Life in Books

Because I Need Something Else to Do...

2009-01-02T12:39:00.003-06:00

I've kind of resolved this year to try to go without using plastic bags. And just in general to be more eco-conscious as I go through my days, consuming less, making and reusing more. It's a subject I'm really interested in and want to share with others, but I'm not sure it fits on this blog. I'm not really sure what fits on this blog, and see it probably going away pretty soon.

(I also want to turn my main website into a crafty blog, soon as I ask Nick to install WordPress over there for me.)

Anyway, I started a new blog today called Ecoish. Probably should have been Greenish, but ecoish is what popped into my head when I was driving around this morning (errands, not just random driving, of course!), so that's what it is.

I hope it will be a place where people can share ideas on what they're doing to green up their lives. If that's something that interests you, hop on over and add a comment on your green resolutions for 2009.

Detroit Papers May Stop Home Editions

2008-12-15T10:07:00.003-06:00

I know, more newspaper news, but you can't take it out of the girl, for one, and second, this is pretty amazing. The Detroit Free Press and Detroit News which are operated together by Detroit Media in a joint operating agreement (sort of like what we have in Northwest Arkansas with the Times and the Democrat-Gazette) are apparently talking about eliminating home delivery of print editions on all days except Thursday, Friday and Sunday.

Instead, they'd offer a small print edition that could be purchased on the newsstand and that would direct readers to the larger digital edition.

The papers would be the first major metro dailies to so significantly cut back their print editions (the Christian Science Monitor is going web only for the daily and will have a print product on Sundays only).

The Freep, as it's known in the biz, is the twentieth largest newspaper in the country by circulation. Seems like a pretty drastic step in such a big market, but of course the economy in Michigan has tanked and circulation numbers are down.

Even so it's a very risky move, because if readers don't have Internet access, or don't get into the habit of visiting your website on a daily basis, you've lost them entirely.

We get the newspaper on weekends, and I never read the local paper's website during the week. If I need news I go to one of the big newspaper sites, and I watch the local news if I feel the need for local news during the week. I imagine a lot of people who get a daily paper now will react in a similar way when they're cut down to a few days a week.

Nothing's official yet, but it seems like a bad, desperate cost-cutting move that's just going to make things worse. Of course I could be wrong and we could learn that this is the way for newspapers to stay alive in the future. We'll see.

Farther Along

2008-12-08T16:19:00.002-06:00

It's been an age since I've actually written about a book on this site. I actually have kind of stopped doing book reviews other than for About and CalorieLab when they come up, not because I don't want to do them, mostly just because they're time consuming, often don't pay all that well and I think my local paper that I used to write for would rather save the money.

But I did read a book this weekend that wasn't related to one of those websites (and it feels like it's been an age since I've done that, too) so I thought I'd share. It was Farther Along by Donald Harington (Toby Books, 2008), who maybe you've never heard of if you're not from Arkansas. Heck, maybe you've never heard of him if you are from Arkansas. Either way, you should get to know him.

But by all means, do not start with this book. Start like I did, with The Cockroaches of Stay More or even with Lightning Bug, which is probably my favorite.

This one is mostly set in Stay More, a fictional town in the hill country of north Arkansas, and it has some of the same characters as some of the earlier books, but only one character in the book has an actual name: Eliza Cunningham, a historian from a college in Missouri who also has the same name as (and may be the reincarnation of) the daughter of an anti-slavery governor of the state who once lived in the same small town.

The book focuses on the Cliffdweller, who was raised in Arkansas but made his fortune out east where he was the curator of a collection of American antiquities. He leaves it all behind to live in a cavern in the woods above what used to be Stay More and is now just a collection of mostly falling apart buildings where one woman still lives.

There are other characters, including a moonshiner whose fingers also represent characters in the book. There are allusions to the characters as musical instruments as well. Each section of the book is in a different person's point of view (and a different verb tense!), and the last section is letters written by various people to a colleague at the college.

Confused yet? Me, too, and I actually read it. Even with the strangeness and confusion I enjoyed the book just because Harington is a great storyteller, even when the story's not so great, if that makes any sense. You still want to know where he's going even if you're still not sure where you are when you get there.

While I can't give an unqualified thumbs up to this particular book, I think reading it will probably motivate me to read some other of his books that I've never gotten to, which can only be a good thing.

In Which Sarah Ends a Long Silence to Mention a Topic No One's Interested in

2008-12-01T09:50:00.002-06:00

Yes, I've been away. No real excuse for it. Life gets in the way of the fun stuff sometimes. My pal Jessica says everyone should blog every day this month (after she blogged every day last month). I don't think I'll go that wild, but I will try to be more in touch, and actually talk about books and journalism and the sorts of things I intended to talk about when I started this blog.

Speaking of, CNN is floating a new wire service as a cheaper (and hopefully less totalitarian) version of the Associated Press. Thirty newspaper editors will be traveling to Atlanta to get a detailed pitch on the service, which aims to cover at least national and international events for less than the AP charges (which is a lot).

I think this kind of competition for newsgathering could be great, but I wonder about using journalists trained for television to write stories for newspapers. There's a big difference between relying on video and sound bites and painting a story with words. Also, CNN so far doesn't plan to offer still photography, so the plan may be better suited for the newspapers' websites (where video would be useful) rather than the print editions.

But at the same time I've been mad at the AP since they decided bloggers should have to pay for citing their stories, and that using just a few words of a story would require a website to pay a fee. In any case, it's great to see that anyone has the money to expand their newsgathering operations these days, and it will be interesting to see what happens.

Joy

2008-11-05T08:56:00.003-06:00

I know pretty much every blogger in America is writing about the election today, and there's probably nothing I can add except I am so proud of us as a nation.

That and the four most beautiful words in the English language today:

President-elect Barak Obama.

President Obama. Yes we can. We did, and we will continue to.

I have a lot of hope that the change we are longing for is more than a pretty speech, that our nation really is going to heal. But it's going to take more than Obama to get us there. My dream is that everyone who got involved this year, whether it was their first time or they're old pros, will stay involved and do what needs to be done to make this nation and this world as beautiful as our dreams for it.

These will be the longest two months ever.

Wanted: A Happy Ending

2008-11-04T08:49:00.005-06:00

Last night Nick and I did an appropriate thing for the night before the election: we watched "Slacker Uprising," Michael Moore's movie about trying to get young people mobilized to vote against Bush in 2004. (You can download it and watch it for free, and it's well worth it.)

We all know how well that turned out, and watching the movie made me profoundly sad to think about all the time we've lost. Even if you assume we couldn't change the history of 2000, what ugliness of the past four years might we have missed with a Kerry-Edwards administration?

Would we still be in Iraq? Would we have seen the economic crisis coming and done something about it before it was too late? Would we have started a green movement that would actually be making progress by now? Would there be less divisiveness, less biterness, less of a feeling that the rest of the world thinks we're crazy, unstable and dangerous?

Maybe none of those things would have come to pass, but I still can't help thinking that we've lost so much time -- wasted so much time -- that everything is going to be harder now.

But I fervently hope that we're going to change things, that we're going to get our happy ending. It starts today.

I've had this Cat Stevens song in my head all morning, "100 I Dream," which seems kind of appropriate for today.

And speaking of Cat Stevens, one of the clips you can see for free from "Slacker Uprising" is Eddie Vedder doing "Don't Be Shy," another beauty that pretty well epitomizes what we all need to do these days, and today.

Peace and happy voting to you all.

Hooray for Leftie Movies!

2008-11-02T21:52:00.002-06:00

Nick and I have actually been to see a couple of movies over the last couple of weeks, which is really rare for us (I think the last movie we saw in the theater before our vacation a couple of weeks ago was "Iron Man").

First we caught "Religulous" down in Little Rock, when I think it may have been the only place in the state you could see it (it's now at Fiesta Square in Fayetteville, if anyone's interested). We really enjoyed it and pretty much agree completely with his premise that it's dangerous for any country in the world to be run by people who believe in talking snakes or that the rapture is going to happen in their lifetime (though the movie isn't entirely about Christians, they bear the brunt of his criticism).

What I don't agree with, or at least don't think is really constructive, is his final argument that religion needs to be destroyed if our nation is to prosper. That's just unrealistic. I'd have enjoyed it more if he'd ended on a more positive note, encouraging people who lack faith to make themselves more vocal and visible without suggesting that either group needs to destroy the other.

Then on Friday we went to "W." This movie is really brilliant and well done, and will leave viewers wondering how much of it is real (the film's website has a helpful guide with sources for true events and notations of when things were made up or changed -- like Ari Fleisher being the press secretary throughout the movie when he wasn't there the whole time).

I think there's enough truth to it for this movie to provide really interesting insights into W.'s real-life behavior, why he did the things he did and how the war went down. Watching them use the shoddy evidence that was available to justify actions they already knew they wanted to take was pretty painful, knowing where it got us, but I also think it's important for us to see it.

The parts with Bush Sr. interacting with W. are particularly enlightening; though it's probably too much to say that we got W. as president because he was a child always trying to live up to his father's expectations may be a bit of a stretch, but not too much. Check this one out if you get a chance.

Trees, Running Water and Yarn

2008-10-22T13:47:00.004-05:00

I'm going to try to keep this post about our vacation shorter than it's been in my brain because I'm sure no one's interested in every last detail, but we did have a lovely time.

First we stopped in Fort Smith for my first visit to the lovely Stringtown Yarn & Fiber, where I bought some Opal Harry Potter sock yarn and some other tasty goodies. Then we went next door to Rolando's, a super-delicious nuevo Latino place. Goat cheese quesadilla. Need I say more? The beans are also to die for. They have a location in Hot Springs as well. If you're ever in one of these places, eat up and be happy.

Then we drove the rest of the way to Hot Springs and spent a couple of days there, walking around downtown, visiting Lake Catherine and the botanical gardens, eating passable Mexican in Malvern (which we think is where someone ran into Nick's car, leaving ugly gouges in the front bumper) and hiking in the national park.

The NPS warns about storm damage from Ike and Gustav, but we really saw it at Lake Catherine, where there was a fair bit of scrambling over fallen trees. But also a lovely waterfall that made it all worth it.

On Friday we went up to Little Rock, where I got a little intoxicated by the fumes at Yarn Mart, and wished a little bit it was my local yarn store, as everyone there was so friendly and the sit and knit table was full. Then we ate divine sushi at a place I think is called Sushi Cafe, just down the street from the yarn store. There was also a great kitchen gadget shop that Nick enjoyed.

Then we saw "Religulous," which I think will merit a post of its own, visited with our friends Ken and Jess and their boy, who was lovely despite having a fever. His baby blanket was finally delivered. He wasn't too impressed, but it'll be cold soon.

There was a yummy breakfast at Delicious Temptations (those pancakes are killer) and a drive home that was without incident. I had a wonderful time almost the whole time. There was also lots of good food in Hot Springs, where much seafood was consumed. It was mostly quite relaxing, and we were also able to score what's now our third Obama sign after the first two were stolen, so all in all it was quite a successful trip.

Read All About...Me

2008-10-20T09:15:00.002-05:00

Last week I was on vacation in celebration of my dear husband's birthday (more on that in a later post), so I missed noting that there was a story about me and my book in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette last Tuesday.

Since the D-G is behind a pay wall, you can find the article (but alas, not the pictures, which were actually pretty cute) here. Thanks, Michelle and Mike, for making the story so nice!

Kind of in Love

2008-09-15T10:37:00.003-05:00

I'm sure it's a fall thing, and getting to see town through a former resident's eyes (thanks, Mike! it was good to see you), but I'm kind of in love with Fayetteville right now.

I'm sure I've said this before, but I always thought I would move away from here when I got grown up. I mean, that's what people do, right? But even just a couple of summers away made me realize how awesome a place this is, and now I don't know if we'll ever move (though there are other places I can imagine living, like the coast of Maine, but that's not very practical for someone who's cold all the time).

There are all sorts of things to love about F-town:

For one thing, someone fun almost always runs for mayor.
We have trees instead of billboards, so we're way better than Springdale.
Right now our high school football team is the state champ. I normally don't care about high school football, but it's my alma mater, so there.
Despite the increasing corporateness, we still have some really cool, only in Fayetteville places.
We've got all the mountains, trees, lakes and rivers you could want close by.
People are still rather small town here, even though there are nearly 70,000 of us.
We have great bike trails. They're good for walking, too.
We finally have a Target (which we've had for a while), a Cold Stone and a stadium seat movie theater. And they're all technically in walking distance from my house.
We have the best library ever.
It's currently 61 degrees outside. (Who cares that I'm too busy to go outside this week?)

Sure we don't have a beach (but we still get the fallout from hurricanes) or all the cultural stuff of a big city (but still some of the traffic problems) but we have wacky people in every spot on the political spectrum, we have lots of artistic people and lots of big-hearted people. It's a good place to be.

30 Things

2008-09-02T09:53:00.003-05:00

So, my 30th birthday weekend has come and gone, celebrated with lots of good food and good friends. As it got closer I got less worried and more excited about being 30, as if now, finally, I am a grownup.

The 30s, I think, are the first decade in your life in which you're completely in control of who and what you are and what you do. Maybe the 20s, but if you're in college it's still pretty easy to feel like someone else is in control, you're doing what you have to do and living to other people's expectations.

Anyway, in celebration of 30 years on earth, I wanted to make a list of 30 things I love about my life. It was so much fun I might do it every year. You should try it, too, especially if you're dreading that turn over of the year.

