My Job, the TV Show

I know I alluded to my new job in my last post, and since I'm here, you know, "working," as I write this now, I thought I'd tell you a little bit about it.  But because the job is actually rather mundane, and some days, offers me lots of free mental time and space, I've begun to think of it as something with real possibilities-- at least in my own mind. Today is one of the slower days, so I have already obsessively checked my e-mail, Facebook and Etsy pages, played several rounds of Words with Friends, and destroyed countless gems in another mindless game.  It's almost noon. If I eat my lunch now, I will have nothing to get me through the eternal two to three o'clock hour which somehow stretches longer than any other in a 9 to 5 day.  Normally, I would say that 4 to 5 is the longest work hour, but I work in a little post office which closes at five so, that last hour is full of people rushing in to make sure their mail goes out before I do. Compared to the rest of the day, it often flies by.  

Picture from here 

The post office is a contracted sub-station inside a bicycle shop next to a supermarket about a block from my house.  Right there, I think we have the makings of a zany workplace sitcom of the sort that has not existed since the heyday of late 1970's-early 1980's television.  I'm thinking of something like Taxi here, but with bikes instead of cabs.  I see myself as an over-educated, under-employed (sarcastic, but humble) clerk reacting to the people who work here and the people who come in to mail things. 

There is the owner of the bike shop, a cute as a button, yet tough as nails, Canadienne who has recently purchased the bike shop from the man she used to work for.  She is a human Energizer bunny, the heart and soul of the place, darting here and bustling there, painting, tiling, wielding a wrench, assessing the damage to bikes brought in to be fixed, ordering, accounting, you know, doing everything it takes to run a bike shop. ( Maybe there's a multi-episode arc in here somewhere about how she falls for a customer who brings in a badly damaged sprocket... something to think about.)  She employs two mechanics, who are utter physical opposites (you know, one tall and thin, one shorter and round, like a perfect pair of Disney sidekicks) who are each good with the bikes and good for some snappy commentary and smart remarks as they shake a wrench at the sky, muttering about how awesome bikes are wasted on people who can't figure out how to shift the gears properly.   There is one more clerk/mechanic who works part time in the store and part time as a personal trainer.  He is a heart-of-gold used-car salesman of a man who has never met anyone with whom he could not strike up an enjoyable 45 minute conversation.  Oh, and I share the job with a woman named Lou, a postal sub-station veteran, though we work opposite days, so after the pilot episode, where she shows me the ropes (certainly replete with goofy postage mishaps) she would only drop in for "very special episodes."

Image from here

The customers fall into two main categories, though there are outliers all over lot.  The first group, which won't surprise anyone I'm sure, is the oldsters. The post office seems to be a magnet for everyone in my neighborhood over the age of 70. There are quite a few packages going to far flung relatives, especially grandchildren, and the chance to mail a package is also a chance to reminisce about when the mail didn't cost an arm and a leg. These people remember when a first class stamp could get a nice fat letter half way around the world. Good talk!  Good times!  

Usually, though, with just a single piece of mail in hand, a nattily dressed man or thoroughly coiffed woman walks slowly, very slowly, through the entire bike shop, sometimes with the aid of a cane or a home health worker and either a) asks me to make sure they don't need more than one stamp--"It felt a little heavy dear, just check, I don't want the phone company to return it and shut off my.... Oy my phone," or b) hobbles an extra four feet past me and my outstretched hand to forcefully shove their envelope through the after hours mail slot in the door next to the post office counter.  Just to mix it up, I sometimes get both with one customer, who asks me to weigh the letter, then grabs it from me before I can drop it in the box so that they can forcefully shove it through the slot in the door.   I see this as an opportunity for lots of fun guest spots with sit-com stars of bygone days to add a self-referential pop culture twist.  Or maybe someone like Betty White or Doris Roberts could appear every other episode or so, and pull the "weigh the envelope and grab it out of my hand" bit to peals of pre-recorded laughter.  

Children, also, don't seem to think some thing's been mailed unless they get to push it through a slot, but I don't want any pesky child stars gifted with an unexpectedly popular catch-phrase like "Did I do that?" or "Whatchyou talkin' about Willis?" to draw attention from the ensemble feeling of the show.

