You have to learn to say no to a whole lot of things before you can slow down your life. You have to learn to stop the wheel from spinning.  It's an addiction.    

I'm trying to wrap my mind around this.

How to surf without getting wet

By surfing the web of course.... What, you already know that joke?

The fantastic picture above caught my eye but I have no idea what the source is.  One of your blogs I'm sure.  Please claim this image: Here it is: the crochet wig was designed by Regina Rioux Gozales and you can find the pattern on Ravelry. Via Kickcan and Conkers. Merci all for your help.

In another life I will be the kind of serene and well adjusted person who crochets.  I tried and it was one big fat joke on me. Meanwhile leave it to the pros such as Emma Lamb

If this was the set up at my house there would be mud between the wood boards and dog and kitty paw prints.  There would be un-raked leaves and shoes (not pretty ones) all over the floor.  There would be socks everywhere because what happens in my family is that we pursue each other and throw bundled sock at each other for fun.

 baby ramen/bolig

 

The only thing missing from my life at the moment are a pony/llama (what is that animal?) and a sweet little girl. But mostly a sweet little girl.  I just received a picture of my 4 months old niece and it was almost painful how I wanted to hold her.  

source: edmond gallery via kickcan and conkers.

 

Stickers? I don't know what this is or what it is made of because my Japanese is a bit rusty. (kidding, I just wanted to make you feel insecure. I don't speak a word of Japanese either.)  shinji ohmaki 

Retro Villa

Can you sense that I'm manic? That's because I had a large cup of green tea, or because I'm just manic. I don't know, maybe because change is in the air and I rather feel crazy than scared.  Maybe it's because I walk with my husband every morning (trying to do it 21 days in a row to make it a habit, or so I read.) and feel in better shape in my body and in my marriage. Maybe because I had two girls night out this week and both were inspiring to the point of being transformational.  I met fantastic women, got back in touch with old friends and learned from them what I needed to learn. 

I'm working hard, harder than I have ever worked.  I feel focused, inspired, energized, happy. Some people hate the feeling of being manic, they need to smoke something, they need to medicate themselves.  I personally enjoy not moping around while feeling sorry for myself. 

Who will dazzle us now?

I took it for granted that the wonderful things would keep coming from Apple, but now what?

 See, genius and vision aren't that common.  Rare are the true innovators, the risk-takers, the shapers of this world. Rare are those with truly original thoughts.  This is why I experience the loss of Steve Jobs like a personal one.  Who will dazzle us now? Who will revolutionize things now?  Who will make things simpler and more beautiful?  

Sometimes it feels to me that our world is going backward in too many ways.  I fear that the forces of entropy might win. Entering an apple store I always felt that a better future was possible.  There was a sense that technology was a good thing, a responsible thing, esthetically and ethically. Now it feels that the mold is broken.  They cannot make another Steve Jobs and everything will go to shit now.

Here, a teaspoon full of sugar: pictures of a delightful store I just found in Fjeldborg.

 

When half a face is not enough

Wow almost 7 days with no complaint?  Let’s interrupt this unnatural streak right this minute.  

For half the day today, the left side of my face looked exactly like a dripping candle with an eye on it.  Or like a wax rendition of my face had gotten a little too close to the wood stove, if you can picture what I mean. This is as close as I have ever been (and God willing will ever be) to looking like a stroke victim.  Scary shit, people.

This is all because I was a sissy at the dentist and she had to up my allotted dosage of Novocain.  So in exchange for no pain I got to look like Quasimodo. A no-brainer.

When this is over, and as I’m attempting a discreet exit out of the dentist office, I am stopped by one of the ladies who works there.  She wants to tell me in person that she read Hidden in Paris and loved it! She totally got it, identified with the characters and says she feels like she has actually visited Paris! 

I am, at that point in complete Writer Heaven.  But due to the Novocain I look disgruntled and out of sorts instead: half of my face grinning and the other half frozen into an atrocious grimace. A face that looked as though it could start dripping down to the floor any minute now.

This was my first time ever meeting a fan face to face (or face to half a face) I was so thrilled I hugged her twice and would have hugged her more had I not looked so creepy.  She absolutely made my day and I’d like to put on record that yes it is possible to beam with pride and joy while at the same time suffering from intense shame and self-loathing.

Be glad, ladies: there will be no picture to illustrate this post.

 

What me crazy? ...well yes.

This might be one of those long rambling posts so I'll decorate it with pretty images that are entirely unrelated but SO inspiring. These are pictures borrowed from the incredible blog BabyRamen and are, I believe, pictures at the blogger's home. Her decor style weaves japanese and norwegian influence with a touch of retro/kitch and I love her style. She also has an online store full of goodies here.

Those of you who are patient readers of my whining, please proceed to read. All others can just look at the pretty pictures.

The last two weeks have been trying.  So trying that there will be no period in the sentence that follows just to give you a small taste of my breathlessness and high anxiety.