Here's my list, which is more in the order I thought of them than order of importance:

30 Things I love about my life
1. I get to spend it with a wonderful person who loves me just as I am, and with any luck will continue to do so for the rest of my life.
2. Our friends are pretty great, too.
3. We have the best, sweetest fat cats in the world.
4. My morning commute is about 10 steps.
5. Nick and I are both pretty much healthy.
6. I'm as strong as I have ever been, physically and emotionally.
7. I wrote a book, and actually got it published!
8. I get to be creative for a living.
9. We have a comfortable house that keeps us warm and is welcoming to our friends.
10. I am surrounded by fiber (the yarn kind, not the food kind).
11. I get to teach people without having to be a teacher (nothing against teachers, I just don't have the patience).
12. I am in control of what I do and what I know -- I can't complain if there's something I want to be able to do but can't because I haven't tried.
13. I love that I live in the age of the Internet, where I can find the answer to just about anything, or learn anything I want, whenever I want.
14. I love that Nick let me follow my dream and did very little questioning of it, since it was pretty clear I had a plan.
15. I love feeling like a grownup, even if I didn't spend much time really feeling like a kid.
16. I could take a nap in the middle of the afternoon if I wanted. Not that I do that, but still.
17. I love coffee breaks and writing time at the library.
18. I love Twitter, because it makes me feel like I have some office chit-chat when I want/need it.
19. I love mahjong solitaire, because it's great for getting the mind off words.
20. I love that Nick loves to cook, but also that he lets me play sometimes, too.
21. I love the ability to read, and that I can find books on any subject and read them whenever I want.
22. I love that people want to pay me for my words.
23. Being able to knit has been pretty great, too.
24. I love that I'm finally, for real this time, teaching myself how to crochet.
25. It could be I'll learn to ride a bike this year, too.
26. I love that I learned that nobody cares what happened in high school, and we really can kind of all be friends now simply because we survived it.
27. I love our friends who've had kids, because they've been able to show us the good and the bad before we decide if we're ready/going to do it ourselves.
28. I love that I live in a place and time where that's actually a decision I (we, of course!) get to make.
29. Speaking of, I really do love being American, even if sometimes I don't love the people running my country or the decisions they make.
30. I love that with any luck I'll have many more than 30 more years to keep learning and growing.

Too Funny to Pass up

2008-08-22T10:05:00.002-05:00

Yes, I'm supposed to be working right now, and I am, really, but I just stopped for a second to check my e-mail and found this story about Wine Spectator giving an award of excellence to a restaurant that doesn't exist.

Not only does the restaurant not exist, its reserve wine list, supposedly made up of the best and most expensive wines on offer, was made up of wines that Wine Spectator itself had panned (one they said smelled like bug spray, another reminded them of varnish).

Rule number one, children: before you give out a prestigious award, at least call the place and make sure it exists. Or, you know, read your own magazine to determine that the faux restaurant isn't so excellent after all.

Work-Life Balance?

2008-08-21T15:34:00.002-05:00

The good folks at Lifehack are running a contest that has to do with how you balance work and the rest of your life.

Being an at-home worker, this is something I struggle with on an almost daily basis. I think I've gotten a lot better at it, but there are still times when I feel guilty that I could be working when I'm hanging out with friends, or I feel guilty that I'm working when I could be hanging out with friends.

I have a dedicated home office, but when company's coming where does all the extra junk get thrown? In my office. Right now I can see two boxes and two bags of stuff that needs to be donated, four boxes of books I'm trying to sell, and a stack of books about 20 high that I need to review.

If I look behind me, I'll see boxes and baskets of yarn, a sewing machine, a knitting machine, a box full of postcards for my book, a box full of my book, and another stack of books I'd like to read.

My work life balance is pretty non-existent. Well, I try not to work nights during the week or any at all on Saturday. And I try to limit work on Sunday to when there are geeks in the house, and take the time to exercise at some point in the evening.

A few weeks ago I was really doing a lot better on this balance thing, because I was taking time to work out most days while Nick was at work, and I was taking more writing field trips.

Now I almost have to talk myself into getting up from my desk during the day, unless it's to go to the couch to work on a manuscript I'm editing because there's no desk space in my office where I could spread out a manuscript and reference books.

I hope I find the answer to whatever balance is sometime soon. I imagine that balance means that I can take a day off next week for my birthday, another one the next week for the holiday, maybe another one at the end of that week when our buddy Mike comes to visit, and not feel like I'm missing something or letting someone down.

Of course that will have to be balanced with more work on the front end so I can enjoy those long weekends with my sweetie and our friends. That sounds like a pretty good goal.

Another Post About How Cute My Cats Are

2008-08-04T15:33:00.003-05:00

Not too long ago I wrote a post about Louis being a cutie in the trunk of my car. Apparently Mr. Bean was feeling left out of the love, because today he was being really adorable and begging me to take his picture.

The story behind the picture is that about a month ago we got these new chairs for our sunroom. They're really comfy and have until now been extra nice because no cat had gotten into them.

That's until today, when I found this:

Yes, my boys are handsome. And large. There's lots of them to love. And we do.

Nothing to Report

2008-07-30T10:04:00.003-05:00

It seems kind of funny to blog about having nothing to blog about, but I thought I should do something before it became a whole month since I'd updated.

Actually, there's a lot going on. I've got my whole rest of the year for About planned out (sort of), am writing tons for CalorieLab (usually three articles a day, though I think I'm only doing one today, which feels really strange), cycling down on my LovetoKnow work (just editing this month, but everyone waited until the last second as usual, so I'll have a pretty busy couple of days from them) and working on a sympathy editing project for Workaholics. I haven't done any work for them for a few months, but the person who was working on it has bruised ribs and it hurts her to sit up, so I took it.

Only problem is it's huge, and I said I would be done with it today and there's absolutely no way that's going to happen. Which is annoying, because I hate to miss deadlines, even ones I made up myself.

Once the craziness of the next couple of days is over, I'm hoping to have a pretty nice standard schedule for most days in August. I have a manuscript to edit for the Press and I'm thinking about trying to post a book review every day of the month for my About site, because I'm so far behind on reviews.

I know there is room for sanity in here somewhere. I just don't know if I can find it.

A Thing of Beauty

2008-07-05T14:35:00.003-05:00

We celebrated national insurrection day with some friends and a big old mess of paella. I should have taken before and after pictures, but this is what it looked like before it went into the oven:

It was even more beautiful and delicious when the rice was cooked. We also drank mass quantities of sangria and watched 300, which was kind of appropriate for Independence Day (albeit with a sad ending and me the whole time wanting someone to say "They can take our lives but they'll never take our freedom!).

The Fourth of July happens to be a most meaningful time in the lives of some of our friends, most of whom I don't think read this blog, but anyway. Miss Audrey celebrated her second birthday yesterday, Mr. Beckett was happy to have been back from Vietnam with his parents for a year, and Mr. Liam eagerly awaits coming home from South Korea with his parents as we speak. Best wishes to all!

Helper Kitty

2008-06-22T16:13:00.003-05:00

We just got an elliptical machine and a weight machine for our new sunroom (we'll skip over the story of how fun they were to put together back to back) so we managed to accumulate a bunch of big cardboard boxes all at once.

Since Nick decided he'd like to put his car in the garage again, we spent some time this morning breaking down the boxes, loading them up in my car (more trunk space) and taking them to the city's recycling center.

Louis decided he needed to help.

When I first saw him he was actually lying down in the trunk, but by the time I got the camera he'd gotten somewhat less cute (like that's possible).

WTF?

2008-06-20T11:44:00.002-05:00

OK, this has nothing at all to do with what I normally write about here, but I worked in Gloucester, Mass., for a summer (goodness, eight years ago!) so I still feel some kind of tie to that crazy city.

And crazy's the right word for it with the news of a pregnancy pact among girls at the high school there that has the teen pregnancy rate for times higher this year compared to last. There are now at least 17 girls in Gloucester expecting, none older than 16.

Time magazine originally broke the story and blames the baby boom on the sour economy (fishing jobs that once dominated the town are now mostly gone) that leaves kids directionless, the embrace by pop culture of unwed young moms like Jamie Lynn Spears and the school's own policies that won't provide students with contraceptives but do provide free day care to children of students.

The top officials at the school's health clinic have resigned because the school committee has so far refused to allow confidential distribution of birth control, but the committee is considering a new policy to be in place before the fall.

This would make me sad even if it weren't in a place I love, but knowing this town and how hard it's going to be for those girls somehow makes it worse.

Twitter By

2008-06-13T10:58:00.001-05:00

I'm not a big technology person, but a lot of people at About Twitter so I decided I'd join in. You can find me here. If you follow me, I'll follow you.

I can't promise anything exciting, or that I'll even remember to update, but you will probably get lots of information about knitting and the other stuff I'm up to. If you've ever wondered what a freelance writer does all day, this may be your chance to find out.

Crazy. Busy.

2008-05-20T15:08:00.002-05:00

I don't really have time to write right now (or ever, lately) but I am having a really good day. I went to lunch with a couple of my old colleagues from the Press and was really happy to hear the gossip, but even more happy that the drama they talked about is not my life anymore.

The redesign that About has been rolling out for longer than I can remember finally made it to my site, though it's only an A/B test so far and if you click the link you might get something really ugly. But the new design is nice. And someday there will be a better picture of me there, which is always a good thing.

The last bit of good news from today is that I've been accepted as a nonfiction reviewer for Publishers Weekly. For those of you not in the biz, PW is the review publication. Yes, there are others (and I'm not knocking BookPage, which I've written for for years), but PW is really the one you want your book reviewed in.

I have to write a few reviews on a trial basis before my name will be listed as a contributor (their reviews are unsigned but you do get mention in the magazine), but it's a good line to ad to my resume. Now I guess I can justify the cost of a subscription, too...

Boo to the BBC

2008-05-13T15:48:00.003-05:00

It's really hard to get knitters riled up (OK, that's not really true) but here's some news that's sure to annoy knitters, science fiction fans and all who love freedom (well, most of them, anyway).

The BBC ordered a British knitter to take down her patterns based on "Dr. Who" creatures like the Ood, the Dalex and the Andipose because they supposedly violate the BBC's copyright. They're also just about the cutest damn things ever -- and I never thought a blob of fat could be cute.

(Links galore can be found at About -- click on over, I need the traffic!)

The knitter says this is completely silly, because tons of other people have Who knits (and someday I really am going to knit a Tom Baker style scarf) and tons of other people have knit designs based on other copyrighted objects, characters and what have you.

Usually no one bats an eye so long as the patterns aren't being sold, which these weren't. Maybe the BBC is planning a line of plush aliens? Or they just know that the franchise is so big right now, they can pull a George Lucas and try to control everything.

I had come across the Dalex a couple weeks ago, and now I'm sad I decided to save a tree and not print out the pattern. Here's hoping this will be resolved soon and we can all get back to our knitting, or, in the case of the BBC, back to making quality television and remembering that part of its mission is to foster creativity.

Office Flashback

2008-04-27T20:06:00.003-05:00

I was clearing some old stuff off the memory card for my camera and I came across this picture of Louis in my office. This was from January, and I'm happy to say things have gotten better (although not as nice as I'd like).

Now a human can actually sit in the chair Louis is hiding in, and there's somewhat less stuff in that vicinity. I'm working on getting it together little by little (with the help of about a ton of plastic storage boxes for yarn and some healthy purging) and hopefully someday soon I'll have an "after" picture to show you how great my home office is so you can all be jealous.

Reality TV for Newspaper Nerds

2008-04-17T11:17:00.002-05:00

I'm almost embarrassed to admit how much I enjoyed the first episode of MTV's new reality show, "The Paper".

It's about the kids at the high school newspaper at the biggest school in America. But you could have made pretty much the same show at Fayetteville High when I was in school except (back in my day...) we didn't have cell phones and we had a darkroom to make out it. Much more civilized.

Anyway, the show opens days before the journalism teacher is going to decide who's going to be editor in chief for the next year. There's a lot of drama as everyone pretty much hates the girl who gets it, the paper's copy editor, and all the other editors are basically undermining the person in charge.

This is eerily familiar to me (no, I wasn't the editor in chief of my high school paper, though I might as well have been -- that's a long story we don't need to get into) and a heck of a lot of fun to watch.

To people who didn't have a passion such as journalism in high school (I imagine it was the same for people in band, cheerleading or other activities), it can sound silly to hear them talk about the naming of a new editor as the most important day in their lives or expressing how important working for the paper is to them.

But I know that I felt all of that. You'd think that little paper was the most important thing in the world for the way we'd fight about it and the tears that were shed over it. The personal dramas in an environment like that can get really heated even when there aren't cameras rolling (believe me, I know) because you're dealing with a lot of people who are passionate, creative, a little geeky and stuck together for long periods of time in a small room where they have to work together.

These kids might not have to deal with broken waxers or film that doesn't get developed right, but they still have the stresses of filling space, getting advertisers to pay up and clashing personalities that there have always been at every newspaper in every school in the country.

If you've ever wondered if reality TV is in any way real, this show has shown me that at least in some cases it can be. And it's taking me back to those days when I thought missing deadline or having people like me were the most important things in the world. Maybe I like this show because it's sweetly sentimental to me, and it shows me how much I've grown (thank goodness!).

Spring Cleaning

2008-04-15T09:49:00.003-05:00

This is going to sound like an old refrain, but I don't feel like working today. The reason today isn't really a lack of motivation, it's that I'm really motivated to do something else.