Picture from here

The other main category of customers is the growing group of Internet entrepreneurs  selling "handmade," "vintage,"and "found"  items on e-bay and Etsy.  They either bring in bushel baskets full of pre-paid packages and dump them unceremoniously all over the tiny counter, or try to bargain with me about postage for individual parcels, as in: "If I take this to the Main post office, this will be less, for sure, so what can you do for me?" or "You don't have to charge me extra for a tracking number, I come in here all the time..."  They like to disregard the fact that postage costs are set as federal rates and cannot be tampered with, even for the small business owner.  As a group, they are more assorted but less colorful than the oldsters, though their stories could bring the elements of sweet pathos that a successful show must have to go the distance.  And their creative recycling of packing elements and duct-style tape is always good for a visual joke. 

Another way this could go of course, is gritty (sub)urban drama. By taking a little license with the neighborhood I live in and moving it South and West about 10 miles, we have a whole new cast of characters with heart-wrenching stories-- purloined letters, snarled bicycle chain, a West Side Story-ish crossed stars romance:  "Baby, I told you not hang out with that boy from the bike shop!"   

But that's something for me to write on another shift....

*To be clear, I have lots of nice customers and good people to work with-- no disrespect meant to anyone here, of course.  I am thankful to have a job.

**Just another note-- I always try to carefully link credits to the random images I include.  If I make an error, I apologize to the original poster of the images.  

No Excuses Here, Just Explanations and Apologies

So here is how I picture the blog right now, readers:  it is a less than picturesque ghost town, extremely dusty, with a tumbleweed or two rolling aimlessly down the dismal, empty street of what was once a bustling gold rush town with a saloon and a general store, maybe a livery stable... Whoa Nellie! I'm getting farther off the track than ever.  (I'm such a geek-- I just went off and virtually checked whether I should say further, instead of farther, only to spend 15 minutes reading about how they are just about equivalent...)

"Really?" you might ask," is that kind of word-nerd lollygagging why it's taken so long to write a simple blog post?" And I might be tempted to tell you about the nasty summer cold I've had, or that I've been busy writing a couple of pieces for one of my favorite sites, The Equals Record, or that Delia is starting second grade and Fiona is going to start kindergarten, or the fact that I started a part time job about six weeks ago. (A job really does take up a lot of a girl's free time.)  All of these circumstances might have impacted my blogging productivity-- and indeed they have.  But because of the weird way my brain works (thanks to years of studying philosophy-- oh yeah, and law school didn't make me want to stop over-thinking this kind of thing either) I can offer these as explanations for why I haven't blogged, but not as excuses for failing to post.

...or not.  This image from here.

"What's the difference?" you might ask.  (Yeah, I have you pegged as pretty inquisitive.)  Or maybe you don't really care and maybe it doesn't really matter in this one-sided conversation I'm having with you. But there is an important difference between an explanation and an excuse, which I suppose is pretty obvious, but which I find is often skipped over in every day conversations.  An explanation gives just a reason for something, but an excuse is some kind of mitigating circumstance that somehow gives the offerer a pass for some undesirable behavior.  Like neglecting to blog.  To me, and to some other philosophers, an excuse also comes with an implied and valid request for forgiveness, or as we real people like to call it, an apology.  I don't know about you, but I get a lot of explanations offered to me as though they were excuses, and it doesn't make me feel too kindly toward the offerers.  Especially when the apology that might have been implied with a genuine excuse is never actually offered.

We tend to think that circumstances beyond our control are valid excuses, because, well, we couldn't control them, so they don't count against our valiant effort to do whatever it is we are supposed to do. So, a traffic tie-up on the interstate can be offered as an excuse for being late to a meeting, but stopping to have coffee and a chocolate cheese danish really can't, because, while I had no control over the traffic situation,  I could have easily built time into my commute for a delectable snack, to avoid being late and inconveniencing whoever I am meeting. Likewise, illness is usually counted as a genuine excuse, because, really, who would choose to be sick? On the other hand, even illness can fall out of the excuse category if someone is believed to be responsible for their sickened state (hello, hung over much?) Just to let you know, I have saved you whole philosophy books' worth of discussion about the difference here, but I think I've still gotten the salient point across, so, you're welcome.  And I'm not saying the philosophy is air-tight here, either, so I reserve the right to apologize in the future if I've been unclear or if I figure out a better way to explain this.  

I know, right?  From here.