It started with my son going off to college, which should have been enough emotionally, (if you can't stand the lack of periods and you're Jewish you can punctuate what follows with loud DAYENUS!) and went south from there with a broken toe (from stepping on a lizard and freaking out and jamming my foot into a door as hard as humanely possible), to getting a nasty urinary track infection, to going to the doctor only to be told that I had neither, to spending the week-end in agony without medication, to finding out on Monday that I, in fact did have a UTI ! (next time I'll trust my flaming/raging bladder, not the lab results), to taking an antibiotic that turned me into a bitchy, loony and super emotional version of myself who could not sleep at night AT ALL but compensated during the day by getting SO much done, including but not limited to: teaching myself how to use Adobe Illustrator, being on Facebook 12 hours straight, purging my closet of clothes I hated but many more that I cherished and that are now gone, avoidable fights with friends and loved ones, losing the sense of taste which resulted in a loss of 4 lbs in 5 days. 

that was it ...in a nutshell.

Other things were good, great even, but also contributed to a sense of looming change and inability to cope. For example my son is thriving without me. Shit, that wasn't part of the plan.  I wanted this of course, but now he might never come back.  I'm exaggerating of course... but really, I'm not :(

Also and mostly my novel Hidden in Paris (oh, yes, link, link! ) is doing well. Really well. Better than I thought it would after just four months.  (And remember, no agent, no publisher and not a cent in advertising were wasted in the publication of this baby :)  But now I have began counting on it, worrying that I have a good thing going and not wanting it to be taken away. Never happy you say?  I just say Xanax you and I should meet soon.

And it's also good that all my small miseries of the last two weeks made it possible for me not to think of my son being away at college for nearly ten minutes at a time (and only bringing him up in every other sentences.)

Always looking for the silver lining.

Now the drugs and ailments are out of my system and I'm bracing myself for more changes.  My little guy is starting school (at long last Halleluya!) and I will start exercising every day (starting real slow with yoga and walking.) I have set up a computer without access to the internet in an empty room (my son's...sigh) and hope to increase my writing by physically moving away from distractions. I also plan to limit my checking of emails to twice a day because those yank me out of concentration.

I would love to hear how you personally improved productivity/focus/concentration or ability to resist distraction. Any trick will help because I am shooting for a deadline of October 1st (that's right, one month!) to finish my Hidden in Paris cookbook (a cookbook with all the recipes in the novel, with accompanying photos.) which I plan to sell very cheaply on Amazon, mostly as a way to help promote the novel. 

Voila my friends, I hope you enjoyed the pictures, if not the blabla.

LOVE YOU GUYS!!!! (sorry... trace residues of the medication in my system) 

 

Alone together

Someone recently brought to my attention to the possibility that I might not be as asocial as I thought I was.

I think that my favorite state of being is not solitary, (as I previously believed and felt terribly guilty about) but at home doing my thing while my loved ones are also at home doing their thing.

Gardening with my husband, each in opposite side of the garden.  Leafing through separate newspapers in silence while sipping coffee in the morning, trading articles, commenting on them, giggling or feeling indignant. Me writing at my desk while my boys are at another corner of the house doing music, separately or together (one on the sax and the other one on the guitar). Cooking in the kitchen while the family is watching TV in the bedroom.

It's actually a lovely thing. Nothing to feel guilty about.

I love those images by photographer Polly Wrenford and Stylist and designer Atlanta Bartlett. The two have been contributing on a number of beautiful books and images.  So peaceful.

Visitors

I have SO MUCH to tell you... But since we all need to start somewhere, how about I start with the grossest stuff?  

We were gone for ten days. We closed our bedroom door so that the pets, who have a tendency to get temperamental when they miss us, and have on occasion puked on our bed accidentally on purpose (the cat) or had diarea on the carpet (the dog) would not be able to trash the place. 

But what we didn't know is what was left behind those closed doors.  It was something puny, something laughable and insignificant. Something no larger than a flea.  

A flea, in fact.

When we opened the doors to the bedrooms ten days later, home sweet home, she, the flea, had become THEM.  It wasn't immediately obvious, but by the time I had sat five minutes at my computer, I knew something was terribly wrong. I looked down at my itchy ankles and saw a good twenty fleas feasting on me.

I. Freaked. Out.  The scream must have been heard within a 15 miles radius. A flea infestation in my home sweet home!

Now what my husband and I did next was in turn, horrible, pathetic, ridiculous, ingenuous, cruel and all around disgusting.

The fleas were starving, attracted to our body heat like a magnet, and were all over us (horrible). Pants would not do: too loose, so we donned our longest socks --in 93 degree weather (ridiculous) to protect ourselves as we figured out what to do next. I have mentioned before that my husband will not EVER use chemicals to kill bugs, so we had to come up with a solution, and burning the house down wasn't one of them, although tempting let me tell you. We began to vacuum the room while wearing our long socks (pathetic) We also needed to quickly kill the fleas that climbed up our legs, but couldn't because they jumped immediately off to another part of the body (horrible, pathetic) So we used saran wrap to capture them (ingenious, ridiculous) before popping them between our nails (gross!)

