hello i am cold

On the way into my writing workshop on Saturday, I stopped for coffee at Starbucks and ran into the Boy of Inappropriate Age, with whom I worked at Starbucks back in the day and on whom I once had a raging crush. I took the advice of my YA writing workshop and tried to get in touch with my teen self, taking mental notes on how it felt to run into him and trying to surrender to the impulses of emotional immaturity.

I came up with: 1) felt happy I was dressed extra-cute, 2) tried to look super nonchalant, like I hadn't seen him right away, 3) felt nervous and tongue-tied talking to him, and 4) exited the conversation before I could say something stupid or embarrassing. And now I can use this information in my novel! (If I want my character to be a total emotional dork, that is.) This is how that works! Cool!

We talked a lot about poetry novels and graphic novels and did less writing on the second day, which was a little disappointing. We also talked a lot about editors and agents and people were all "so, if I want to make a $50,000 advance..." and asking a lot of cart-before-the-horse questions like that. Maybe they're farther along in the process than I am, though. We also talked about critique groups and writers workshops and that kind of stuff.

On the nuts-and-bolts side, we did a couple of interesting things. One was 20 truths/20 lies about our main character, and they could be as outrageous as we wanted. Once I was done, I said that my 20 lies made a way better sounding character, and read some aloud; one of the instructors said it could be the first paragraph of a novel. It goes something like this:

"She knows kung-fu. She is good at sleight-of-hand. She drinks a pint of whiskey a day. She speaks fluent Japanese. She is allergic to shellfish. She wears high heels everywhere. She's a member of the NRA. Her ambition is to be a stripper. She has never cried. She has never lied. She's in love with Steve Buscemi."

The final exercise we did was called "what ifs" where you're supposed to have a partner (or just by yourself) throw out random possibilities for your plot, or at least for writing prompts. I was too shy to do it with a partner, although I filed it away for next time I am talking to one of my writerly friends. But doing it by myself absolutely resulted in an awesome plot epiphany. As I was writing it down I was totally grinning.

So where does this leave me? Well, lots of things to write about. I need to make time to work on this project soon; even though the new semester starts tomorrow and the GRE is coming up, I need to keep the momentum going. I'm starting to think I really could write this thing--I mean I'm not promising it will be good. But it will be something!

I anticipate that this will be incredibly long and boring, but I want to enter my scribbled notes from today's writing workshop into the permanent record somehow, in case I need them in the future. You see, today was day one of a two-day workshop on writing a young adult novel. The question that I needed answered was: can I do it? Today I'm a little closer to thinking that yes I can. I mean write a good novel, maybe not. But write something that resembles a young adult novel? Maybe.

There were two teachers for this thing, one of whom actually used her own, recently published ya book as an example of what to do with dialogue. Poor form, I think. Am I wrong? Anyway, there was a nice mix of talking about YA lit, reading some of it, and doing some writing prompts. I'm going to go through my notes (which are probably out of order) and transcribe some stuff. Feel free to ignore this. ( blah blah... )

I actually had to close my eyes to take this picture, since I was shaking from laughter.

The whole set is here. She's really very cute and non-Klingony! I am totally in love with her.

1. Over the weekend, Ian took my iPod to the Apple store. It abruptly did sad iPod face last week, and he wanted to have it fixed for me as a surprise (aww). But apparently it's reached the end of its lifespan after two years. I'm tired of spending a bunch of money on iPods that die after two years. Are there any actual good MP3 players? We do ads for the Zune, but... I mean, it's Microsoft. Any suggestions?

2. My bank account hasn't debited any of the purchases I made over the weekend, at airports and restaurants and such. How am I supposed to know if I have any money left? I got some cash out of the ATM this morning with apprehension. I doubt I spent all of the money in my checking account, but considering that a banana at an airport costs like seventeen dollars, who knows?

3. My car is making rumbly noises when it starts. It probably should go to the mechanic. Or I should just buy a new (used) car! Or at least start researching. Apparently the MINI is no good. I still want an Acura Integra (but they stopped making them in 2001, and they're hard to find. I don't have a third runner up car yet.