Now that my taxes are finally done (and if there are any freelancers reading let me tell you it's worth every penny to get someone to do them for you -- even if they're not done until April 13) I'm feeling a renewed energy for taking care of some other things that have been hanging over my head for a while.

For one, I'm finally going to do the paperwork to get my business converted into an LLC (that's limited liability company; it means my taxes don't get any more complicated but if someone for some reason decided to sue me they wouldn't be able to take my house), and then I'll be able to get a business checking account and credit card so that my business stuff really is separate.

In the meantime, I'm itching to get my office in order. I've been working on it in fits and starts all year (let's face it, all the time I've been home, really) and it is getting better (that would be hard for you to believe if you could see it, with piles of books, papers and yarn everywhere) but I want it to be done.

And that's what I'd rather be doing today than writing about candle holders, Internet marketing and Mariah Carey's appearance on "Oprah." But if I could just stop blogging, maybe I'd have time to do a little of both.

What Do I Do?

2008-04-10T10:40:00.003-05:00

Last night I was at the annual Roy Reed lecture that the journalism department does every year. The speaker was from the Philadelphia Inquirer, and he was working hard to give people hope that the business is still vibrant, though changing to incorporate many more digital methods than most of us could have imagined.

The main draw for me going to one of these events (beyond feeling that sweet tug of nostalgia for my newspapering days) is to see my professors and the few alumni from my era who still come to visit. It's pretty much the one time a year I see them, and it's always great to get reconnected.

This year, most people (other than a couple of my favorite professors and the alumni coordinator for the department) didn't know that I'd quit my job so I found myself over and over trying to explain what it is I do.

Of course most people in journalism understand freelance writing and editing (better than people in the outside world who may have never dealt with freelancers or stringers), but when it comes to the question of what I write about, things get a little tricky.

It doesn't help that most people outside the crafting world don't know about felting, and most all of the people I talked to had never heard of About.com, so I did a poor job of explaining how I fill my days other than saying "I'm really busy."

Dr. Watkins, brilliant woman that she is, touched on the big things that are a reality in my life: overwork and isolation. I don't feel the isolation all that much, because I feel like I'm connecting with people through my work (and I kind of like being a hermit), but overworking has been a major problem.

I'm happy to report, however, that I am doing a lot better so far this month. The one client I have who offers assignments I've been saying no to a lot lately, and another client I asked if I could take a little less work for a while, and those two things have helped a lot.

I feel like I have more time and space for the fun stuff, which since the About conference is working on that site. My traffic numbers have been in the basement the past couple of months, so I know that any work I can do will be helpful to my bottom line and probably make up for the little cut in work I've taken elsewhere.

Anyway, I think I might sort of finally be figuring this thing out. And that's very exciting. But I still don't know how to tell people what it is I do.

Another Place in Texas to Like

2008-04-09T11:40:00.002-05:00

If someone held a gun to my head and made me move to Texas (unlikely, but whatever) I think I would want to live in Austin. We just spent a few days there weekend before last for a lovely About.com conference and found it quite enjoyable.

It is, as advertised, a weird place. But in a very good way. It's full of funky shopping districts, great food options, friendly drivers (they have to be, there's just one interstate in the whole city and it runs smack through downtown) and wonderful music options.

Of course the people we were with were extra-awesome as well (Hello there, if any of you read my blog) and we hope to get to meet up with them again soon. But the city itself also charmed us, and it's really not bad at all for Texas.

We had a grand time shopping at IKEA, Fry's Electronics, a really fun comic book/role playing shop (and that's coming from me), a cool Japanese food emporium and, of course, the first ever Whole Foods, which almost made me weep with jealousy. There's too much wonderful about it to even explain.

I also had much fun and spent much money at Hill Country Weavers, a fabulous yarn and spinning supply shop in the SoCo district, while Nick wandered the street's other shops (more great little food stores than you can shake a stick at in this town).

And we actually ate some good food, too. Sixth Street's Roux had passably good Cajun (but oh, the whitefish was salty!) and most excellent cheesy grits. The About folks took us to Salt Lick, a huge barbecue joint out in the boonies, that was pretty darn good for 'cue. And we ate at a good but extremely pricey for the portion size sushi place I can't remember the name of. Plus the Flying Falafel, a little place near UT on Guadalupe, which had tasty Greek treats (also, for some reason, poboys).

Anyway, a good time was had by all. It's certainly on our list of places to go back to someday.

Longing for the Days of Nice New York Times Articles

2008-03-24T09:20:00.002-05:00

Fayetteville has managed to end up in the New York Times twice in the past month. The first time was a story about the woman who got locked in a holding cell at the county jail for four days, complete with the head of the ACLU in Little Rock saying there are problems with the way they treat Hispanics up there (I still think it was pure stupidity, not malice).

Today it's a heartwarming story about a boy who's constantly bullied by other kids and has been since he was 12, first at McNair, then at Woodland, and now at FHS. At least they do say we have "one of the country's better school systems," but in the same paragraph they bring up the beating of a gay student that happened a decade ago.

I know kids get beat up everywhere; it's just it's not usually fodder for the New York Times. I can totally see people in other parts of the country reading this story and saying, "Those rednecks in Arkansas are still beating up gay people." Even though he's not gay, but anyway, it just seems like another great way to stereotype people from Arkansas as being hateful, prejudiced and uneducated. They could have gone to any city in the country and done this story: why Arkansas?

Sure, I'm being defensive, but it's my city and there are far more good people here than there are stupid kids who think it's fun to beat someone up and record it on their cellphones, or stupid kids who grow up to work for the courthouse and forget people are in their cells.

Blast from the Past

2008-03-21T16:14:00.003-05:00

So, Carole King was on "The Colbert Report" the other day and I've been spending today listening to "Tapestry," which I love. This was house-cleaning music in my family growing up (because if "I Feel the Earth Move" doesn't get you moving, nothing will).

I'd sort of forgotten how much I loved Carole King, but she's great for a writer of pop songs. Sure, about half the songs on "Tapesty" make me cry now because I actually understand them, but it's a beautiful album and the other half make me smile (especially "Smackwater Jack," the funniest song ever written about a church shooting).

Anyway, I don't know what the point of that was, other than that I'm not getting a lot of work done feeling all sappy-Irish and crying over my keyboard. But really, if "A Natural Woman" doesn't tug on your heart, you don't have one.

That's what's going on in my life today.

No Work Today

2008-03-18T12:27:00.003-05:00

This is, apparently, the day of getting nothing done. I blame the rain. Rain makes me feel cold (even though it's clearly the same temperature in the house today as it was yesterday) and lazy.

I've been trying to work, and everything is just happening really slowly and my mind isn't in it and my heart isn't in it. It's one of those days I wish I weren't so freaking busy so I could just say, "You know, the work I produce today is just going to be junk, so I shouldn't even try."

I always dreamed I'd have that sort of opportunity working from home. It hasn't happened yet. And as I say every month, next month is going to be better. It has to be. I'm hurting myself (my right elbow's all numb as I type and it's barely after noon) and getting a bad attitude. That's no better than working outside of my house.

Plus, it's getting warm outside and there will need to be time for morning walks and weeding the garden and all that fun stuff.

So after I get through this big ugly project that I really hope will be done tomorrow, I'm swearing off big ugly projects and trying to keep my clients from giving me too much work. Because that's worked so well in the past...

29.5

2008-02-29T10:57:00.004-06:00

It's leap year day, which is actually the day of my half birthday. Exactly six months from now, I'll be 30.

Yikes.

I spent this morning doing a little writing about things I want to do between now and then, how I want my life to be on that late-August Friday morning when I wake up and the odometer has turned.

Really, there's not much I want to change. I still need to figure out how to balance working at home a little better, and learn how to say no to people who are offering me money when I don't really want their work.

I want to be more organized, of course, that's always on the list. And to read more, but maybe stop buying so many books until I start reading the ones I have. There are two stacks of books to read in my office right now: one is nine books high and the other is 15 books high. And that's not counting the library books I have out (four) the books I need to read for reviews this coming month (at least three) or the books in the shelves on my desk that I'd like to read soon (which at quick count is about 30).

And that's not counting the bookshelf behind my desk, or the one next to the closet, or the closet, which is basically a library, or the books next to my bed. Or the books I just bought last week. Or the magazines that seem to be everywhere, too. Sheesh.

I hope that by then Nick and I will have some things settled. We're waffling about moving again (yes in this crazy market where there are already three houses for sale on our street) or just building on to our current house. I hope by then we'll have made the decision and even maybe finished moving or constructing.

And we're talking about getting a dog. I really kind of do hope that happens, because I think it will force me to leave the house regularly during the day for walks (at least when the weather is nice) and it will probably also force me to keep less stuff on the floor in my office.

But really, life is good. And I know 30 is no big deal, but it still kind of feels like a big deal. I have six months to ensure that 30 is even better than 29 -- and 29 has been pretty darn good so far.

It Must Be Friday

2008-02-22T11:47:00.003-06:00

I am so completely unmotivated to work today. I had this great list of things I wanted to get done today, and a schedule of what I was going to do hour by hour, and then I got out of bed a little later than usual (cursed cats put some kind of sleeping spell on me) and had some things in my e-mail that I didn't anticipate and it threw my whole day off.

Now I just don't want to do anything.

I know this isn't just a problem for people who work at home, and I was a master at looking busy on days I didn't actually do anything at work in my day job days, but now that I'm the boss I just feel guilty when I don't feel like working.

I try to push myself through it as much as possible, but I'm really inefficient on days like this and wonder if I wouldn't be better off finding some trashy TV to watch and giving myself a pedicure.

It's kind of frustrating because the schedule thing had been working so well this week. I decided that instead of a to-do list I would do better if I just gave myself a hour (or more or less, depending on what needed to be done that day) for each client or project.

And it's worked really well, keeping me on task and feeling more efficient than when I just tried to get everything off my list. But the only problem is, apparently, if I start out off track I never really get back on.

I share this because a common thing I hear from people is that they don't think they're motivated enough to work from home or that they'd spend all day watching TV and eating chocolate ice cream.

The truth is, everyone has problems with motivation from time to time. When you work for yourself, you just have to find ways around them, no matter what it takes. Or take a mental health afternoon and break out the ice cream.

Valentine's Day Humor

2008-02-14T10:21:00.002-06:00

The great thing is, it's part of my job to find stuff like this.

Check out this story from This is London about a very fat cat (yes, fatter even than mine, about 28 pounds) who is now on a diet after getting stuck in his cat door.

The article itself is not so funny but the pictures may just make your day. Be sure you scroll all the way to the bottom and see the picture of the cat using the cat door -- for sure my kitties would get stuck, too. That's why we chose a dog-sized door instead.

Happy Thursday everyone!

Feeling Like a Good Citizen

2008-02-05T13:12:00.000-06:00

I've probably said this before, but I totally love voting. I would do it every day if they let us. There's something really cool about those occasional times when you actually get to feel like your voice matters, and this is one of those times (since the nominees haven't actually been decided yet for a change).

After voting I went to the library. I love the library and I know I've mentioned this before, too, but I love living in a place with a beautiful library, a place that at least pays lip service to the idea that education and knowledge are important and valuable things that should be available to all citizens.

So now I'm all full of civic pride and even a bit of national pride, which I don't feel often these days. I guess voting in the primary is a little bit of beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Happy Super Fat Tuesday everyone!

I Wrote a Book

2008-01-31T10:45:00.000-06:00

Last night when Nick and I got back from the gym there were a couple of packages at the door. One was for Nick, and one was for me, but I wasn't really expecting anything. That's nothing new, because I review books for several different websites and the newspaper so I'm always getting things I don't expect.

So I opened it up, thinking it was probably a new diet book, but it turned out it was MY book.

A nice shiny new copy of my brand new book. It was pretty strange to finally see it live, since I've only ever seen the pieces on my computer monitor.

I've got to say it doesn't look too bad. I really would have appreciated someone doing color correction on some of the photos, or at least having had a chance to see what the photos were going to look like, because some of them don't look as good as I'd hoped.

But it's done, and it's mine, and it's slowly getting out there in the world.

I sort of expected to get weepy when I saw it. Maybe I cried enough producing it that I didn't have any tears left. I did well up a little when Nick read the dedication and I thanked him for everything he did to make the book possible.

Now that it's done, I would never write a knitting book in four months again. That was insane. But now it's done. And I am still glad I did it. I'm all published and stuff. And that's still pretty cool.

Finally Updated the Website

2008-01-23T12:40:00.000-06:00

I have this website, SarahEWhite.com, that has just been sitting there for ages with the same old awful content on it. It was so bad that I think I only updated it once last year at all.

Well, all that has changed now, and I hope to keep up the good work of regularly updating it. The front page is now a sales page for my book (which will improve as soon as I learn more about how to write sales pages) and I've also updated the writing page to reflect current clients and projects.

I took out the sections on cooking and crafts that I never updated anyway. I still need to work on the clips so there's something there from the last three years, but I really need to do some other work today (it's 12:45 and I've crossed exactly nothing off my to-do list so far today).

But at least my website isn't totally lame anymore. Or if it is, don't tell me.

Want to be My Friend?

2008-01-21T15:24:00.000-06:00

I'm doing this sort of coaching program that's kicking my butt about getting a real business started rather than just doing writing for other people, and it has a Facebook group, so I now have a Facebook profile. If you're on Facebook and I haven't already seen you and asked you to be my friend, hook me up.