Now we were vacuuming in our socks in 90 degree heat, covered in cling wrap, pecking at each other like two flea-infested baboons and realizing in despair that considering the prodigiously rapid life cycle of the flea this would take us the rest of our lives.  

So we had an idea.  SPCA people please close your ears.  What we did was release the dog into the room (cruel! ingenious!) In instants the dog was covered in fleas, probably a hundred fleas, maybe two hundred.  Then my husband and I took the dog outside and spent the next three hours combing the fleas out of her and dipping the fleas into soapy water to kill them, then returning the dog to the room for a refill, and back at it again with the flea combs, all the while congratulating each other for being complete geniuses. 

The dog, however, isn't speaking to us.

(by popular demand I have added a picture of what I look like at the moment)

A map of my stress level

As I was commenting on other blogs about how stressed I felt, it occured to me to take a wee pause and tell you about it.  Obviously I'm desperate to vent.

My 18 year old son and three childhood friends are leaving for a month long tour of Europe, a backpacking trip for which their plan is not to plans.  The parents and I are working our asses off getting them phones, gears, addresses to stay, and the boys are evasive at best, wondering why we hover so much, why we worry about every little detail. I am drafting up charts they will not consult, printing maps they won't read, making hostel reservations they plan on canceling, I agonize over directions, sleep loss, bed bugs, robbers, and my mind goes all kinds of even more awful places ... well, have you seen 'Taken'.

Meanwhile what are the boys doing?  Are they planning?  Are they packing? NO. They are at my house shooting the last scenes of a short film.  There is equipment everywhere and very large semi-men all over the house( who seem to have discovered my cupboard and are eating EATING, eating.) Some are wearing snazzy artifical mustaches and many are sporting fake blood.   All of them have prop guns. 

Oh wait, but I could pack.  I want to pack!  but I can't because the house is presently a Film Location and I'm sequestered in my bedroom. This is a violent scene (the same over and over) that involves several gunshots, agonizing screams and a the same horrible curse words shouted with gusto.  

Meanwhile the dog (who is not part of the shoot) is also sequestered in my bedroom where she is happily farting the day away. This suck. A lot.

And I have to get the house ready, and myself packed, because we're leaving the next day.

But it's all good stress.  This morning I saw my friend Susan, who only a month ago lost her husband and father of her 6 and 12 year olds.  It put things in prospective.  "It all sucks" she said.  And in her case, it really does.

 

 

Out of balance

Balance in my life where are you? Here is where i would like to live right now. In this very room. You can't lose your temper, be in a bad mood, or fret, or feel sorry for yourself in a room such as this one.

Thank goodness I'm off to see my friends Lenora and Robin for some therapy. I've been cranky as hell when I should be celebrating, and my bad mood adds to the guilt. What is wrong with me?! They will tell me for sure.

 

Slough

I'm actually very proud of the double entendre of my post title today.

Stealing just a few minutes to post these pix from the new Rice Denmark catalogue.  

It's a triathlon kind of feel here, i cannot even begin to explain.... Okay, fine I'll explain.  Last week my mom was in town so I put all work aside to spend time with her (Sears, Khols, Mervins and Kmart here we came!  Apparently this is where very chic French women of a certain age and girth prefer to shop.)

The day she arrived I unsuspectingly and naively, (before picking her up at the airport) scheduled a small procedure involving precancerous cells and cryotherapy of a part of my anatomy I rather not discuss in polite company (too late, heh). They told me it would not be painful (sorry but it was) and they certainly did not warn me about the ensuing sloughing that would last for weeks afterwards.  If you haven't heard of the treat that is sloughing, girlfriends, trust me when I say some google searches are better left postponed indefinitely. 

Only had one little bit of an escape running to Belette Rouge's totally fab housewarming party.  I got no work done whatsoever, although I found the time to peek maniacally at reviews of Hidden in Paris on Amazon which are lovely enough to make me want to do summersaults if I only knew how, with one very grumpy one that came out of left field, as though the woman had read an entirely different book or something. Please check it out and tell me what you think if you have a minute.

My son is graduating from High school this week, we're both going to an orientation to USC next week, then he's off backpacking through europe for a month, something like ten cities (i'm not super comfortable about that as you can imagine.  Have I mentioned i still make his bed, by choice) and then we're off to the East Coast, Boston, Vermont, New York for a while.

You overachievers out there listening please tell me how successful multitasking is done? All i seem to do is run around crazed (and go to the bathroom to... slough.)  I need to promote my book.  That's priority number 1, 2 and 3 and I'm not doing it at all.

Swamped

We're just back from a 3 day visit (my first) to New Orleans.  The main purpose of the trip was to  check out Tulane University for our son, although halfway through the visit he decided he didn't want to miss the big U.S.C. admitted student reception after all and he took an earlier plane back to Los Angeles, leaving us in New Orleans with the realization he most likely was not going to attend Tulane despite the very generous scholarship that had made it a winner in my wallet heart.  