Anyway, all I'm really trying to say here is that, while we can explain or offer reasons for some things, like I can for not blogging, we can't always offer excuses. And when we can't, maybe we shouldn't try.  Because people who do things like neglect their blogs, or come in late to meetings with chocolate on their faces and lattes in their hands, or step on your foot, or whatever people do to neglect, or inconvenience, or hurt you, should really understand that when they're only offering an explanation, it should come with a clearly stated apology.  And maybe a promise to do better next time, because, after all, they're asking you to forgive them, and still like them and read their blog and stuff.

So, I am really sorry if I let you down, because I really like you and hope you'll still read my blog. I know this is just a small thing in a big hectic world, but I'm going to double my efforts to blog now and heck, yeah, for avoiding other stuff that I really should do to be a good person.

Even though you're thinking, "Wait, what, she didn't blog-- who knew?  I was busy... but that's no excuse for not reading someone's blog, right?  I should do better..."  

That's why we're friends.  

Tumbleweed pic from here.

Not Some One's French Mother

Pictue of french chic from here

I wasn't thinking about clothing, or even about getting dressed, for that matter, when I stumbled on this article during my morning email reading/link clicking/ web-surfing, er I mean, my "pre-writing ritual." Yeah-- see, I do get ideas to write about during this "creative" morning period.  Just because I will not be posting about George Clooney's latest break-up (no surprise, she wanted to settle down?!) or Kim and Kanye's baby-naming antics (really, North West?  At least the poor little girl will have money for therapy and lawyers...) doesn't mean that I'm not revving up to write my next essay/rant/post. 

Anyway, the article outlines the differences between the ways typical American and French women dress, coming down firmly on the side of the tres chic French style.  Quelle Suprise!   I know it's silly, but I do pay attention to this kind of thing, and as you may know, there are whole books-- yeah books, plural-- comparing the cultural qualities of American and French womanhood, in clothing, attitude, diet and mothering skills, and they universally pronounce the French way superior.  I am always suckered  by these books and articles nevertheless, because they are almost always accompanied by a photo or illustration of a busy but chic thin woman looking fabulously put together, even though it is clear that she doesn't have to think about how she looks because really, she is just dropping off the tots at the ecole and picking up a baguette and some cheese for the evening meal, which she will whip together effortlessly by adding a bit of butter, something green, and an egg or two.  And she will never get fat (per this book), and she will never raise her voice to her children (per this book), because she has trained them since they were enfants, and an arched eyebrow or a raised palm will bring silence from the gallery d' peanut...

The truth is, I have looked approximately the same, dressed, since I had children.  I had my first at 18, so I guess  didn't look middle aged then, as I certainly do now, but I have looked like some one's mother since that first child was born.  Would it be better to look like some one's French mother?  Maybe, but even if I put on the trim jeans and the striped fisherman's tee, I won't look more put together, because something about me seems to be naturally rumpled.  

I could fit in with these gals...picture from here

It's not that I haven't experimented with different styles.  I went a year or so during grad school sporting the woman's academic look-- loose neutral or black layers, sensible European shoes and big Global jewelry, all topped off by wild, curly frizzy hair, or alternatively, close cropped angular hair-- The Eileen Fisher/ J Jill woman, comfy, yet brainy, with too much going on in her head to worry about being fashionable, yet too professional to actually teach class in her pajamas. 

This is kinda what I was going for
Picture found here

When I was going to lectures at universities in Boston, I tried out the academic preppy version, with the cords and scuffed leather boots and the big wool sweater with the tiny moth hole at the neckline to show that it was real wool, that my boyfriend had owned it since prep school, and that I was too intellectually preoccupied to do more than throw on some clean clothes and grab my books before heading out the door.  Still, no matter who I tried to be, I always looked like some one's mother. Possibly wearing a costume.   But I digress...

Back to the whole Franco-American thing.  First of all, I take issue with the notion of "typical" French and American women as they are usually portrayed, because we're actually comparing a pretty non-specific American mom demographic,  to some French group of women that aren't likely to be from the same slice of life.  Since I fall into a (lower) middle class (but way too over educated for my own good)  mom demographic, I have the feeling that  we are really dealing with some kind of cultural inferiority complex here.  This woman we aspire to be doesn't have to be French, but since so many people are extolling madam's virtues, we've got this idea stuck in our heads.*  I think we look to the French for examples because we-- and I really mean I, but come along with me here-- equate looking more put together, healthier, and like a calmer mommy, with being all of those things.  All of us-- and here I know I sometimes I totally forget, but stay with me-- know that isn't the case.  We all know a woman or two who seems to have everything together until we find out she doesn't.  I won't accuse the rest of you, but I know I'm always envious of the sleek, chill appearance and always more than a tiny bit glad when I find out her dark secret-- her kids get lice because she hasn't vacuumed in years, or her husband is leaving her for a slightly frumpier, but definitely warmer and younger version of herself. 