I don't know how much I'll use it, but it does look better than MySpace. Man, I'm old...

New Year, New Stuff

2008-01-02T12:08:00.000-06:00

Seems like everyone on the web today is writing about goals/resolutions for the new year. I like setting goals both now and in August (around my birthday) because that allows me to adjust if the goals I set at the beginning of the year have been met or if the situation has changed to the point where those old goals don't make sense anymore.

Let me say first that 2007 was a very good year in which I met two of my major life goals: to start freelancing full time and to write a book. This was the first time new year's felt a little bittersweet because I did have such a great year.

But there's always more to do, and much as I hate to say it, I'd like to write at least one more book this year. Probably more than one, since I'd like to do another knitting book and also some ebooks providing people with information on how to jump from having a full-time day job to working for yourself full-time--or as much time as you want.

These information products will be shorter, of course, and on such topics as finding your passion, making the transition to freelancing, finding jobs, developing multiple streams of income, etc. I don't expect I can write all of these in a year, but if I could get one or two up, and start my newsletter to promote them, that would be great.

This is also going to be the year I finally clean out my office. Since I basically swallowed up what used to be our guest room, there's a lot of stuff in here that doesn't belong, and just a lot of stuff I don't need, all of which needs to go. There will be much selling of used books on Amazon and a big trip to the Salvation Army in my future.

And I have the same goals everyone else has: eating more healthy foods (in particular I want to eat more organics this year), exercising more, trusting myself more, learning to say no with more consistency when I need to. Maybe those last couple aren't everyone, but they are so important.

Anyway, whatever your goals this year, I hope you complete them with ease and joy!

I Really am Still 14

2007-12-24T11:13:00.001-06:00

I was playing around with Stumble this morning (like I don't have anything better to do) and I came across this real age test.

I don't put a lot of stock in these things, but I thought it was pretty funny that it put my real age at 13.9 years. Which is about the age I would look if I took better care of my skin.

I didn't really enjoy being that age (I don't know anyone who did) but if I got to act like I was that age again from time to time that would be OK.

It also says I can plan to live another 60 years, which would get me to nearly 90. I'd be OK with that.

If anyone else tries out this test I'd love to hear your results!

I'm Mad at the FCC

2007-12-19T11:06:00.000-06:00

I know they don't care about my opinion, but I think the FCC stinks. As I say whenever there's a story on "Bill Moyers Journal" about media consolidation, it isn't very sexy, but it is important.

Despite overwhelming public content to the contrary, the FCC has gone and allowed newspapers to own television stations in the same cities as their newspapers. Because who needs to hear disparate voices? Isn't that what the Internet is for?

The whole idea was that the poor newspapers (with their profit margins most companies would love at around 18 percent) wouldn't be able to survive in an increasingly digital world if they weren't allowed to own TV stations, too.

If you care about this issue at all, check out this statement by commissioner Michael C. Copps, who says the decision would make Orwell proud and will make it even harder for female and minority voices to be heard. It says in part:

Today’s story is a majority decision unconnected to good policy and not even incidentally concerned with encouraging media to make our democracy stronger. We are not concerned with gathering valid data, conducting good research, or following the facts where they lead us.

Our motivations are less Olympian and our methodology far simpler—we generously ask big media to sit on Santa’s knee, tell us what it wants for Christmas, and then push through whatever of these wishes are politically and practically feasible. No test to see if anyone’s been naughty or nice. Just another big, shiny present for the favored few who already hold an FCC license—and a lump of coal for the rest of us. Happy holidays!

This decision has been shoved down the people's throats, with very limited time for public comment that wasn't listened to, anyway. Luckily Congress isn't too excited about the idea that little Mr. Sunshine Kevin Martin (the chairman of the FCC) wouldn't even delay the decision by a couple of days so Congress could look into it (and possibly delay it).

Worse yet, changes to the new policy were made up to the last minute, meaning no one had a chance to comment as the commissioners barely had a chance to read them before going to the vote.

I could go on and on about what a stupid idea this is, how awful the lack of consideration of the public's opinion is, how deluded Martin is to think that he and his Republican commission members can just push through this change over the objection of most citizens and a fair number of members of Congress, but I'll hush. If you're at all interested in keeping independent voices in the media and avoiding yet more consolidation in an already pretty darn consolidated field, check out the e-mail petition to Stop Big Media.

Done...and Done!

2007-12-17T16:22:00.000-06:00

I ended up being a couple of weeks late, but I finally finished my book. I just turned in what I think is the last piece, and it's going to the printer on Thursday.

Yes, this Thursday. As in, I'll have a book sometime next month.

This is the fastest book ever.

I knew that I thought when I first talked to the acquisitions editor about doing the book that she said it would be out in December, but I got myself convinced she meant December 2008, not 2007. But really they were going for 2007.

I don't think there's anywhere that can get four-color books printed and distributed in a week, so it's really going to be January. According to Amazon it will be out Jan. 29.

I should be a lot more excited that my book has an Amazon page, but really I'm just terrified. I thought I had another year for the reality of this book to sink in. It really is just going to be like a dream, like I fell into a coma for five months and at the end of it I had a book.

But as first books go, it's great to get it out of the way quick. I just wish I'd had time to learn more about marketing before now.

One More Week of Crazy

2007-12-02T21:41:00.000-06:00

Last Monday was supposed to be my final deadline for the book. With a sentence like that, it seems pretty apparent that I didn't make it. I'm now aiming for next Monday, the 10th, and while that will put the rest of the schedule in a rush, it is much better for my body.

I'm having a lot of numbness in my right hand and shooting pain into my elbows. Not all the time, but I can certainly tell when I've been knitting too long at a stretch. And I've still got a lot of knitting to go, but I'm feeling a lot better about where things stand.

At the same time, I'm looking very forward to being done just in time for the holidays. At the day job I got the week between Christmas and New Year's off, which obviously isn't happening anymore, but at least I might feel like I can be a little lazy (and maybe knit something for fun) then.

I just hope I can keep working hard enough to hit my new deadline but not so hard that I put myself out of commission, which I really thought I did Saturday night (too many hours of football and not enough breaks).

Be gentle with yourselves, everyone!

More Fun than a Bag of Vomit

2007-11-07T16:53:00.000-06:00

This blog post could also be called "The Best Laid Plans...and Stuff." Last week my sweetie Nick and I were on vacation. We were supposed to be going to the Cayman Islands, but then there was this tropical storm, and we didn't know where it was going, so we bailed (yeah for travel insurance).

We got up about 4 in the morning the day we were supposed to go and decided not to go, so then we were up and itching to get out of the house, so while Nick was canceling out stuff I got out a map of the U.S. and tried to find somewhere else to go.

We settled on South Padre Island, Texas, which was actually really beautiful, warm, sunny and had amazingly good food. We also slipped into Mexico for part of the day, which was not all that impressive. We may have been two of fewer than 10 white people in the whole marketplace. We were sitting ducks for all the vendors in the place.

In general, though, it was a wonderful, relaxing trip. Only problem being, something made us sick toward the end of the trip. Nick was feeling icky Friday. I had a little sore throat but it wasn't too bad.

By Saturday morning when we were getting ready to go to the airport, I was starting to feel a little dizzy. And by the time the plane took off, I was throwing up. Those little air sickness bags are actually pretty great!

It was an ugly, ugly day. Nick got sick the next day, but we're doing a lot better now.

In other news, I kind of finished my third deadline for the book before we left. I actually have one project I have to finish for the chapters I turned in (it will be done tomorrow) and one more chapter I'm hoping to finish early next week before I'll consider that deadline past.

My final deadline is the Monday after Thanksgiving. I have an absolutely insane amount of work left to do. If I thought about it, I'd probably collapse in a heap on the floor, but I have confidence.

I've cut way back on my other work (as much as is possible) this month, so I should actually have a fair bit of time for knitting. Which I will need and use. Speaking of which, I should get back to it for the few minutes I have before Nick gets home.

Bourdain Rules!

2007-10-22T08:56:00.000-05:00

I don't really have time to be posting, what with a deadline and a vacation coming at the end of the week, but I wanted to mention that we went to see Anthony Bourdain of Travel Channel fame at our local library on Friday.

The event was a fundraiser for an NEH challenge grant the library has picked up, which will hopefully give it a more stable source of funding than it might have otherwise, what with the sales tax shortfalls happening in our fair city.

I love Bourdain; he's the reason I started watching "Top Chef," and his blog posts at Bravo were a must-read.

There was a cocktail party featuring recipes from Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook (which I didn't sample because they were mostly meaty, but Nick reports the sardines were good), plus free beer and wine. The library folks were getting a little nervous looking about all the people with wine and greasy food so close to the books, but I think the collection came out OK.

Then there was his talk. Lots of stuff in a similar vein to what's in his books: making fun of Food Network celebrity chefs, encouraging people to eat the nasty bits, railing against vegetarians for being disrespectful.

The Q&A was funny and spirited, and the whole evening showed his passion for food, travel, and telling the rest of us about all the wonderful stuff that's out there.

Then there were cookies from La Maison de Tartes while he signed books, but since our number was somewhere in the 450s, we decided to go home.

I really loved seeing the library used for an event like this, even though they don't really have a space for a crowd that big. I'd be happy to give more money to the library if they could do more fun parties like that.

Bonus, we got a copy of A Cook's Tour, the book from the first series on Food Network, which I've only "read" in abridged audiobook form, so that will be a lot of fun to read. And it inspired me to try more local foods (which I was planning to do anyway) when on vacation next week. I'm glad we were already planning to travel before we went to see him, because I think I'd really be itching to move if we weren't.

Deadline Two

2007-09-25T15:38:00.000-05:00

I had my second book deadline today, which theoretically means that the book is halfway done, but really I just have all the hard stuff to do now.

If I keep eating chocolate at this pace I'm going to weigh 200 pounds before this thing is over.

Next month Nick and I are going on a much-deserved vacation, which means I only have about three weeks until my next deadline. Much writing and working lies ahead. I'm still really glad I decided to do this, even though the timing wasn't great and I still think it's going to get ugly before it gets done.

It's already getting pretty ugly in my office, which is full of piles of wool and sadly few finished projects. I hope to remedy that soon, though I'll probably just be swatching this week and will actually get to some projects next week. I love the creating part--I'm not liking having to take pictures of every step and process the photos and pull it all together.

I need a staff. Maybe for the next book.

Fayetteville: The New Green Giant

2007-09-07T16:12:00.000-05:00

A fun story in the Washington Post today says the new center of sustainability in the U.S. may well be Fayetteville, Arkansas.

We locals know that Fayetteville has been trying to project a green image for years now (that's why they only just now got around to having recycling available at the football games), but, apparently, it took Wal-Mart thinking it was a good idea for the city to really make its mark.

Now we're apparently attracting all sorts of green startups hoping to make a buck from Wal-Mart's vow to become more sustainable, and we've even got a nickname--Green Valley--to encourage people to think green when they think Fayetteville.

I for one have never heard of Fayetteville calling itself Green Valley, but whatever. And I don't exactly like the image that we're "rural" just because this guy chose to live in the middle of nowhere (in what I'm sure is a perfectly eco-friendly mansion on five-plus acres, right?), but if Fayetteville could truly become greener because of the influence of all these companies, that would be a good thing.

I hope it doesn't end up being a case of we have all these sustainable companies and we're still building unwalkable neighborhoods on the west side of town and not making it easy for people to choose more sustainable options. We'll see.

Icky Feet

2007-09-07T11:06:00.000-05:00

This blog has more posts about feet than you'd expect, but I've got a good one today. If you don't like bugs, or are squeamish, give this one a pass.

Nick and I went hiking on Monday. We picked the trail at Pea Ridge, a Civil War battlefield that's pretty close to home. The guide book we had made it sound like it was mostly paved and nicely mowed elsewhere.

In reality, there was a lot more walking through grass than we expected, including a half mile or so literally walking across the battlefield.

We sprayed our feet with bug spray before going out, but it wasn't enough because our feet were completely covered in seed ticks.

Nick got some of his off before we left the park, but most of mine stayed on until we got home. After much scrubbing and scratching, all evidence was gone, but not for long.

When I woke up the next day my feet were all red and bumpy. And itchy. I was OK if there was something to distract me, but trying to go to sleep led to much scratching and nastiness.

By the time I got up on Wednesday, it looked like a rash. You could no longer really distinguish individual bites, especially around my ankle where the top of my sock was. Benadryl and regular hydrocortizone were doing nothing for me.

So I went to the doctor, and they threw three different drugs at me. The itching is greatly reduced, though the bites are all scary red now. I've had a very unproductive week, because one of the drugs is supposed to calm the itchiness and induce drowsiness, but it doesn't make me sleepy until about four hours after I take it, and then I'm in a fog for about nine hours after that.

Let this be a lesson to us all: don't trust Tim Ernst (just kidding, his books are great!) and always, always, wear more bug spray than seems advisable. At least in the summer in the Ozarks.

29

2007-08-29T15:13:00.000-05:00

So, it's my birthday. 29 years old. I don't feel any particular difference. But several people have let me know that next year I'm turning 30, and apparently there's something important about that.

I always take resolutions more seriously around my birthday than around the New Year, and I guess this would be the year to get serious about things I want to do before I turn 30.

I always figured I'd be married and have kids by 30. I've got the first part, and that's plenty for now. Kids will come later, if they come, and there's no sense in trying to rush that.