New Orleans was so different from L.A. Our hotel was charming and old world, the food surprising in content and aspect and not all that bad (crawfish, andouille sausage, collar green and jambalaya are all words I learned on the trip.)  I was fascinated by all these white tourists letting loose, dancing terribly off beat in the streets and walking around nursing alcohol rather than the usual starbuck. I guess people will travel great distances to Vegas and New Orleans for the privilege of becoming ambulatory drunk.

I don't really drink and walk, but I should have considering my extremely poor choice of shoes. Closed-toe danskin clogs are a terrible, terrible choice in 87 degree, humid Louisiana. 

After my son ditched us, we decided it was time to explore the bayou, what else did we have to lose?  I loved it. It was at once spooky and stunning, Big Fish and O Brother Where art Thou suffused into one. We pet baby alligators and took a boat driven by a massive 14 year old named ZZ.  The fact that he carried a knife the size of a baguette was supposed to reassure me but somehow failed to. I though it was funny that he spent the whole trip enquiring about what life in the Los Angeles jungle was like. To him, that was exotic.

On the way back, our plane was delayed because of the weather (note to self: never, ever fly into or out of Dallas airport in April EVER again) and once we did take off, eventually, five hours later, the turbulence were so awful that one member of the family saw a week-long constipation abruptly turn to its violent opposite, and had absolutely no choice but to climb over the flight attendants's joined hands (in prayer, I kid you not) and spend the most vicious minutes of the turbulence hanging on for dear life in a bathroom that no doubt had to be condemned after that.

 

Voila, this was my trip.  Now I'm safely back home ready to let les bon temps rouler at last.

Welcome April!

The  month of March was an absolute whirlwind of changes.  I had to take action, make decisions. There were reasons to be sad, reasons to be afraid and reasons to celebrate. I had to think fast, lay low, plan ahead, put a pillow over my head.  I had to follow my gut, stay calm, do with little sleep.  I had to be pushy, be patient, be reasonable and unreasonable. I had to take a few blows and return some.  I still had to write, clean, cook, shop, and on occasion make an ass of myself and accidentally fall into the pool but my mind really wasn't into it.

Among the wonderful things that happened: my kid was accepted at 10 out of 15 universities he applied to. Pride and Joy in the mail box all month long.  This was much needed recognition of his ambition and intellect, because it doesn't matter how wonderful we think he is, until a university throws money at him to lure him into going there, how could he be sure? Among the not so good things that happened, he did not get accepted at his first choice school. Although, silver lining at least for me, he might now go to a California school where I can stop by his dorm and make his bed on occasion,hehe. But I'm trying my best not to push him in one direction or another.  It's not about me.  Or shouldn't be. Okay it does feel A LOT about me. I'm so not ready to let go.  

Good thing: Nadia and I are now an item.  Haha, that's a hell of a teaser isn't it? That's all I'll say for now. I'll tell you the details of the story later. I'm hugely excited about this little secret of ours. Sometimes  when I think about it I have to shake my head in disbelief. You'll see, you'll see.  

Really disheartening thing: I thought my novel would come out this month: it won't. It's still riddled with typos something awful. Typos are like slugs in my vegetable garden, they keep coming and coming and there seems to be no end to them. I'm tempted to use a flame thrower over the whole thing (the book and the garden.)

Great thing: I lost four pounds!  Yeahhhh!  Anxiety and stress really suit me.

 

Tsuna-mini

The events:

Yesterday, at precisely 8 p.m. Eastern Standard time, in pitch darkness and 50 degree temperature, dressed in head to toe rain suit, boots, plastic pants and all, I fell, headfirst, into my pool.  

According to visual witnesses I didn't fall, as much as ran towards it and lept.

The explanation:

It's been raining hard in L.A. So hard that our drains could not keep up . The pool was overflowing and the water was creeping steadily toward the house and I had to (felt I had to) do something.  So my big idea was to put garden hoses into the pool to syphon out some of the water.  I was rushing, pulling, pushing, freaking out about the wood floor, my vision isn't good, my raincoat hood obscured what was left of it and someone had moved the pool to the left by a couple of feet. 

The results:  

Tsuna-mini averted.  Flooding damages avoided. Humiliation quotient: High.

 

 

brittle Feng shui

I feel like a racer on the starting block, waiting for that gunshot and that gunshot ain't coming and i'm so PUMPED for it! So much needs to move forward but is stalling.

Snow getting in the way in Vermont (Nadia you know what I mean.)

Waiting to hear from colleges so that we can plan Spring break visits.

Burning with impatience for my book cover, so that I can send my novel out. 

Waiting to hear from the people whose life I just adapted into a screenplay hoping that they loved it (but what if they... gasp... hated it?)

And my nose is clogged shut by a monster cold i cand breede!

Rhahh this is torture!