4. I would write about the weekend, but a picture is worth a thousand words. Wait until you see the pictures of Sarah Beth. WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE THEM!

It's all right here. Spoilers for the final Twilight book. Oh, that was a fun day.

From my father:

Hello Monique,wel that was a 5'6 quake .no damage only 1picture fell from the wallcabinet and it had glass in it ,it was the picture from my dad I ques he was not used to earthquakes ,all you guys were still standing .My dad would have been about 96 years old.Did you feel anything at all there.Elijah was at day care at that moment they were playing outside,ofcourse the teacher felt it so she went to check on the kids and low and behold they were minding there own business playing etc or nothing happened the teacher let them do there thing and made no panic and you know that is over in no time Caroline checked with the school rightaway that is how we know the story,also everything fine at Caroline"s work.Wel that is it for now,Love Mom and Dad..................

This has been a busy summer. Already I've been to Vegas, Los Angeles, and BlogHer; next month I'm going to Austin, doing a weekend writing workshop, and having a friend in town; September is L.A. again, and camping, with a strong possibility of a last-minute Coldington visit. Plus teaching. Plus working a lot.

I'm not complaining, though. Almost every part of this has been or will be fun and wonderful. I just don't have time to slow down and write about it, I guess! I do have time to Twitter a lot (that's right, twitter.com/mopie) and to ask your advice.

You see, my laptop keeps crashing, and I think it's time for a new one. I've had this one for a few years, since before I moved to Coldington in whenever that was. 2005? And I think it was gently used before then. (It was a gift from Brian. I will try to refrain from being too effusive about what it meant to me at the time and still means, that he did that.) And it has served me well, and now it seems to be going gently into that good night. So now I have some money in my savings account and can buy one!

What is important to me? Lots of hard drive space, portability, reliability. The ability to play fun PC games. And not a Mac. I know a whole bunch of you are Mac people and are going to be like blah blah Macs rule blah blah but I really do not want a Mac. How's the Sony Vaio? Or some HP thingie for which I read advertising copy all day? Or another Dell, even though this one is all explodey? It really was a good computer for a long time. Any thoughts?

I did not cheat at all, and this was too good not to post. Via mesawyou.

1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.

( songs meme... )

I feel compelled to do this book meme because I have made such an effort to read books, and I am curious. Even though there is no Hemingway or Faulkner on here, so what the hell? And Mitch Albom? And I had to add the hyphen to Moby-Dick myself. What kind of list is this?

( the list )

Sigh. 64%. I CAN DO BETTER.

We went down to L.A. this weekend as kind of a spontaneous last-minute trip. As some of you know, last week was a pretty bad one. Elijah and his grandmother (Tiff's mother) were in a really horrible car accident, and had to be extracted from the car with the Jaws of Life.

As you can see from the ten million photos of him on my Flickr stream, Elijah is doing fine, thank god. But Tiff's mom is really badly injured. The car accident broke her ribs, her pelvis, her legs, knocked out her teeth, and broke her wedding band. As of a couple of days ago she also has a MRSA and is in quarantine. Yet she is lucky to be alive, and we are all incredibly grateful.

I'd been in touch with my family a lot by phone, but it was really hard not to be there. In the meantime, work was really busy: a lot of late nights, a lot of working through the weekends. So the first chance I had to go down there and spend some time with them was this weekend.

It ended up being a really fabulous time. It really was about spending time with Caroline, Tiffany, and Elijah, and we basically focused on that. On Friday, we drove down and got there in the afternoon. Shawn came over and joined us for a small barbecue and pool party, and after everyone had gone home and gone to bed, it was great to sit outside and gossip with her.

The next day we went over and hung out with Caroline and the fam again, and then headed down to Redondo to have dinner with BFF Brian and my friends Steve and Melissa (whose wedding was in Hawaii if you remember that trip). Unfortunately, we found out they just lost a friend of theirs to cancer. In fact, Ian had just read his obituary in the New York Times, without realizing it was their friend. He died on the same day as the car accident. Also on that day, one of Tiff's students, a seven-year-old, was found drowned; he was revived but is now in a coma with probable brain damage.