I wanted to work from home by 30, and I've got that. I hoped I'd have a book published by 30. I have the book deal, but the book won't be out until I'm already 30. I can live with that.

I'd really, really like to go to Europe this year. We got our passports and they're giving me the travel itch in a big way. Not that there's time for a big vacation any time soon (but we're going to have to go sit on a beach before this book is over or I'm not going to make it).

What else? More exercise and better eating as usual. I want to read more books for fun instead of for money. I want to have time to knit things from other people's patterns (this one is not happening soon, I fear). I want more (or, heck, any) time to just be, without feeling like doing nothing is going to cost me later.

And I want to figure out a way to not freak out this time next year when I really am 30.

Deadline One

2007-08-28T12:00:00.000-05:00

Whew. Just made it through my first deadline for the felting book. I actually turned everything in a full day earlier than my original deadline, and two-thirds of it was in two days early.

So maybe now I can enjoy my birthday. What I really want is to sit on the couch the whole evening and not have anybody demanding anything. That would be nice.

This was not at all the hard part of the book, but at the end I got the feeling that I really could have planned better. I've already learned so much working on this project. Book number two is going to be a lot easier.

As for the rest of the freelancing life, it has been good. Pretty busy as well. I'm having the same trouble finding balance with the book and the rest of freelancing that I was having when I was trying to balance the day job and freelancing. But for the most part it's getting easier.

One month in and I've only had one "I'm too tired to do anything else" breakdown, which I actually consider a pretty good sign. There are no regrets at all, and there's no way at all I could have done this book if I still had the day job, so that's a bonus.

I think I'm going to take the afternoon off from thinking about the book. I've got a whole 28 days until my next deadline!

Gee, Was it Really that Bad?

2007-08-16T13:02:00.000-05:00

I went back to the office today for the first time since I quit. I'm still doing some freelancing for them and they had a project for me to pick up.

Almost everyone who I talked to made some comment about me looking more rested and happier (one person even said "glowing") than I was when I worked there.

Happier I can see. And I know I wasn't getting the kind of rest I needed when I was working all the time, but I hate to think I look so tired that everybody noticed it.

I myself have noticed it a little bit, too. The dark circles under my eyes are lightening for the first time in a long time. It's not that I'm not still busy, but at least a little bit of the pressure is off of having a full-time job and a full-time amount of freelance work, too.

On the book front, I've finished chapter one and the first part of chapter two. I'd really like to have all of the text for the first three chapters done tomorrow so that I can focus on pictures next week (of which there will be many). My deadline is Aug. 29--two weeks from yesterday.

Day Two

2007-08-02T15:29:00.000-05:00

It's my second day of free(lance)dom, and I'm tired. I've had this headache/neckache off and on for about three days. I blame my crappy office chair.

I'm managing to be relatively productive. Yesterday I made bread, which doesn't pay the pills but was still a lot of fun. The cats seem to like having me home, and Louis and I have spent all day fighting over the crappy chair.

I thought being home all the time would be a great relief, that I would feel like I had a lot less to do. And I do, to a certain extent, but at the same time, I have so much more to do.

This is what my dear journalism professor Gerald Jordan would call burying the lede. I call it checking to see if you're paying attention.

Yesterday I mailed off the contracts for my book. Yes, it's official: I'm writing a book. It's on felting (which you can learn about here) and it's due in November. The first installment is due on my birthday, a mere 27 days from now.

And I've written about 200 words and have less than one project done. Still, I'm oddly not worried. I'm really good with deadlines and will move heaven and earth if I have to in order to meet them. I hope that doesn't mean I'm going to try to write a third of a book in two weeks.

So, anyway, if it all works out I'll have a nice shiny book with my name on it approximately January 2009. Seems like a long time to wait for something when they're in such a hurry for the manuscript, I know. But I know as well as anyone that that's the way the publishing world works.

So if I disappear for weeks on end (from the blog or from real life) at least you'll know what's going on. I should get back to my knitting...

Funniest Harry Potter Video. Ever.

2007-07-19T10:25:00.000-05:00

OK, this got me laughing this morning, so I really had to share. It's a parody of Harry Potter and a parody of "Welcome Back, Kotter" all at once. Harry's older now and teaching the Sweathogs magic. It will definately bring you a smile if you, like me, aren't feeling much like working today (nine days left!).

In other Potter news, the New York Times reviewed the last book today, saying it was purchased at a shop in New York City. They're bound to get in trouble for selling it early, and I hear the publisher is pretty peeved that the paper reviewed it already.

But they actually did a pretty good job of not revealing much of anything.

J. K. Rowling’s monumental, spellbinding epic, 10 years in the making, is deeply rooted in traditional literature and Hollywood sagas — from the Greek myths to Dickens and Tolkien to “Star Wars.” And true to its roots, it ends not with modernist, “Soprano”-esque equivocation, but with good old-fashioned closure: a big-screen, heart-racing, bone-chilling confrontation and an epilogue that clearly lays out people’s fates. Getting to the finish line is not seamless — the last part of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the seventh and final book in the series, has some lumpy passages of exposition and a couple of clunky detours — but the overall conclusion and its determination of the main characters’ story lines possess a convincing inevitability that make some of the prepublication speculation seem curiously blinkered in retrospect.

It will be awhile before I actually get to read the book (or before I should, though I'll probably start reading it as soon as I get a copy), but I'm still pretty darn excited. If only I were capable of staying up until midnight, I might just go to a release party.

Living the Dream

2007-07-16T16:00:00.000-05:00

Now that I'm down to 11 working days before I'm done with my day job for good, I've started telling almost everyone I talk to or e-mail that I'm quitting my job.

People's comments have been universally supportive, but the comment I get most often runs something along the lines of "wow, I wish I could do that." By which they mean "I wish I had a job that allowed me to work from home."

I'm beginning to think that's a lot of people's dream. If we have to work at all, we might as well work from the place where we are happiest and most comfortable, right?

It's not an easy thing to create work that will allow you to work from home, but everyone I know who does it absolutely loves it and would never want to go back to working for someone else outside of the home.

I hope that I find it the same. I'm sure that I will. I have really high expectations for how much happier I'm going to be (and how much cleaner my house is going to be) and I'm sure every day won't be as great as I imagine.

But I'll have the freedom to say no to projects I don't want to do, to take time off when I need to, and to spend more time doing things I want to do (knitting, seeing my husband, hanging out with the cats) and not what I don't want to do (like, going to work every day).

I guess my point in all this is, sure, working from home isn't a cure all. But if so many people want to do it, and everyone who does it (successfully, which is the key) is so happy to do it, there must be something to it. I'm ready to go figure out what it is.

Declaring my Independence

2007-07-06T17:27:00.001-05:00

OK, I know it's been forever. I really am going to get better about that real soon, I promise.

There's a big reason I've been away from the blog, and a big reason I hope to be back soon. I've been so busy with all my regular work and all my freelance work that there's been virtually no time for anything else.

That's going to change because, as of July 31, I won't be working full-time for the Press anymore. Starting in August, I'll be freelancing full-time.

This is the culmination of a dream I've had since I had my first freelance article published back in December 2003. That first year, I made $50. In 2004, I made about $500. By 2006, I was making enough that I hoped I could quit by the end of this year, but then I got the About gig and have so much work and am so stressed out that there's no way I could keep doing it for the rest of the year.

So, I'm giving up. I'll still be freelancing for the Press as well as all the writing I'm already doing. I hope this will cause me a lot less stress, but also make me a decent living.

It's very exciting, but also kind of scary to be going it alone. I know that I'm possibly in the best position available for going to freelancing because I have a lot of work and the potential to make more money with most of the clients I already have.

I've probably been more cautious about making this move than a lot of people are, which hopefully means I'll be more successful than a lot of freelancers are. I'm still going to be busy, of course, but I hope this will take some of the pressure off, allow me to be more creative and do a better job for my clients, and maybe occasionally even clean my house.

Finally Official

2007-05-04T16:13:00.000-05:00

The process of getting to take over a site at About.com is lengthy. First you have to apply, which involves sending in some information about yourself, why you want that particular page, your experience and a writing sample.

Then you have a month where you build a sample site, starting with the basic organizational structure and eventually ending up with at least five pieces of content in each category. I did this back in October and passed.

When you get to that point, your site finally goes live so the whole world can see it. But then there's a thing called the three-month review, which gives About one more chance to get rid of you if things aren't working out.

By days, my review should have happened on or around February 14. It happened Tuesday. May 1. The current crop of new guides laughingly calls it the three-month review. But things really are improving right now.

Anyway, so, I passed. About is stuck with me. And I'm thrilled, really I am. It's just my wrists are killing me and I'd really like to knit a baby blanket to send to Afghanistan this weekend and maybe chart the Virginia Tech logo since I just wrote the other day about making patchwork squares for memorial blankets the local yarn store is making for each of the victims' families. (Knitters really are the greatest.)

And I'm wondering how I'm going to do that, plus the work I have to do for other clients, and not have my arm fall off. One of these days I'm actually going to learn how to pace myself so I'll be physically able to knit when I need to. Really I am.

Stop, Rupert, Stop!

2007-05-02T10:05:00.000-05:00

It's in the news today the Rupert Murdock put in a bid to buy Dow Jones, the company that publishes The Wall Street Journal. Never mind that it's not for sale. Never mind that the same family has owned it for more than 100 and has no intention of giving it up. Nope, Rupert wants it.

That's really scary to me, and not just because Murdock also owns Fox News. It's because he also owns Fox and 20th Century Fox, some cable and satellite stations and businesses, a bunch of newspapers, MySpace, and so on.

Media conglomeration is nothing new, but that doesn't make it any less worrisome. And I won't say that family-owned newspapers are always better than giant-corporation-owned papers (because I once worked for one that was pretty darn bad), but the Journal does have a reputation for excellence that one fears would be tarnished by Murdock, who clearly would be setting up the paper as a counterpoint to the New York Times.

When Murdock took over the Times of London, he broke promises about keeping long-time staff members and giving the paper editorial independence. There's also word that he would be integrating the paper into his new Fox business channel, which sounds like there would be some kind of agenda-pushing going on at the Journal as well.

It will certainly be interesting to see what happens, but were this to go through, I'd be worried.

Must-See TV

2007-04-27T13:17:00.000-05:00

I finally got around to watching the Bill Moyer's special "Buying the War" (which you can watch online at PBS). I think it's really important for journalism people to watch this, as well as anyone who is interested in how we got into the mess we're in.

When I look back on it, I really think the war had something to do with why I wanted to get out of journalism. I couldn't see anyone who was standing up and saying no, or even anyone who was standing up and saying "couldn't we think about this a little bit?" I didn't see any integrity, any of that skeptical nature I was told in J-school was so vital to being a good reporter.

But I worked for a paper that ran Judith Miller stories. I didn't even know Knight-Ridder was reporting the truth all along, it's just that no one heard it because K-R didn't have a newspaper in New York or Washington. Two reporters there were raising all the questions and red flags that no one else in the press corps was willing to do.

This documentary points out some major things that are wrong with American media today. Many reporters are way too eager to regurgitate "news" because someone from the administration said it. They trusted things that anyone who was an expert in the Middle East would have known (and did know) weren't true.

Stuff like this show really makes me angry, because I thought that journalists were better than that. I know there's corruption and sloppiness everywhere, but I had this idea that, on the whole, journalists really were in the business because they wanted to make the world a better place, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, and above all to question everything, to seek the truth at all costs, and to fight for that truth regardless of political affiliation or what's popular.

That's really what I believed when I got into the business. And it disappointed me at every turn. I guess that wasn't too much of a surprise, especially working at a smallish paper with a tight budget that wasn't that interested in investigative reporting, or even going beyond the council meeting to get the stories that really affected people's lives.

I still want to believe that journalism can be better than this. They sure aren't ever getting me back if it can't.

Save the Book Review!

2007-04-26T11:15:00.000-05:00

One of the ways I make money (and one of the reasons for the name of this blog) is reviewing books, for my local statewide newspaper, a national review publication and other places here and there.

It's no surprise that newspapers are giving books less coverage, and less local coverage. When I first lobbied for a chance to review books for the Democrat-Gazette, I was told that the budget was the biggest problem. Newspapers don't mind running wire reviews, because they're already paid for. Freelancers cost money, and newspapers don't like to spend money.

Still, it's distressing to see newspapers so dramatically cutting down or even eliminating coverage of books. Art Winslow recently wrote about the elimination of the book section at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, as well as changes through the years that have led to incredibly shrinking sections.

I really believe that book sections are important, and not just because I write for one. It's good to have a discourse on books; it's a sign of intelligence when ideas are discussed. Yes, this is done online by a ton of blogs, and there are many good publications devoted to reviews exclusively, but these sorts of venues are by their very nature exclusive.

With book blogs, first you have to find a blog that reviews books you like. Then you have to subscribe to the feed or remember to check for new reviews. People in the industry read book review publications, but many can't afford them (even I balk at $240 a year for Publishers Weekly, and I could write it off) or simply aren't that interested to go find a publication that suits them.

That's why newspaper book review sections are great. They get books in front of people who buy the paper for other reasons. If the sections are attractive and review interesting books, people will read them. There are many who are fans of their local review section who would never buy a review publication or subscribe to a book blog.

Coming to reviews from the point of view of a publisher as well, I know that reviews sell books better than ads do. I know it anecdotally from how I and others around me buy books, and I know it from how the marketing people are much more excited to get a high-profile review than to place a high-profile ad (not just because a review is free).