I guess what I'm getting to here is that I'm going to try to stop comparing myself to ideals, French or otherwise, and try to just be happy with my own rumpled self.  You'll see me at school drop off, or at the grocery store.  I'll be the one in the faded yoga pants and husband's college T-shirt with the washed and butterfly-clipped  hair.  I might be eating something fattening while I yell at my kids to stop whatever they are doing right this minute.  Say hi, because we ordinary moms need to stick together instead of trying to look like-- or feel bad that we aren't-- something else. 

*I have a theory that this goes back to at least Jackie Kennedy because her calm coolness somehow got conflated with her love of the French culture, but I don't teach cultural studies here on the blog, do I, so, really, who cares... 

Me TV

 I know I always talk about how I waste my time, but do I really talk about how I waste my time?  I know this will shock you, but sometimes I do it the same way everyone else does, just watching TV.  (You thought figuring out cold fusion, maybe?  Nah!)
Of course, I'm not usually in charge of viewing choices, so there's a lot of PBS Kids on at my house.  Curious George, Sid the Science Kid, Arthur & his gang are all regulars.  I know the theme song to Wordgirl by heart.  (Well, she is kinda my hero.  I think I would be totally at home on the planet Lexicon!) And of course, there is the process of introducing the girls to the shows I watched as a kid. Well, I was doing that, until they asked if the shows looked so weird because technology hadn't been invented when I was a little girl.  They did like the Vitameatavegimin episode of I Love Lucy, and they get Bewitched, which was my favorite at their ages. (They haven't caught up to the confusion of new Darrin yet.) We might go for Get Smart in a few years, just to make sure they know that Steve Carrell and Anne Hathaway are not the real Smart and 99.

Lately, they've developed a weird fascination with Full House, which was somehow anachronistic even when it was new.  And really, you try explaining the fact that little Michelle, that roly-poly baby ball of blond wisecracks, was actually played by the Olsen twins.  I showed the girls the Vogue magazine featuring the now skeletal Mary Kate and Ashley and their ready-to-wear empire, but I was met with utter disbelief.  "First, mama, there is only one Michelle, so two girls could not be her," said Fiona, the existential philosopher, and from Delia, the pragmatist, "Those girls don't even look like Michelle, because they have pointy bones." She diplomatically added,  "I think you might be making a mistake about this because the show was a really long time ago."  Since I'm really not equipped to explicate child labor laws as they relate to 1980's television production, and can't possibly explain how the baby fat melted off of the skeletal clothes hangers Mary Kate and Ashley are today, I've let it go.  Maybe they never were Michelle.  It was a long time ago. 

So I don't often get to pick what we watch, but when I do, (and here, I can't help but think of the Dos Equis guy, because, really, I watch plenty of TV) I confess that I am now a binge watcher. Since we gave up cable at the beginning of the year, we've used the much cheaper option of streaming TV to supplement the four channels (including PBS, thank goodness) that we can get with our modern day "rabbit ears."  And, like most everyone else who has such access, I can't stop myself from watching one episode after another.  Somehow, watching three so-so movies in a row doesn't do it for me, but I'll hit "watch next episode" over and over, given the opportunity. 

The Gg's at Luke's Diner, of course... from here

I usually pick shows I've seen, but never really gotten to watch attentively, because, you know, I have kids.  If I could, I would just watch the entire run of Gilmore girls over and over for the snappy repartee. Sadly, it is only available a few episodes at a time, because it still runs on some real TV channels somewhere in cable land.  But enough about strong female characters like Wordgirl and the Gilmores. What I've been watching lately is pretty much all British guys-- solving crimes, pretending to be Americans, sometimes doing both in the same show. 