In an attempt to remove blockage from my life, I decided to clear feng shui,  beginning with the unbelievable amount of crap accumulated under my bed.  

The junk I found there was mind-boggling. There was the extended family of dust bunnies, no wonder my nose refuses to unclog, then the scrunched-up content of four boxes of kleenexes, heavy with dried-up snot, fruit of a winter's worth of colds and a spring's worth of allergies. And then, and I had to marvel at the symbolism, there, under our marital bed were enough sharp/cutting objects to shred a 20 year marriage to pieces: three kids plastic swords, an exacto knife, a board filled with dozens of pins (I use those to map out storylines), and this was not symbolically bad enough for my relationship, a huge guillotine-looking paper trimmer I did not even remember owning.

I guess in the process of making sharp and dangerous things inaccessible to small children I crafted the mother of all toxic relationship feng shui. 

So now you could have a picnic under the bed it's that clean.  The bunnies have found a new home in the belly of my vacuum cleaner, the kleenexes were recycled (is it morally reprehensible to put kleenexes in the recycling bin?) and the sharp things are to be moved under Brad and Angelina's bed because all that passion they are displaying is making me feel insecure.  Now good Feng shui can freely flow in and out of the room.  I'll let you know if things become unblocked and make a Feng Shui believer out of me.

Valentines day His and Hers

Humans are silly. They actually came up with a Set Yourself Up For disappointment Day, which is all Valentines Day really is when you think about it.

Here is how it will play itself out at my house:

The only thing I REALLY want for Valentines day I can't have, namely chocolate.

source

 

And the reason I can't have chocolate is that it's fattening.  

And the reason I can't get fat is that when I look like a tub it kills my libido (not his mind you.)

So the very act of giving me what I want for Valentines Day would ruin his chances of him getting what he wants.

source

What we should do then, is take turn getting what we want, every other year. 

source

... so Valentines day 2011? I say, pass the Toblerone!

source

Vintage toys and muscle aches.

I started working out again. I was shamed into working out by the fabulous California weather, strong indicator that wearing-nothing season is in-like-omg- three weeks!

So my friend Claire and I decided to splurge and share the tough love of a personal trainer. To give you an indication of the lady's expectations I will tell you that she trains professional athletes for a living. Professional athlete and us. This is a nice change of pace for her because she doesn't usually get to hear whines, complaints and requests for water breaks. She must wonder why, if I hate sweating and panting so much, do I insist on paying her good money to make me do it.

I wonder that too.

She works us so hard that the muscle pain did not leave me between two sessions.  After the first session I couldn't go up and down stairs and my ab pain was so severe that I could not laugh without moaning at the same time.  This week it's the shoulders and the tush. I walk like one of those clowns with the big shoes and I go ouch, ouch when I get out of my car.  But it's worth it because:

I'M GOING TO LOOK SO HOT!

At least that's what she promises. Okay.  I definitely want to look hot.  It's on my list of 100 things to do before I die. I'm motivated now.

 

I love those vintage tin toys from sushipotparts via Designer's block . 

 

Another year bites the dust

What a good year this has been for our family.  I'm saying this while keeping my fingers tightly crossed and banging my forehead violently against wood because I'm more than ever waiting for the other shoe to drop.  With incredibly sad and difficult things happening everywhere, I find it shameful to celebrate... But truly the year was sweet, cozy, peaceful, abundant, serene for the most part, with the brunt of the drama being self-inflicted and most likely imaginary.

It wasn't all perfect.  2010 was also the year when I became middle-aged in looks, poundage and years. I'll try to remedy that in 2011. I just read someone's new years resolution on facebook and she made me laugh, she said this year, 'if anything tastes good, spit it out immediately'.  Well i'm not going to do that.  And I'm probably not going to botox myself stiff either.  What I will do, however, is coat all the mirrors in the house with a thin layer of olive oil. Problem solved.

I start the year with the college application madness behind us, and two school having already said yes to him (two out of two so far, the rest will be revealed in April), a younger son finally happy with his school and making new friends after a couple of lousy experiences, no less than three TV shows on the air produced by my husband which is totally cool, and new resolve to self-publish.  2011 will see the joys and heartaches of seeing my son off to college and becoming just three at home. I'm very scared of that and therapy to deal with it is on the horizon. Maybe this is why the year was so good.  It needed to be, because it was the last one of the kind.

So my resolution is to self publish.  Who am I kidding, I will never be published the regular way. I have not sent a single query to an agent since August. But the truth is, I'm not even sure I want and agent, or a publisher.  I've been reading a lot on the subject and everything points to self publishing: faster, easier, more control, more freedom, more outlets, more percentage.  The last vestige of delusion to abandon is the thought of my book as a physical representation of my ego, and let it become what it needs to be: a marketable product. 

My horoscope in today's  L.A. Times assures me that  "The substance of the stars shines through my every cell, and the light reaches to the far corner of the universe."  no effing way! I mean with this kind of prognosis in my favor (and by the way it is also relevant to all of you girlfriends born in May) how could I not succeed?