For publishers, especially small publishers, the limited and dwindling space for book reviews is a real problem. If there's no local newspaper that reviews books, it's unlikely you'll get reviews for many regional-interest books in publications elsewhere. That means good books go unnoticed, and the financial crush at small publishing houses continues to get worse.

The point of all this is that the community needs to support its local book section, just as it would support its local independent bookstore. Read it, for one, but if you like something you see, write a letter to the editor, thanking him or her for publishing insightful reviews and educating the public on good (and bad) books. And check out the campaign to save book reviewing (there's a button in the margin) for more information.

One hopes the book review section can survive, but today it is certainly feeling like an endangered species.

The Death of Newspapers

2007-04-24T16:28:00.000-05:00

So, I started this post weeks ago and never got around to finishing it, but I'll give it a go this time.

As alluded to in an earlier post, I recently attended the annual Roy Reed lecture (for non-Arkies and non-journos, Roy Reed was an amazing journalist who wrote for the New York Times during the civil rights era, used to teach at the University of Arkansas, wrote Faubus and is hard at work on a book about the Arkansas Gazette, which was the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi until it got sucked up by the Democrat), and though I wondered why Roy Reed never gives the Roy Reed lecture, it was still a good time.

The speaker hailed from the Kansas City Star and is in charge of their paid-membership political blog. He talked all about how newspapers are about to change dramatically to a much more digital format and that we'd better all get ready. He said we're "one or two killer aps away" from losing the paper newspaper entirely and getting instead some kind of digital paper that includes video, audio, still photos, blogs and more that will be delivered to us for a fee.

He also said that newspapers won't need copy editors any more because reporters will be posting stories instantly, as they write them, and constantly updating them to reflect new information.

Which makes me think, first, I'm glad I got out of newspapers when I did. Second, that he's crazy. Unless people stop caring that sentences are properly constructed and actually make sense (oh, wait...), editors are going to remain absolutely necessary.

Trust me. I've been an editor. The vast majority of reporters at the vast majority of newspapers can't write. At least not to the standards that a newspaper of record (even a digital one) should want to keep.

I don't know what's going to happen. I sure hope the paper newspaper doesn't go away completely, at least not yet. I like the term "inky wretches" way too much, and "digital wretches" just doesn't sound as good.

Yet Another Way the Catholic Church Failed Me

2007-04-19T16:09:00.000-05:00

How is it that I spent, what, 16 years trying to be Catholic, and I never knew there was a patron saint of procrastinators? Cleverly enough, his name is Saint Expeditus, and today, April 19, is his saint day.

Expeditus should be prayed to when you need to eliminate procrastination or at the beginning of a big project. He's also considered the patron of emergencies and quick solutions (and, according to the above-linked website, financial success and computer programmers).

Sure, many "experts" don't think Expeditus really existed. One theory says some remains were sent to a catacomb in Paris with the instruction "spedito" written on the outside (meaning hurry it up) and the nuns may have taken that to be the person's name instead, but that story is probably bunk as well.

Still, like Mulder, I want to believe. If praying could help me get rid of my procrastination, I'd have icons all over the place!

Pulitzer Day

2007-04-17T11:13:00.000-05:00

I have another post in draft that I've been meaning to finish all week, but I wanted to say how happy and excited I am that the book The Race Beat: The Press, The Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation won the Pulitzer for History. (You can see more about the book here.)

One of the co-authors, Hank Klibanoff, visited campus last year to deliver the Roy Reed Lecture (which was what that other post was going to be about, only for this year) and talk about the subject of the book. The talk was lively, educational and really made me want to read the book (I still haven't, but it's moved to the top of the list again).

Gene Roberts, the other author, is a friend of Arkansas and the Press. We've published two books he co-wrote on the ills of corporate newspapering. My mentor and good friend in the journalism department, Gerald Jordan, worked with Roberts at the Philadephia Inquirer, where Roberts served as executive editor and brought 17 Pulitzers to the paper.

This is a book that really needed to be written. I know, I haven't read it yet, but I know that this is an important story. The civil rights movement would not have happened the way it did without the media. We're going to start losing these guys soon, and current and future generations of reporters need to learn from these brave men (mostly men, anyway) who unflinchingly told the stories that needed to be told. I don't think there are many reporters of this kind left. (They probably have blogs instead of working for the New York Times.)

So Busy it Hurts

2007-04-11T14:42:00.000-05:00

I don't know why I'm writing to say I'm in pain from using the keyboard too much, but I am. I've been working on an ebook for a client and I really want to have it done so I can edit it tonight and send it in the morning. I worked on it for hours last night after having been on the computer most of the day at work.

By the time I was getting ready for bed, it hurt to grip a glass. It's not much better now, and I'm in pain from my elbow to my fingertips. I don't think this is what all those people meant when they talked about suffering for your art!

An Exciting (?) Story About My Feet

2007-04-03T16:18:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I know I just said yesterday that I didn't have anything to say and that I don't want to write about my very unexciting life, but this I feel like sharing.

I have curly toes. The fourth and fifth ones on both feet. I guess officially they're hammer toes. They've been that way so long I don't remember when they got that way, though I do remember that I really liked my feet in high school so they must not have been that way then.

Mostly, my freakish toes don't bother me, but when we go on walking vacations (like our recent one to Vegas, or our less recent one to Chicago) I get blisters. Big, nasty blisters on the bottoms of my fourth toes, and sometimes my fifth toes, too. And then if a big walking vacation is followed by, say, a hike around Lake Fayetteville, said blisters don't seem to want to go away.

So I finally decided to see a podiatrist. I had read a little online about hammer toes, and was given the impression that it was mostly a muscular problem and little inserts in your shoes or pads on your toes could "solve" the problem.

Not so, at least from the point of view of the doctor I visited. He says I have genetically low arches and am a pronator, and that's what's making me dig in my toes when I walk, which is what caused the curling. He gave me little pads to hook onto my toes that are supposed to keep my toes somewhat straighter and keep me from digging in with them, and to prevent the blisters. I don't know if they do that, but they do keep me conscious of my toes pretty much all the time.

He said I could get custom foot pads made to wear in my shoes, but I'd have to wear them for the rest of my life because the curling is caused by the structure of my foot. He really wants to do surgery.

Not just any surgery; surgery that involves knocking me out and removing some of the bone from each of those toes. Don't ask me how that is supposed to help. If I did it, it would be two surgeries (one for each foot) with a recovery time of about six weeks each and two weeks that I shouldn't be using the foot each time.

At this point, I'm completely unwilling to give up three months of my life for something that I'm not really sure the purpose of or if it will really help. There will be a second opinion at some point, and maybe foot surgery at some point. If I ever convince myself it really is a necessity and not something I want to do just because I don't like my curly toes.

Is Blogging Dead?

2007-04-02T12:16:00.000-05:00

It seems like a lot of people I know who had been blogging have either stopped or slowed way down. Admittedly some of those people have much better things to do, like parenting newborns, than blogging, but I wonder if we've just gotten over the blogging trend.

I never really wanted to have a blog that was just about what's going on in my life. My original intention had been to have a blog about books and book reviewing, and ultimately to write a book about reviewing and sell it from my website. Of course that hasn't happened yet.

And then I got into writing about me, and my life just isn't all that exciting, so there haven't been a lot of posts.

Now I'd really love to start a blog (and a newsletter with ebooks and other goodies for sale) for people who are new to freelancing and those who want to transition from working full time in a non-writing career to being a full-time freelance writer. If only I could make that transition myself...

I'm not saying I'm going to completely abandon this blog (yet, anyway) but I think I've got more interesting things to say than it's springtime and it's beautiful and all I do is read and write and knit. We'll see where it all ends up.

A Brush with Fame

2007-03-18T18:28:00.000-05:00

I meant to mention in my last post that when we were flying from LAX to Vegas at the beginning of our trip, there was this guy on the plane that I knew I knew from somewhere. I was sitting there thinking, "that's someone famous, I just can't remember who it is."

When we got off the plane and he showed up at the luggage claim and it suddenly came to me. It was Peter Bogdonavich. Don't know what he was doing in Vegas, and we didn't see any other famous people there, but it was pretty cool.

Viva Las Vegas, or Something

2007-03-15T14:45:00.000-05:00

I know I only post when I have a travel story, but there's really nothing else going on in my life but reading, writing and knitting. This past weekend I went with Nick to Las Vegas, where he was attending a conference. Those of you who read my geekier half's even more sporadic blog know that he didn't much like Vegas the last time he visited, so I had really low expectations. And they were exceeded. By a lot.

First off, it was 80-plus degrees and sunny the whole time we were there. Absolutely beautiful. How could you hate a place that's all blooming and bright? (Well, it is the desert, and if you think too long about the waste involved in keeping all those flowers alive you'll go crazy.)

Second, they seem to have cracked down on the smoking thing. A little bit. You can still smoke in casinos, of course, but it's theoretically illegal to smoke in lobbies and corridors (people were still doing it, though). Every restaurant we went to was smoke free, as well as the concert venue.

Ah, yes, the concert. Everyone always asks "did you see a show?" when you go to Vegas. We didn't see a show; we saw a real-life concert. Eric Clapton and Robert Cray. It was phenomenally good. We were basically in back-row center, but the MGM Grand Garden Arena or whatever its called only seats about 5,000, so they weren't really that bad of seats. And the music was great, if mostly songs I didn't recognize (this is a very old-school blues tour, which was fine by us).

We stayed at Caesar's Palace, which was ridiculously opulent as only things in Vegas can be. Half-nekkid statues everywhere, multiple swimming pools, this huge shopping center attached with Prada next to Ferragamo next to Kate Spade, talking statues that shoot fire, the whole bit. Caesar's has very comfy beds.

Saturday was travel day and with delays all over the place we barely made it to the concert on time, but it was worth it. Sunday was spent wandering around casinos and hotels, checking out the strange stuff like the faux botanical garden in the Bellagio, the faux neighborhoods (with manhole covers that spew smoke when the "subway" goes by) at New York-New York and the baby lions at MGM Grand.

We also went to the Star Trek Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton, which was kind of cool. They may have the best gift shop ever for just really clever, funny Star Trek gift ideas. In case you're wondering, Romulan Ale is root beer and Klingon Blood Wine is a merlot.

Monday Nick had his conference so I spent the day shopping (which I'm sure is a funny image for anyone who knows me). Met Nick for lunch at the Venetian and had the best mushroom risotto known to man. Then I got a pedicure, did a little more shopping, and we were back to New York-New York for dinner with Nick's colleagues.

I left Tuesday morning and had a very yucky travel day indeed (though nothing compared to Jacksonville). It was storming in Dallas so we had to circle Wichita for 45 minutes before they would let us land. Then every flight in Dallas was delayed. Our plane was coming in from North Carolina and almost ran out of fuel as it was circling, so it got diverted to Longview and had to wait to be refueled before it could fly to Dallas and pick us up. So I ended up getting home three hours later than I'd hoped, and still haven't quite made up for not knowing what time zone I'm in. But it was a good trip.

I think the way to make Vegas fun is to go with someone you love and completely suspend reality. If you don't think too much about where you are and how crazy it is, you can actually start to enjoy yourself. And, oh, don't stay at the Venetian.

Freezing Florida

2007-02-19T15:37:00.000-06:00

I spent the weekend at a conference for southern university presses in Jacksonville, Florida. Getting there was an adventure, and being there was pretty unreal, too.

First off, I was traveling with the three other ladies of the press. Melissa was on a later flight than the other three of us, which turned out to be good for her. Our flight was cancelled because of maintenance issues. Because the Daytona 500 was this weekend, there was no way to get to Jacksonville on a later flight.

We considered not going at all. We thought about flying to Atlanta and driving the rest of the way (but not for very long). We wrangled with the Delta ticket agents, saying there has to be some way we can get to Jacksonville today.

They finally said, "Well, you could fly in to Brunswick, Georgia and get a car. It's only about an hour drive." Cool, we think. Until we find out there's not a rental car to be had in Brunswick, Georgia, again, we assume, because of Daytona.

Then Mr. Smiley (yeah, that's his real name) came to our rescue and said there was a shuttle service that would be happy to take us to Jacksonville. Really? They know we're coming and that we want to go to Jacksonville? Yes, Smiley says, it's no problem at all.

Let's do it, we say. He goes through this whole thing about how he gave us vouchers for food and the shuttle since our flight was cancelled and everything sounds great until he gets to me and he says technically I don't have a ticket for the flight to Brunswick, but I've got this thing that looks like a boarding pass and says "ticket request" on it. He assures me it's no problem, that there are seats on the plane but they can't release them until four hours before the flight.

Since we're getting to Atlanta almost five hours before our flight, that sounds fine and off we go through security. All told we spent about four hours at XNA, too. We get to Atlanta and find the gate. It's a little more than four hours ahead, but I go ahead and ask if I can get a ticket. The woman says she won't open the flight until about 7, which is more like an hour before the flight.

So that's when I start freaking out. We sit around being nervous for a couple of hours and then go back to the gate. By this time the flight has moved to another gate. I go there and get in line around a bunch of angry people trying to get to Tupelo, whose flight had been delayed multiple times. About the time I got there, the plane they were supposed to already be on had just left White Plains, New York.