Lately, there has been DI Lewis and his laconic partner Sgt. Hathaway on Inspector Lewis, the contemporary Oxford-set crime procedural. And before that, Detective Chief Superintendent Foyle, on Foyle's War, which is set in a coastal English town during World War II.    Both have new episodes on PBS this season, so I have been catching up by watching old episodes.  I see you yawning over there, but really, there is plenty of blood and sexual intrigue in these shows and the best thing about them is that the characters have an amazing way of shutting down bullshit with a quick phrase.  The writers of these shows have the  characters say the clever stuff that most mortals only think of long after the appropriate moment has passed.  Plus, I would argue that Lewis and Hathaway have dialogue almost as snappy as Lorelai and Rory, but in that bitten-off British guy way that sounds so much smarter than most of what's on our side of the pond. 

Three of the other shows I've been watching lately were cancelled long ago, but live on in the twilight of Netflix and Hulu, even though they have yet to achieve anything like cult status.   Strangely, though I'm not a fan of the season-ending cliff hanger, I can make peace with a show that will stay unfinished forever.  My taste clearly runs toward quirky antiheroes, men who are challenged by the system and by personal demons.  Yeah, I like my main characters complex and smarter than everyone else in the room... And all of them are English guys playing tormented American everymen?  Is that more than a little weird?

The first show is Life, which stars Londoner Damien Lewis, lately of the uber-popular Homeland, as Charlie Crews, a Los Angeles detective back on the homicide squad after serving twelve years in maximum security prison for a set of murders he did not commit.  While in the joint, he calmed down by reading Buddhist philosophy and getting into fierce fighting shape in solitary confinement.

His fantasy settlement with the city for his erroneous incarceration includes a truckload of money. Some of this he has used to buy a gigantic house which is set on a ranch where he grows all kinds of fruit, because it was the food he missed most while he was in prison. In addition, he got a promotion to detective, so he is solving murders and covertly investigating the crime for which he took the fall.  There are only a season and a half of episodes, and the first series unfolds like an origami swan as he pieces together who set him up and who the real killer was.  Adam Arkin plays his housemate and financial manager with a practical hangdog sincerity that balances Charlie's zen-spouting fruit-eating at home the same way his cynical, sarcastic detective partner Reese, played by Sarah Sahi, balances it on the job.  The second season, which we are watching now, is not quite as evenly paced, and is missing Reese, because Sahi took time off while she was pregnant. From what I've read, the last episode wraps up Charlie's saga because the show runners knew the axe was going to fall.  I'm almost up to that final episode, and I've enjoyed the ride.

Awake features another Englishman, Jason Isaacs, as Michael Britten, another LAPD detective with issues. (Are there no Americans to play LA cops anymore?) After a horrible car accident, Britten lives in two realities, never sure which one, if either, is a dream.  There are subtle differences in lighting and obvious differences in the cast in each part of his life, as in one reality his wife died in the accident and in the other, his son was killed. 

In each reality, he sees a therapist who is trying to convince him to let go of the other life because it can't possibly exist.  Incredibly, he manages to help his detective partner in each life solve a murder every week, using clues from both realities to piece the puzzles together.  It is a pretty complicated set-up, which is certainly why it only lasted one season, and it requires real attention, which is something unexpectedly diverting in a TV show.  The cancellation of this show was also certain, so the story line was wrapped up in a twisty last episode.  Isaacs did a good job conveying the torment and confusion of his character, expressing grief for his family and fear that he was somehow responsible for the whole thing.  There were also bits of humor punctuating the darkness and keeping viewers on track with the multi-layered plots.



Finally, I have to mention Eli Stone, which is found on HULU, because it is yet another British actor, Jonny Lee Miller (who is currently doing a modern day Sherlock Holmes on CBS, also good) as another American guy in a weird situation.  And because I love it irrationally.  Stone is a thirty-something big law attorney in San Fransisco who suffers from a series of hallucinations which often erupt into full blown musical numbers staged in offices, courtrooms, and Golden Gate Park.

Stone's visions cause him to stop the cut-throat corporate litigation that made him an asset to his national law firm and take up pro bono work which he believes will better the world.  While his visions are eventually explained as the product of an inoperable brain aneurysm, he interprets them as signs he should follow and declines medical intervention (except for the occasional acupuncture session which clarifies the visions somehow) because he prefers the purpose this shift in his life has given him.  The show is silly and philosophical and I'm sure that I was attracted to it when it came out because I was going to graduate from law school soon and wanted to see someone buck the billable hours trap and do some justice.  I have yet to see the wrap up of this show, but I know it did not get the neat finish of Life and Awake.  Still, I don't know of other shows where lawyers jump up on their desks and sing George Michael songs, so I will keep hitting next episode... until the kids want to watch Full House. 