I wish you all a sweet new year.

PS: I'm thinking of calling my book Hidden in Paris. What do you think of that title? Have you ever chosen a book based on the title alone? I don't think I ever did.

Jews who believe in santa

Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, dormez vous?  Dormez vous? SONNEZ LES MATINES, SONNEZ LES MATINES!

Yeah, I better wake up and smell the fetid scent of my blog's slow decay.  Where have you been? Where have I been?

I've been online yes, but not to blog.  Reading yes, but not for fun.  Writing yes, but not fiction. I realize I have set aside enough pretty stuff to post once a day for six months, yet am i posting?  No.

I should just share the images and forget about the linking to the source, which takes so much time! Other blogs do it.  But it kind of sucks not to give credit where credit belong, so i end up not posting at all.

Partly it's have blog fatigue. I'm tired of the sound of my words.  It feels like i'm saying the same thing over and over, and with age, you know how it goes, i can't even tell for sure.

I set up a tree! and i like it! To me it's not about Christmas and baby Jesus (why but of course, we're jewish so no baby jesus.) it's not about Santa and it's not even about the gifts and the family stuff.  It's all about the décor!  I am enough of a décor junky to  gladly renounced my own religion over it. Maybe decor is my religion.  I need to come up with a name for this new religion.  And some kind of altar (now i have all kinds of decorating ideas about the altar.)  And songs.. we'll need songs.

It was a good idea to do a tree because,  unlike the past 10 or so Chistmases, when I go to a store and come face to face with a pretty ornament, I don't say 'no, sorry I decline, this is not for me' while grinding my teeth in frustration, and I don't feel like a hungry puppy being denied a treat:  I just take out my wallet and giddily spend $4.5 for a humble little owl with glitter on top. 

I spared you my pictures, they are nasty with a capital N. Credit goes to Fryd Design and Feldborg, two fantastic sources of inspiration for colorful scandinavian Christmas decor.

Thanksgiving belated

Thanksgiving was.. wow.. hectic.  The big dinner was at my house, with yours truly at the stove.

But mostly it was a week of sending applications to colleges with a Nov. 30 deadlines, with yours truly as Data Entry Clerk and Master Organizer and the principal interested, my son, mostly preoccupied with a concert he was performing in and rehearsing for.  And... well then it was yours truly switching hat from mommynatrix holding a whip to mommytherapist going 'poor little bunny i understand your pain.  Which i don't. I understand MY pain much better than his.

And now i'm told it's Hannukah in a few days? There must be a of Jewish cosmic joke i'm the butt of.

On the brights side, I am resolute I will decorate the house for winter.  I found a few ideas here and there, and if Hannukah doesn't kill me I think i'm up for doing Christmas too this year. With maybe... perhaps, a tree.  I want to be happy rather than cranky is the reality.  I want to drop the drama and relax.  But let's not jinks it by talking about it.

Growing pains

"It's a good thing your son is questioning everything right now, it's actually remarkable.  Some people never get to this point until late adulthood and then wonder where their life went. Some kids go to Yale and Harvard before asking themselves those questions and end up jumping out a window."     Told by my son's International Baccalaureate supervisor during conference about his level of stress yesterday.

Jee weez... thanks for the visual, dude.

halloween and death

It must be that halloween feeling, but I was entertaining some morbid thoughts today. I finally called the Salvation Army, to once and for all put an end to the epic saga of the purple couch.  And since they were sending a truck and muscled men for the sofa I went around the house and gathered three huge bags of stuff to give away.  I went a little crazy and will probably regret parting with the content of those bags.

But see, I was thinking about death and what we live behind when we die.  When I think about my death (which is often, and usually not too unpleasant, as long as I'm the one dying and no one else) I end up fixating on the physical crap I would leave behind for my kids to deal with. 

The other day my sister was back in France where she burned all remnants of her past life, all her journal writing from a darker time, and pictures of herself that represented that time.  It made sense to me: she wanted to move on from that phase of her life and she did not want to leave behind that kind of trail.

My son noted that all the writing she did during that time was probably some of her best stuff. 

But I'm like her.  I feel I should absolutely throw away all the writing done when I was depressed, and all the agonizing years of infertility and treatment, or relationship issues with my friends, and all the venting about my husband.  I mean, Anais Nin aside, journals are not to be shared, and especially not shared with your children. The words in a journal are like excrement: they need to come out and it is a relief when they're out BUT it's ain't the kind of stuff that should be framed and put on the mantle.  Journals are testimonials of our basest instincts, our pettiest moments.  Are those the words I want to be remembered by?

And there is the burden, which I shudder just thinking about, of giving my children no choice but to make decisions about the junk I was too weak or lazy to deal with in my lifetime.  Another aspect of this is what to do with the good stuff: my favorite objects, my paintings, my photographs, and, for crying out loud, my unpublished manuscripts.  I don't want to burden my children with the guilt of throwing those away, or worse: the responsibility to let the world becoming aware of my Oeuvre!   