Anyway, when I get to the desk the lady tells me I'm on standby and there probably aren't any seats. Which is when I really start freaking out, thinking about sleeping in the airport until the next flight back to Arkansas. But about this time Julie shows up, God bless her, and she won't take standby for an answer. We talk to a different person and she says, no, you've got a ticket, and prints me my boarding pass. So at least I got to stop freaking out half an hour or so before everything would have worked out just fine anyway.

Then we are in Brunswick. It's about 10 p.m. and the place is shutting down for the night. We go to the baggage claim and Charlie spots our transportation. We say to the guy "We're going to Jacksonville" and he laughs at us. "That's a problem," he says. He gets on his cell phone for a minute, then says something about having to pick up the pilots and runs out the door, swearing he'll be right back.

We begin to wonder how much fun we'll have sleeping in an abandoned airport when the guy finally comes back with another driver. He's none too thrilled to be with us. We have to stop for gas and call for directions, but soon enough we're on our way. We finally get to the hotel just before midnight and are tempted to kiss the ground.

Florida this weekend was cold. Not as cold as Arkansas has been, but way colder than you'd expect, even in February. The conference was wonderful, but I won't bore you with the book nerd details. The rest of the story has to do with the amazingly generous vendors we work with, who took about 18 of us out for a great dinner at some place I can't remember the name of (with a restroom attendant in the ladies' who called everyone "love" or "darling") and a smaller group out drinking and dancing.

We became a bit of a legend in the conference for going to Club Paris and staying out til 3 (not true) in the VIP room (that part was true). It was incredibly fun, and we all bonded, which was great.

Unfortunately we had to leave pretty early on Sunday so all we had time for was some hugs and exchanges of business cards. I don't think you can build a friendship over one night in Jacksonville, but I really would love to stay in touch with some of these people. It almost makes me want to keep working at the press so I can keep going to conferences. Almost.

Sick House

2007-02-10T21:40:00.000-06:00

Nick and I have both been sick most of this week. It started with me on Monday night. I had some pretty awful gastrointestinal stuff happening all night long, and was pretty worried by morning, so Nick, who wasn't sick at the time, offered to take me to the doctor.

Doctor put me on Cipro (yeah, the stuff you take if you've been exposed to anthrax) and some meds to stop throwing up (thank goodness!) and Nick went to get said meds, Gatorade and other stuff, and went off to work.

Where he promptly got sick a couple of hours later. And so we have been ever since. I went to work almost half the day Thursday and got work to work on at home when I was awake. I've since made it both Friday and today without a nap, which I consider major progress.

Nick, who doesn't have a doctor and probably wouldn't have gone even if he did, went to work yesterday, but it was probably a bad idea. We spent most of today on the couch, watching bad TV and groaning, and swearing at the cats when they try to get on one of our stomachs.

I'm knitting something really mindless, though, so I can do that even when I can do nothing else. So that's something. We hope to be back to real life next week, and may be celebrating Valentine's Day by simply eating a real meal. Fun times.

My Job is Fun

2007-01-31T22:31:00.000-06:00

OK, maybe not so much my actual job lately, but it came to me over the weekend, as it does from time to time, how much I really enjoy the variety of things I get paid to write about.

I spent most of Sunday working, and I ended up writing about subjects such as lesbian chat rooms, inflammation-free diets, felting knitting and making money with a blog.

Since then I've written about sex education, how mothproof wool is made, Cleopatra costumes, uses of some obscure (to me, anyway) essential oils and more. Tomorrow I'm writing a couple of book reviews and a pattern for some super-cute Valentine's wrist warmers.

And I get paid for all of it. Life is good. Busy, but good. There's always something new to learn, to try, and to write about. I don't know how it gets any better than that.

Knitting Up a Storm

2007-01-21T20:53:00.000-06:00

It seems like all I do with what few spare moments I have is knitting. I'm not complaining at all, it just seems like my fingers have been wrapped around the needles an awful lot in the past few days.

I did just knit a scarf in 24 hours. But it was for a good cause. It's got me thinking I'd like to do a charity project every month and pick a different charity to spotlight on my page. Knitters are incredibly generous people, so this seems like a wonderful way to bring knitters together to do some small good in the world.

Other than knitting, I've also been doing a lot of reading. Would you believe about organization and time management? It's a huge weakness of mine, though I do seem to get everything that needs to be done finished just in time. I really need to get control of the paper floating around my world. I'm actually afraid to call an accountant because my bookkeeping system is so awful!

Anyway, that's pretty much me this week. Waiting for Nick to get off the phone so we can watch "Battlestar Galactica." I'm totally bummed it's not on Fridays anymore. Having everyone over to watch was a highlight of our week.

Ouch!

2007-01-10T16:21:00.000-06:00

I have a few minutes before I leave work, so I thought I'd drop a note. I realize I don't talk much about my day job work. That's mostly because you never know who reads a blog.

Most of the time I really like my work. This week, not so much. We're in the midst of a big project and a horrible deadline is looming, and things have gone poorly, and we're not at all happy about it.

Which brings me to the title of this post. I'm way overworking my arms. Because I didn't appropriately plan for this, I also have a big bunch of freelance stuff I need to get done while this is going on. So while I'm doing huge repetitive motions all day at work, then I have to go home and write. Not good. And I forgot my wrist brace today, so I should really stop typing right now.

On the plus side, though, I've had a really productive day! (And will have to continue to, since I'm on deadline.) When this is over, I'm going to take a whole day and not touch the computer. Honest. At least I'm getting rewarded for all my hard work with a work-related trip to Florida next month!

New Year, New Post

2007-01-05T10:20:00.000-06:00

One of my resolutions this year is to try to post to the blog at least once a week. We'll see how it goes.

It's been a very good year so far, busy at work and at home. I have lots of big ideas for the knitting site, and am wondering how many things I can accomplish before my final site review in a little over a month (that review makes me officially a member of the About family). I just want the site to be incredibly useful, but with not being able to work on it all day long, I have to prioritize.

Speaking of which, about this time last year I was saying I wanted to quit my job by now, and I haven't done it. It's hard to say goodbye to easy money, and things got really busy here and I would have felt like the world's worst person leaving in the middle of it. So now I've set my sights on the end of 2007, though it will depend on how work and freelancing go between now and then.

The freelancing seems to be getting a little less crazy as I focus on two or three main clients. The income will be steady as long as I work steady for the foreseeable future. Another long-term job I'd had for over a year has ended, since they've decided they don't need writers any more. It was a lot of fun, but it's fine to not have swirling around in my brain any more.

Still reading, of course. I'm working on a review for the Democrat-Gazette and am always reviewing knitting books for About. And I have a stack of books for CalorieLab, too. So that part never slows down.

I sometimes wonder how it will feel to freelance full-time. Will I be as busy as ever, finding that the work expands to fill the time? Or will I find myself with tons of free time (for knitting!) when I only have one job? It'll probably be closer to the first one, knowing me. I do, after all, work for a company with "workaholics" in the title.

Good Weekend, Good News

2006-12-20T22:01:00.000-06:00

Nick and I had a wonderful weekend in Little Rock visiting old friends we don't get to see nearly often enough. They shared with us the happy news that they'll be adopting a little boy from Vietnam much earlier than was thought possible. And another set of dear friends welcomed their new baby boy into the world this week. Once again, babies are everywhere!

Except here, again. I'm way too busy for that. :)

I expected to be taking it a little easy this month, because I'm new at About and wanted to be able to focus on it. Then all of a sudden I said yes to a couple of new jobs and I'm swamped again. At least now I'm only saying yes to things I think I'll enjoy.

I just finished a huge roundup of wedding books for BookPage and a review for the Democrat-Gazette. I'm thinking about a review for CalorieLab, and I have a review for another client due next week. So lots of reading in addition to lots of knitting.

Now I have a baby blanket with approximately 50 million thread ends that need to be woven in, pronto! I'm sure it will be worth it to keep the little guy warm.

Happy holidays one and all!

One Door Opens...

2006-11-29T11:23:00.000-06:00

and another one closes. That's the more sarcastic corollary to an adage we've all heard a million times. But just because it's sarcastic doesn't make it any less true. The very thing happened to me this week.

You know by now that I've taken over as the Guide at About for Knitting. I think that it will be a really great opportunity, though it has been somewhat of a bumpy start (mostly because the entire old site was deleted and a bunch of people complained about missing old content). I'm starting to see my articles on Google, and in decent places on the search results list, so that's a good thing.

But in the meantime I'm going to have to say goodbye to my other crafts website. I call it mine because it was my idea, I talked Howard into it, and I've written more than 200 articles for it in the past year and a half or so. It's been my baby. I've seen it flourish into a pretty popular site. I will hate to give it up. But I can't convince the higher-ups that I would ensure there was no conflict working on two craft sites at once, so we're breaking up. I'll still work for some of their other sites, but after this month I'm done with crafts.

It's sad, but at the same time I'm kind of bittersweetly happy about it. I first started writing crafts articles for them in August of 2005. Like I said, it's probably a little more than 200 articles. They're all written to keywords that people are searching for, which makes sense, but it felt to me like we were starting to run out of good keywords, or at least keywords related to crafts I knew anything about.

Keywords, of course, are important at About, too, but with what feels like a narrower and a broader topic at the same time, there's plenty of room to play. And it has been a lot of fun. I'm getting to explore things about this craft that I've never really thought about before, and I'm being forced to design things, so that's great, too. I just got a big box of yarn the other day that I can't wait to rip into. I think there are three or four more projects in there, from felted coasters to a giant scarf (I'm planning to knit it on size 50 needles, which I've never used before) to a color-block pillow in a faux-suede yarn. I can't wait. I wish I were making enough money from it to quit my day job so I'd have more time to knit!

Woo-hoo!

2006-11-17T17:33:00.000-06:00

I know I said I was coming right back with a big announcement, and that was, like, ages ago. But it's taken this long for me to have something to show you.

I am thrilled to announce that I am the new Knitting Guide for About.com. I'm guessing most of you know About, but if anyone doesn't, it's a place where experts on various topics write articles, mostly geared toward beginners, ranging from ergonomics (you can bet I've been visiting that one a lot lately) to travel destinations, mutual funds to, well, knitting.

There had been a knitting site before, but I'm rebuilding it from scratch, so there's not a huge amount to see right now. It's very beginner-oriented, so if you've ever wanted to learn to knit, it can help you.

For those of you who are knitters already, I'm completely open to comments, complaints, suggestions of articles, pattern submissions (with credit, of course!) or whatever else. I hope you'll find it useful and visit often. There's also going to be a newsletter, I guess starting next week. I know nothing about how that works yet, so I guess I'd better get started.

So, that's my big news. That's what's been occupying every free moment for the last month, and will continue to keep me very busy, especially in the next three months as I really work to build up content (and traffic--remember what I said about visiting often?)

I'm really proud of what's there so far. It's been a lot of work, but also a ton of fun. And now I really get to call myself a knitwear designer, because I'm coming up with patterns and knitting like mad to post original patterns out there.

Anyway, woo-hoo for me. I'm officially an expert. It feels pretty cool.

No Time Left for You

2006-11-02T16:15:00.000-06:00

I'm been thinking about posting about how I'm too busy to post all week, and I've just now gotten some time to do it.

And that's pretty much all there is to say. I'm really, really busy, both at work and with my freelancing stuff. It's November, and there's pretty much no way I'm going to get to do NaNoWriMo this year. There's just too much to do.

And if I do magically end up with more time, I'll need/want to spend it knitting or reading. Both are good pursuits for fall days. And I've got a bunch of reading for reviews piling up, and they'll be a reason for more knitting, which I'll fill you in on as soon as it's official.

Even without all that, I'm busy. I'm still the main writer for the Crafts site at LovetoKnow and am now the editor and sometime writer for two other sites there. I retired from blogging for money but am still writing for Jenna Ryan, my cyber pal in Texas. And there are book reviews! Blessedly lots. Maybe too many.

Anyway, it makes a girl tired. And in pain. I've had this low-grade pain in my wrist and hand all week. And I'm thinking, I really need to slow down. But how I can? Things have got to get done.

Maybe it's time to pull a Wes and just up and quit my job. Except things are crazy-busy at work, too, so I'd feel bad (though I have been announcing "I quit!" every day, just so people get used to the sound).

Is it nap time yet?

So if I'm a little in and out, or a lot out, I apologize. Like I said, I should have some news soon, so I'll be right back. Maybe.

Reunion Review

2006-10-13T16:11:00.000-05:00

I guess I should write a little bit about how the Traveler reunion went. Since I'm sitting here at work at 4:05 PM on Friday with no will to do anything else, I'll give you an update.

The reunion was really, really great. I can't tell you how surprised I was at the kind of fun I had. It was wonderful to see Steve, the paper's advisor (Director of Student Publications, if we're to get all official), several professors, Laura and Michelle, who I worked with at the Democrat-Gazette and who I love for reasons other than that the three of us seem to be the only UA graduates ever hired by the Democrat-Gazette, and Tammy, who was the editor before me, Jeff and Denise, who were after me, and Jose, who is the current editor.

I was most surprised and thrilled to see Candace, who was the editor when I was a freshman and now works as an editor at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and has an adorable three-year-old little girl. Also Ashley, who was editor my sophomore year, was there for a while on Saturday before Candace left, so there were a few minutes when all four editors from my days were there in the newsroom again. Very cool. They are all excellent women who I was proud to work with and for.