Intermission

I am writing, I swear it!  Actually, I have also started a part time job as a postal worker in a tiny postal outpost inside a local bike shop.  More to come about that soon.  In the meantime, you can now access my blog on Bloglovin'.  Have a good Friday!


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How to Become a Professional Writer

Now that I am what I hesitantly call "a writer," I have had to think about the fact that I am not just doing this for fun, and that doing something else is somehow cheating on writing. And I'm not even talking about overcoming my well-known tendency to procrastinate. I'm talking about real stuff like vacuuming, cooking, and making the girls' beds.  I have begun to look under every literary rock to see how the other writers do it, especially the successful ones (meaning the ones I've heard of) so I've  been reading a book edited by Mason Currey, called Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, which is exactly what it sounds like, a compilation of the daily habits of working artists, composers and writers.  Now, I'm a sucker for this kind of thing, and I am always ready to read something like the How I Write blog featured on the Books section of the Daily Beast. I'm also quite the stalker of the Brain Pickings site, because they often feature writers discussing the creative process and how they have harnessed it to suit their work. 



See, Jane Austen took breaks... from Jane Austen info page

The problem with reading about all of these routines is that none of them say anything really helpful, like "...and then, dressed and coiffed by ten a.m.,  Jane Austen arranged the day with the household staff before she went out and gathered flowers from the conservatory garden. When she came back into the manor house, her writing had neatly completed itself and was piled cleverly in chapters on her escritoire."  Or "Sartre and De Beauvoir sat sharing cafe au lait and croissants, discussing the existence of existentialism, while the typewriter clacked merrily away in a darkened  corner of their pied-a-terre. In the late afternoon, fortified by more pastries, they argued playfully and drank some wine while their writing checked itself for grammatical errors and philosophical inconsistencies."  

Lots of cafe time for Simone & Jean Paul here

Perhaps you sense the nature of what I am really hoping to find: some magical, mystical incantation to perform over my lap top so that I could get my housework done, read to the girls, then sit and read a novel over a scone and a latte, while my writing writes itself.  Apparently, there is no such thing.  Let's all hang our heads in disappointment for a moment, shall we, because then I have to take a deep breath and get to work.  My research about writers of the well known variety confirms this truly unfortunate state of affairs:  To work as a writer, you must actually work as a writer.  You have to get your butt in the chair and write.  Like, all the time. 

But here's something that may surprise you, if you've been to my house: when the house is a mess, I don't feel like writing. (If you know me, I know you have to be thinking "she must never feel like writing!")  More to the point, I don't feel like I should be writing. I feel like I should be cleaning. But I know that cleaning doesn't make me a writer, because we've just learned, apparently, only writing makes me a writer.

In fact, to a person, every single creative professional to offer advice about things such as writing and creating and making art, insists that one must actually show up, work hard and then work hard some more if the art is going to happen.  But first, even the productive writers have to get some things out of the way, like washing and grooming.  Many of them even mention getting kids off to school. So Currey's book and all of those other providers of details about how to get your butt in the chair, so to speak, have been helpful to me. This is because, in every case, the writers reveal that they do a couple of things, like brushing their teeth and getting caffeinated and even getting the kids to school, but it is all in the service of getting to their work.  No one mentioned housework.  No one mentioned cooking.  They give themselves permission to ignore those daily tasks and get to work.  Isabelle Allende put it well:

The notion that I do my work here, now, like this, even when I do not feel like it, and especially when I do not feel like it, is very important. Because lots and lots of people are creative when they feel like it, but you are only going to become a professional if you do it when you don’t feel like it. And that emotional waiver is why this is your work and not your hobby.

And even though I don't really need to cite anyone else, I have to mention that Cheryl Strayed, writing as Sugar, the sensible dispenser of sensibility at The Rumpus, gave this simple advice at the end of a long answer to a young writer who wanted help getting out of her own way so she could write:  "Write like a motherf@#!er." Now, despite years as an enthusiastic participant and proponent of both parts of that colorful compound epithet, I've never really embraced the word for personal use. But here, it makes sense to me.  When I think about what that means for me, I know it's about sitting down and writing, even when I feel I should be doing something else.  So that's what I'm going to try to do.  For those of you who come to my house in the next few months, don't mind the motherf@#!ing mess-- take it as a sign that I am taking myself seriously as a writer.