Despite the sadness of that, it was wonderful to see Steve and Melissa (and Brian of course). We all headed over to their house to play Rock Band and look at Jupiter through Brian's telescope. (Man, that was cool; we saw four moons and the bands and everything.) Then we headed back to the parentals, slept, got up, had brunch and a good talk with Caroline, and then headed back.

The drive home kind of sucked. My car air conditioning doesn't seem to be working, and it was stifling hot. There was also a lot of traffic. I'd had fun driving around the L.A. freeways all weekend (I do love driving in L.A.) but six hours on I-5 behind a seemingly endless series of SUVs hitting their brakes is not a fun way to spend a Sunday. Plus, I missed seeing my cousin, who was headed back from a camping trip---we wanted to stay, but both had to work today, and I had to get some grading done last night, even.

Anyway, we're back, and I'm so glad we went. Having my family just a (long) drive away is luxurious. I mean, look at that face. How do you not want to spend a weekend with that? (P.S. Favorite picture at the moment.)

So on the last day of Vegas I was playing Bingo with my friends at Terrible's Casino, with my Mr. Terrible Bingo Dauber, and I wasn't doing very well. Usually you at least get tantalizingly CLOSE to a Bingo, providing suspense and entertainment, and I didn't even get close once. So I thought, man, I'm not very lucky today, am I.

And then I looked around at my husband and my friends, and thought about the friends who I'd spent the weekend with, and the VIP booth in the club and the dancing and the pre-party and the cabana and the Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Casino and the champagne buffets and the swimming pool and then my friends some more and my eyes welled up and I thought, no, I couldn't be more wrong. I am the luckiest girl in the whole world.

And then I thought, man I'm drunk.

It was still true, though.

It's a good day in California, my friends. A very good day.

And yes, Caroline and Tiffany are planning to tie the knot, as are David and Tyler. The girls are waiting until after the election, as far as I know, while David and Tyler are aiming for the fall. I love them all so much. I don't see how anyone can begrudge them this. Go California!

On Friday morning I taught my classes and then drove straight to the airport to go to Austin for Chris's baby shower. This is a very hoped for and already-loved baby. She has a great group of friends and a husband who is totally ready to be a dad, and it was a great party.

Chris and I met in Girl Scouts when we bonded over our mutual obsessive love of New Kids on the Block (shut up) and so it was entirely appropriate that NKOTB were on the Today Show on the very morning of my arrival! We watched it Friday night, and it was a total flashback, to be sitting with Chris watching New Kids! How many hours of our teenage lives were spent in exactly that way? (I kind of feel like I owe it to my 15-year-old self to get tickets for the reunion tour.)

This morning I was sleep deprived and taught some crappy classes, but I'll make up for them on Wednesday, when my classes will be awesome. I also have a flood of e-mails to answer, including one from another high school friend, who e-mailed me while I was at Chris's house, having found my blog! Chris and I were talking about how sometimes friends drift apart and friendships have a lifespan, especially when people are scattered across the country (damn you, scattered friends) but there are some friendships that are more like sisterhood, and you know they'll last a lifetime.

Still, it had been way too long since we'd sat and argued about which New Kid was the cutest. Great weekend.

Going through all the photos, of which there are at least 1,000, to pick highlights for Flickr I had to laugh remembering when we used to go to Europe with film, in cans, and if you brought 10 rolls of film, that was a lot of film. And you could not see what they looked like until you developed them. Remember how weird that was?

I am off to Austin tomorrow for the weekend, and although I wanted to get my travelogue written, there's been too much schoolwork and too much work work (we've been short-staffed all week and that one group of students is sucking the soul out of my body) to get it done. But you can look through the pictures and see where we went, and the things we saw.

Start here if you want to see all the photos in order.<.

The newest member of our team at work is A., and I hereby declare that it stands for Awesome. On the booze cruise on Friday, we discovered we had both been Girl Scouts and ended up singing "Make New Friends," in a round, to some Irish guy we'd just met. (Yes, there was champagne on the booze cruise.) She lives two blocks from me, loves The Office and says "that's what she said" with abandon, writes, reads, and loves to bike ride--we already are planning to take our bikes to Point Isabel when I get back from vacation next month.