This is actually something that has been bothering me for a very long time.  I want, I must, get rid of everything in my life time.  But I assume that I will be given time to prepare for death.  No one can guarantee that. I need to have a plan and show courage. Contemplating one's death isn't pleasant, but one must first think of those we leave behind.

For the record, the muscled men of Salvation Army came and notified me that furniture pick up was at their discretion, and they don't want to have anything to do with the purple couch!!!! This damn purple couch is to furniture what an colon obstruction is to the intestinal system.  See the irony?  What I wanted to let go of stayed, and what i did not want to let go of went. 

So here you have it, a post about death and poop.  Blogging doesn't get any better than that.  Oh.. and by the way... what happens to your blog when you die?  Does it go up in the sky with you?

 

Fun with Scissors

Wanna see new pictures of my house?  When I came back from New York my house felt cluttered to death.  I needed air and space, I removed everything and sat with black walls and empty shelves for a few days.  Still it wasn't enough.  I HAD to get rid of that clunker of a couch. That was the problem. I bought a simple ikea couch with clean lines and no Shabby Chicness to it whatsoever.  

But I soon discovered why they say that nature hates a vacuum, at least my nature.  It quickly went from this clutter:

To this one:

I grabbed my scissors and used paper to do a mosaic inside the bookshelf.  (Seen everywhere I know, it took a while for me to do it.  Note that the paper was probably bought two years ago for this exact purpose.)

 

Emboldened by my newfound scissors capability, i went a little butterfly crazy. I present you the wall-o-butterflies:

Weeee....!

  I guess I traded one clutter for another, Shabby Chic for Anthropologie.  But I like the results, at least for now.

What else I hadn't shown you?

The new shelf in the kitchen

  And stripes everywhere.  The table top is a oilcloth from Target I stapled to the wood of the table, and the curtain I painted with acrylic stripes over canvas, because I'm stubborn and I'm slowly but surely trying to get the look of my favorite kitchen. Voilà what i've been up to.  

When you're happy and you know it

Thanks to all of you who have been leaving lovely comments lately.  For some reason they all landed in my spam folder.  I thought you were mad at me, so I was mad right back at you... I'm done with this bud-shit blogging, I said.

 

So it was a little bit embarrassing when I opened my spam folder and found all your sweet comments all tucked in and begging to be published.  It was like Christmas in June. You were not mad and it was only a silly misunderstanding, hehe...

 

 One of the hidden-then-found comments allowed me to discover artist Bridget Coux, who lives in France and paints the most precious little oil paintings.  You can buy Bridget's paintings here.  I want to own them all.  I'm particularly smitten by her use of black.

 

Bridget has a whole series of birdies eating French pastries on Flikr here.

Meanwhile, I've replaced my hour or so of commenting on your blogs with exercise.  I hope you're not mad that our relationship is turning into a one way street.  I'm exercising everyday and I feel so good about it and because of it. I've lost some weight, not much but that's because I'm gaining muscles, right?

 

Things are good here.  Very good.  Or maybe exercising is helping my mood.  It's a bizarre feeling to wake up in the middle of the night, and finding nothing to be anxious about (believe me i try). Of course there is guilt: my entire persona being defined around the guidelines of neurosis, self-doubt, struggle and confusion, I feel i should apologize for being happy.  And a nagging thought: Am i still likable when things are going my way for once?

Oh screw it...

When you're happy and you know it clap your hands!

CLAP! CLAP!

I have a personal trainer? Moi?

Well gals, I was Personally Trained yesterday. 

Or what is it you call it when you pay someone to make you run frantically on a a treadmill, lift 15lbs dumbells while stepping on and off a super high workout bench,when you give money to someone to make you sweat beads of fat from every pore, to make you curse, to make you spit blood..?  

I had told her I believed myself to be untrainable, but it became apparent within seconds that I was in fact begging to be bossed around.  I gave it my all as i became uncharateristically obedient.  I lifted when she said lift, jumped when she said jump, and higher, and HIGHER, and I ran when she said run. And when she said pay, i paid.  Then I thanked her profusely.

Today, predictably, i can barely lift my arms and I walk in a grotesque shuffling manner.  Yes i am in pain.  Me, in pain, from exercising. But i love it. I loved the hard work and I loved when she told me I could do it in such a supportive, confident tone. What a refreshing break from the sound of my own defeated voice.  And she was right.  I could absolutely do it.  And today I absolutely walk as though there is something stuck in my rear end. 

I was going to post pretty pictures i just found.  Adorable little dresses. But i'll save them for later.  Who would want their creations associated with that last sentence?

The girl with the dragon breath

That would be me. 

Yesterday's  small blogging crisis  had to do with something-rather (i'll never understand what) and seems fixed for now.  The blog looked quite martian for a while, and in its own surrealist way, better.