Indescribable Me

First, the good news-- well good for me, at least.  I submitted a piece from this blog to a cool online/soon-to-be-print magazine called The Equals Record and they not only accepted that piece to publish, they asked me to write another one, about books, so they could publish that too.  Pats on the back for me all around-- and don't think I'll be too shy to inform everyone when these will appear.  I'm positively giddy in my own quiet way. *



Yep-- we are the choices we make.  But is that all we are?

Of course, as we cynics often suspect, every silver lining has a cloud.  One appeared for me when the editor at Equals asked me to send a picture and a "short bio" to put on the site with my work.  Easy peasy, right?  Yeah, not so much for me.  I've written here on the blog about my issues with having pictures taken, and how I feel that none of them look like me.  Because they all look, you know, awful.  And there I was, having to not only send in a picture (which the editor graciously let me out of) but write about myself, and suddenly, I didn't know what to say, how to describe myself.  All that came into my head was a bunch of negatives, "I'm not this," "I haven't done that," etc... And this was when I was happy about having gotten something accepted to be published.  I should have been able to write something clever and, more to the point, positive and straightforward, about who I am and what I do.  The problem is, I'm not sure.  How to say who I am, that is. 

I don't think my self esteem is as low as this must make it sound.  In fact, I don't think my self esteem is the problem at all.  It's the esteem of others, especially others who might be meeting me for the first time, that I am concerned about-- way more than I like to think.  To myself, my husband, even my mom, sometimes, when pushed, I can boldly say things like "I own my choices.  I am responsible for where I am now."  I mean it.  I do think that.  Thanks to my firm belief that we can't control everything that happens to us, I can claim the choices I've made about the things I could control.  And I will honestly tell you when those choices were good and when I royally screwed the pooch on decision making.  But the editor asked me for a "short bio," not an exhaustive existential examination of my entire life.  My problem is how to cut to the chase without being allowed to explain how some things happened so that I can make sure that others understand and hold a fair opinion of me.  (Mental note to dig deeper into why I care so much what other people think...)

If I am the choices I've made-- or more to the point, the result of the choices I've made-- I should be able to describe who I am by listing what I've chosen to spend my time learning and being and doing.  So, mother and wife make the top of the list because these are the two most important things I am.  I'm writing, that's obvious, but am I a Writer?  I'm not sure.  Not yet, probably.  I make jewelry, but I'm not a jeweler.  I have a law degree, but I'm not a lawyer.  I have a philosophy degree (a degree and a half, if you count that completed, but languishing, Master's coursework) but I'm not a philosopher, either.  I'm currently unemployed, so do I call myself a job seeker?  None of this captures anything essential about me anymore than telling someone what town I live in, or where I was born, or what I had for lunch.

As I write this, it is getting clearer to me that the problem is not describing myself. It is trying to describe myself by what I do and what I have chosen.  Really, it is the force behind those things: my thoughts, my beliefs, my will, that make me who I am.  That essence, that "selfyness," (a made up word-- you heard it here first) is what I have trouble getting down on paper, because one essential part of who I am is someone who likes to get things like this exactly right. So round and round I go. 

I know I am over thinking all of this, but that's what I do.  Maybe I could write that down:   EBK Riley is a wife and mother who currently lives in Scottsdale where she thinks things to death  on a daily basis while providing her family with clean laundry and nutritious home cooked meals.  See, I know that a "short bio" is about where I'm from and what I do and maybe even what I had for lunch, but I also know that this doesn't really give anyone a clear picture of who I am. 

I am so much more than a burrito-eating blogger born in Los Angeles. 

How do I briefly capture my true self?  Maybe I don't. This is just a few sentences after all, so I just need to offer a quick overview.  And really, what I have to do is just be who I am, not question myself so much, and not worry about what other people think.  

Hey, throw in a "carpe diem," and rousing chorus of "if you want to love what you do, do what you love,"  and I just wrote a commencement speech.  I may not ever nail this "short bio" thing, but maybe I'll just keep writing and when my book comes out and Oprah can't be everywhere at once, those universities will come a'calling and I'll be ready.  I hope I won't have to have my picture taken...



*The book piece came out on 31 May, in case you haven't seen it yet. 


Choice image here.