On Saturday, we had a writing date at a cafe around the corner, and I thought it was really productive. I'm working on an idea for a YA novel and I figured out a few good moments/character points and KIND OF A PLOT. I am not going to go back and re-read it anymore because it's written so awkwardly... I'm going to keep pushing through and see if it coheres into something. I've never done the "writing date" thing before, so that was fun, and it was good to have someone to bounce ideas off of. Hopefully we'll make it a regular thing.

So that's the "new friends" part, and on the "old friends" tip, I booked my plane tickets today to go visit pippit in Austin! (Next up on the list are trips to Green Bay and Albuquerque.) She's having a baby shower soon, because she's having a baby. Holy shit. I've seen belly pictures and everything but it's too, too surreal. Hopefully I can go back to Austin when there's an actual baby for me to gaze upon and admire. Just to bring this little entryette full circle, I first met pippit when we were Girl Scouts together and discovered a mutual love for New Kids on the Block.

One is silver, the other is gold. That is all.

This hotel that they put me up in is fantastic. Say what you will about Paris, these Hilton people really know what they're doing. I left my cell charger at home... and they gave me a cell charger that fits my phone. My camera ran out of batteries and the gift shop was out of batteries... so they sent someone up to my room with batteries! They have a free 24-hour business center that has saved my life this weekend. They are fantastic.

Also, the guy from the University who picked us up from the airport and took us to dinner last night is charming and weirdly deferential, caring about our comfort (by which I mean me and the artist, Karin Carter) as if we were important people! Apparently the gallery openings have been known to have "hundreds" of people at them. I am really praying for fewer than "hundreds" of people. But Andy Warhol has exhibited in the gallery! So, me and Andy Warhol.

Speaking of 15 minutes of fame... (see what I did there?)... you have probably already heard that I am going to be on the TV on Monday. (My mother's response: "What's a blog?") It was crazy; I got an email yesterday and talked to a producer, and sent in some pictures of myself and I thought I kind of babbled and sounded dumb and they wouldn't pick me, but today she called me back and said she loved me and wants to be my best friend and can we fly you and your husband to New York? And I said Okay! And we have tickets to see Clay Aiken in Spamalot, too. Hee.

So, I don't know. I basically feel like I'm drunk all the time. (Maybe it's the altitude.) Everything is surreal and confusing and I can't keep track of anything. Like, I fly back on Saturday night and back out on Sunday morning. I have like 10 minutes to pack, and nothing whatsoever to wear on the TV. I also was emailed by a literary agent who has represented nothing I've ever heard of, but still! It's like every time I open my inbox something else insane has happened.

Oh, but here's some awesome serendipity on a much smaller scale: today I had the afternoon free, so I walked to a lunch place about a mile and a half away. The walk in the cold air was very badly needed. As I was walking I was thinking, sure, I have a great haircut, but I wish I'd had my eyebrows waxed at least once in the past six months. And I turned the corner and there was a salon. And they were open. And I got my eyebrows waxed. And they look awesome.

I hope this means the universe is on my side. Nice, universe. Nice, nice universe. Please let everything go well.

Heath Ledger is dead?

I got my author copy of Teaching the Novel and it is pretty. My blog is in the New York Times today. A reporter from ABC.com just called me and I said things (this is where it could all go horribly wrong, by the way). And this weekend is my fancy trip to Colorado where I will rock my new haircut and my fancy new dress and they will pay me money to be a poet. So I'm pretty much the fanciest person in my cubicle today!

(Also, one of the songs from Once got nominated for an Oscar, and I am happy about that, too! There better be an Oscar broadcast, I tell you what.)

At our reception, my dad asked Ian repeatedly if he was going to shove cake in my face. It turns out that my father has always found the cake-in-the-face trick funny. And here's proof! (There's actually a whole series of photos, including the impish look preceding the cake-in-the-face, and the actual cake-in-the-face-ing.)

Also, here is my dad dressed as a little Dutch girl. HA!

Bloggie Awards nominations are open until Thursday! I totally want to be on that panel. Like, hello, Dooce is so overrated these days.