Today I feel legless, headless, muscle-less, yellow-tongued, foul-smelling. PMS it is, then?

Or maybe losing access to basic body functions has to do with my chauffering five teenage boys to and from Coachella and going to bed at 2 am three days in a row... or maybe it's the dreadful weather, because it is cold and grey and sucky here in LA.  Or maybe it's writer's block. (I haven't written a line since spring break started--self-loathing ensues.) Or maybe it's that everyone around me seems more productive, more successful and thinner (my dieting is a big FAT joke, thanks for asking, girls) than i am.

Basically, i'm in a funk.  Fuming.  In a bad mood. Whatever.

 

Did you see the girl with a dragon tattoo?  I look and feel just like she does right now, except you can't see my ribs.  Boy was that movie intense.  But good.  I did have to walk out during that one terrible scene, you know the one in the beginning.  I couldn't take it and wondered  about all the elderly people in the movie theater (this was in Palm Springs) who were joyfully munching their popcorn as she was being... in the most shocking of ways.  I guess sadism is something you end up getting used to if you live long enough. I walked out of the room and waited for the screaming to stop.  Unfortunately, i had seen enough to destroy me for a few days.

I'll get back to you when I feel like this again:

 

Weighing things

 

 A few posts ago I asked you for tips on losing weight.  Well I have not lost much weight since but I did pay a great deal of attention to your suggestions, which ran the gamut from Loving Self Acceptance to the complete avoidance of carbs.  I don't know if I'm ready for such extreme behaviors, but I'm definitely ready for something.

One idea stood out among all the ideas you gave me.  I have never known much about the calorie content of food.  I'm French (or was) remember, and the French believe that anything can be eaten as long as it is eaten in moderation.  But after parroting that sentence over the course of a lifetime, i at last realized how asinine it was, really.  What the heck is moderation? A thick slice of brie on baguette can only be considered moderation in comparison to wolfing down the entire wheel and loaf, then washing those down with a bottle of Gevrey Chambertain. When is the consumption of chocolate truffles moderate.  After one? two? Or is moderation devouring the content of a box in one sitting... but only once a year at Christmas? How many calories do I need to cut before i can start losing serious poundage, do I need to cut 500?  1000?  How much I ingest on a daily basis?  As it is, i have no idea. I think i know, I tell myself I know, but really, I don't.

And what about exercise?  What is moderate? What is strenuous? Everything feels strenuous to me. How many calories am i really burning when i have sex, when I garden, when i pass the vaccuum?

Well my friends i am now no longer clueless, tanks to Jeanne of the blog Nantucket Mermaid.  Thank you so much Jeanne for introducing me to myplate @ LiveStrong. This is so awesome!  Myplate helps you track the calories you ingest and those you burn.  You decide how much weight you want to lose (I said a pound a week) and it calculates how many calories you are allowed tat day.  Then you enter everything you eat daily and it keeps a count for you.  So if toward the end of the day you have gone heavy on the cassoulet, you know you better have thin soup and kick in the butt for dinner. 

Maybe I am naive but I had no idea how to really do this.  Cutting calories is much easier once you know what's going on.

Next, I really would love for you to sign up and 'friend' me so we can stay motivate together.  It's really fast and easy (and free, and no they are not paying me to say all this.) 

May I remind you ladies that bathing suit season is crouching nearby and ready to pounce on you any minute now? Come on, let's do this together!  Any takers?

The images are via the sumptuous blog Beautiful Things to Share and represent a wildly idealized version of what i will never look like. 

what is introversion and is it bad?

I seem to go through phases of extroversion and introversion.  In the extroversion phases I feel super sociable.  I blog my butt off, I'm all over the web commenting, I call friends and have a burning desire to express myself, to write, to communicate. I crave visual stimulation and conversations. When I am in an extroverted phase i am funny, or at least think i am which amounts to pretty much the same as far as i'm concerned.

During the introversion phases I want to stay home and be quiet.  I go cocooning.  I resent phone calls and changes to my routine.  Images leave me cold, (see, no images here) music and noise irritate me. My own family irritates me (okay, that happens during my extroverted phase too.) It's just that things feel louder, more rushed, more aggressive. So i disappear a little. I go into reading frenzies, one, two three books, often at once. I cook. I eat.  When I'm in an introverted phase, the best way to communicate with me is through Goodreads. 

During my introversion phases my sense of humor is nonexistent, as you may have noticed. 

...which is not to mean that i feel depressed, (though the concept of manic-depressive comes to mind-- but I'm getting older and maybe wiser thus less eager to scrutinize my behavior and try to define it in pathological terms.)  I use to feel an introverted phase come and panic.  Now I welcome it as a reflective time, and trust the process.

I'm in an introverted phase this week, did you guess? (though writing here today could mean you are witnessing the trail end of it.) I'm at my desk wearing faux uggs and baggy clothes, there is a pocket radiator blasting heat near my desk. The dog and the cat are hard at work napping at my feet. Cozy and solitary.  I like it. For now.