We spent Friday night chatting at the Alumni House, which is an amazingly comfortable and nice place. Saturday we watched the Hogs beat Auburn (Go Hogs!) then went to the journalism department for a while and finally watched a documentary that a grad student in broadcast made about the paper. Other folks went to On the Rocks for dinner, but I hate their stuff and missed my husband, so I went home.

It was good to see all those paper people, even the ones I didn't know. And watching football with journalism folks is the funniest thing I've done in a long time (Skip Rutherford is hilarious, and has amazingly broad shoulders--I kept ending up sitting behind him and could see almost none of the screen).

Sometimes it's good to go back. I'm glad I got to have a good reunion experience after my less-wonderful high school one a few months back. I wish we could have these every five or ten years, not every 50 or so.

The Big 100

2006-10-06T15:19:00.000-05:00

This weekend is the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Arkansas Traveler, the student newspaper at the University of Arkansas, and my home for four years. I started as a features reporter (my first article for the paper was about a tiny role-playing convention, Razorbattles), then moved to mostly news, was managing editor in 1998-99 and editor in chief for 1999-2000.

To commemorate this occasion, the paper had this really great old-time newspaper today full of stories about the history of the paper, how things have changed, and the editors who have come through. They even interviewed me for a story on female editors. I didn't realize there had been so few, only 28 of 99 (one editor, Jeff Smith, the guy after me, served for two years). There were women in the middle office every year I was in school (the middle office isn't the editor's office anymore, though).

There's also a reunion going on this weekend, where former editors and staffers will reconvene on campus for celebrations, sharing of memories and viewing a documentary about the paper.

This is hugely bittersweet to me, more even than my high school reunion was. Working at the Trav was such an amazing experience. It was so hard, so much fun, so many great people and raw emotions. It was life-or-death stuff to us. It really was our life.

And again it will be great to see the people who are there, but I'll be missing the people who aren't. Like Professor Robert Carey, who was the features teacher when I was in school (I had his advanced reporting class with my pal Felicia, who also won't be here, and he always called her Feli-shia, which we loved). He retired a year or so after I graduated, and died not too long after. He was a wonderful man. He was like a grandpa, repeating stories, calling people by the wrong names. But he had great stories, and we learned a lot from him.

I'm sure a lot of my staff won't be there, but I'd sure love to see Zac (who I just ran into voting the other week), Rusty (never thought I'd live to say that!), Chantal, Katy, Ashley, really most of the reporters and editors I worked with. And my high school newspaper teacher was also a fellow Traveler, and I'd certainly love to see him.

I think I have a problem of high expectations. I want to see people I know will never show up, because they moved away of didn't hear about it or were busy. But it feels like maybe the last chance I have to reconnect with some of those people, so I hope I'm pleasantly surprised by who from my era shows up.

I just walked over to Kimpel to see what the journalism department looks like these days. It's so different, but the same. The room I had Professor Carey's class in is now a computer lab. The computers are all shiny and new. The Traveler office was amazingly clean (I'm sure that won't last) and there was actually stuff on the walls (it was very stark and bare when I was there). It was still colder than a meat locker, which I'd somehow forgotten. The tiny television in the hall by UATV was still there, playing an old episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." I remember standing out there so many times, waiting for class, in the middle of a media board meeting, before my thesis defense.

The table in the reading room has been refinished again. That's where media board was, where I defended that thesis. I remember Dr. Watkins coming out after my defense and giving me a huge hug. I remember crying in that room because the Traveler meant so much to me.

I am so lucky to have been a part of that department. Those professors and advisors who are still there from my time are always so glad to see me and seem so proud even though I'm not in journalism any more. I sometimes feel like I'm disappointing them. I know Professor Jordan wondered why or how I could leave newspapers behind. It's almost like they're your parents. They gave me my start in the business, and everything I've become since then is because of them. Not just my professional history, but really who I am. The Traveler shaped me so much.

I still don't know how I had the guts to apply, the strength to be selected, the endurance to make it through that crazy year. And I'm so glad I did. There's no question I wouldn't be the same person without it.

The Perfection Monster

2006-10-04T13:38:00.000-05:00

Anyone who's been to my house might find it hard to believe, but I'm quite the perfectionist. Everything I write and everything I make I want to be amazingly brilliant, right, and perfect.

Maybe it's only creative things that I want to be perfect; that's why it's so easy to let housework slide.

Anyway, I was finally finishing up a baby blanket for sweet Sophia, and there was a big, messy problem. I knew I could fix it, but it still frustrated me. I thought I could handle it, but the more I worked to fix it, the more upset I got. And I cried over that little blanket that is supposed to be a thing of joy, a symbol of celebrating a new life that's come among us.

I knew at the time it was silly. But I couldn't stop myself. Here was a big old sign that I wasn't perfect, that I've been pretending all these years to know what I'm doing when it comes to knitting. And that really hurts, because I try to pass myself off as an expert.

The truth is, we all have bad days. Days when something that should be easy just isn't. Days when our best is not as much as we'd like. Projects that turn out a little less perfect than we'd imagined.

And the world doesn't end. My gift will still keep the little one warm (as long as, please God, her parents don't put it in the washing machine) and I know from many projects, given as gifts or otherwise, that the flaws that are so obvious to me will be a lot less so to everyone else. It's not perfection, but it's as close as I or anyone else can get.

An End to the Electoral College?

2006-09-22T08:45:00.000-05:00

Leave it to a computer scientist to come up with a way to eliminate the confusion when the electoral college picks a winner in a presidential race that's contrary to the popular vote count.

Dr. John Koza says the states should pass laws so that all that state's electoral votes go to the winner of the popular vote nationwide, even if that person was the loser in the state in question.

If every state did this, the winner of the popular vote would get all the votes in the electoral college, so there would be no controversy. A bill about this is on California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk right now.

A professor who studies such things says there have been more than 700 efforts to reform the electoral college, but it's still a bad idea. It could basically lead to a nationwide recount in a close election, because theoretically everyone would have to recount if there were questions about the final numbers.

Critics say the current system is fine and that the proponents of changing it are (surprise, surprise) Democrats. Koza admits to having been an Democratic elector twice but says this movement is ultimately nonpartisan and all about giving a real voice to the people.

They expect to have sponsors for similar bills in all 50 states next year. Stay tuned...

A Day in the Life

2006-09-18T21:37:00.000-05:00

I'm super busy today, but on a break in the middle of an article I'm not sure how to write, it occurred to me that it might be of interest to some of you what I spend my days working on.

In addition to the hours spent actually doing my day job, wherein today I spent many hours checking for bad hyphenation at the end of lines in the first pages of a manuscript and made changes to the file for this season's poetry title, I wrote about:

Moms buying junk food for their kids, actresses angry over anorexia and people taking pictures of their food, among other things, for CalorieLab.
Free craft ideas for kids (yeah, I know I don't have kids) for LovetoKnow.
Three articles on hypothyroidism, one on cognitive behavioral therapy as a treatment for anxiety disorders and, the one I'm stuck on now, hyperforin in St. John's Wort, for a super-secret client.

I also spent some time revamping one of the blogs I write for Jenna Ryan and posting pictures to a couple of blogs.

I think all of this is to say that the writing life 1)isn't all about writing and 2)isn't all about writing things you know about or really have any interest in. I guess you should have an interest in that you have a natural curiosity about things, but I'd never go researching St. John's Wort or hypothyroidism just for fun.

But then again, I don't have to. I get paid to. And that is fun.

Calling all Scam Victims

2006-09-14T14:38:00.000-05:00

I'm working on a story for the Democrat-Gazette about writing scams, from Poetry.com to Publish America and everything in between.

If you've been scammed by an agent with reader fees or a contest that you have to pay to buy the book for, especially if you live in the state of Arkansas, I want to hear from you.

Contact me if you'd like to share your story with me and the readers of the Dem-Gaz. I'm in the very preliminary stages of this research right now, so I'll take horror stories, tips, your favorite anti-scammer websites, or whatever else you'd like to share. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help!

I Quit!

2006-09-08T10:34:00.000-05:00

Or at least that's what I and every self-respecting person in Northwest Arkansas wishes he or she could be saying today. It is, officially, too beautiful to be inside. I took a nice walk to the Union and it was pure murder to go back inside.

According to some people, we're all staying inside a bit too much. A full 40 percent of Americans (this writer included) had no plans to take a summer vacation this year. Thirteen percent of American workers get no paid vacation time, and 26 percent took no vacation at all in 2003.

This compared to most of Europe, where long summer vacations are the norm for the middle class. I love how this article from the always enlightening AlterNet explains it:

It's like a classic case of East Bloc lumpen-spite: middle Americans would rather see the European system collapse than become beneficiaries themselves. If there is one favourite recurring propaganda fable Americans love to read about Europeans, it's the one about how Europe is decaying and its social system is on the verge of imploding; we Americans pray for that day to come, with even more fervour than we pray for the End of Days, because the very existence of these pampered workers makes us look like the suckers and slaves we really are. This is why you won't see Bono or Sir Bob Geldof rallying the bleeding-hearts anytime soon on behalf of America's workers. They're not in the least bit sympathetic. Better to stick with well-behaved victims like starving Africans.

We'll leave aside the fact that someone claiming to be American spells like a Briton (and he actually lives in Russia). There's a point in there somewhere about how Americans are so tied to their jobs they actually feel guilty about taking time off. We suffer through beautiful days trapped in the office because of some kind of loyalty, some thought that it's the right thing to do.

Of course it's the right thing to do. If people started randomly not showing up for work that probably wouldn't be any good. But what's the fun of doing the right thing all the time?

Have a beautiful day! Get out there and enjoy it if it's pretty where you are.

Bush the Reader?

2006-08-30T09:44:00.000-05:00

I thought it was funny earlier this summer when it came out that our president was reading The Stranger. Now, apparently, he's in a reading contest with Karl Rove and trying to change his image to that of an intellectual.

You can read all about it at AlterNet. I wonder if he thought no one was going to do the math and figure out that by his own admitted speed of reading, there's no way he could have read 60 books this year. Heck, I'm quite the reader and I haven't read 60 books this year, I'm almost positive.

We know you're proud of being a C student, Mr. President. Don't try to change your image now; we aren't buying it.

You Say It's My Birthday...

2006-08-29T09:44:00.000-05:00

Today's the day to mark the passage into another year. It's been a month for feeling older, with my high school reunion, unexpected death, and my sudden concern about the lines around my eyes. But I like birthdays. To me they're a much better time for a new start than the new year is.

I like to make or remake my resolutions and inject new energy into old projects. In that spirit, I resolve the following:

I am, God help me, going to learn how to crochet. For one thing, I've got this baby blanket that's almost done and needs to have a crocheted border. For another, I just don't feel like I can call myself a crafts expert when I STILL can't crochet.
I am going to knit more for myself, just as soon as people stop having babies. Those projects are fun, and mostly short, but darn it, I want stuff for me!
I'm going to use my sewing machine more, and actually make an effort to get better at sewing. I get by OK, but I lack the patience that's required to make really beautiful stuff like my aunt can do. I'd like to work on that.
I'm going to start sending out queries again. I apply for jobs, but I can't remember the last time I sent an actual query to a magazine. I have just the thing to start with; an idea that would be great for Earth Day. Now's the time to get that rolling.
I'm going to exercise more. It's been more than a week since I've been to the gym, and I've completely stopped doing yoga or anything else when I don't go to the gym. By this time next year, I want to be as buff as I'd hoped I'd be by now (stupid wrist, among other things).
I will somehow figure out how to have more time when I'm not working, and to enjoy it more. This is a huge one. I've been busy, well, pretty much all year. I love the work, and the money, but I hate feeling like there's always something hanging over me, something I should be doing instead of watching a movie with my sweet husband or reading something I'm not reviewing while lying in bed with the cats (yeah, like that ever happens--I've started reading a non-review book twice and had to put it down, after only making it to about page 30. Now I'm working on three different books for reviews!)

That's probably enough, though I'd really like to resolve to take a big long trip (preferably overseas) with Nick in the next year, too.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

In other news, since I've started parking in the parking deck, I've noticed a lot of people on campus have fun bumper stickers. Some of my favorites, a couple of which I'd seen before, include

Thespians do it on stage
What would Scooby do?
We seceded where others failed

That last one had been my favorite until yesterday when I was leaving work and I saw this one: God was my copilot but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him. Blasphemous and hilarious!

Hard to Say Goodbye

2006-08-28T09:34:00.000-05:00

It's been a week since Scott died and I haven't written anything about it yet, so here goes. For those of you not from Arkansas or who don't keep up with newspaper news, Scott Johnson, who was a features reporter at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, died last Monday. He didn't show up for work, and a few hours later his body was found in his car. No trauma; no one knows what happened to him.

I hadn't talked to Scott in years, probably since he moved to Little Rock, but I worked with him at the Northwest Arkansas Times. He was the features editor and one of my many duties part of the time I was there was to design the Sunday features section. Scott was one of those people who was so easy to work with I don't remember ever having a conflict with him. Anyone who hasn't worked in journalism might not know that's really saying something. Fights are common when you're just trying to make it all fit and get it to the press and the section editor/assigning editor/reporter either doesn't want you to cut anything or won't respect your deadline.

In fact I can only remember once when Scott even got mad. It was late in the evening and he was probably the only writer left in the newsroom. The rest of us were busy putting the paper together. He was sitting at his desk across the newsroom, interviewing Levon Helm on the phone.

The sports guys and the head of the design desk being huge '60s and '70s music fans, stopped what they were doing and, if I recall correctly, left their desks to listen to Scott interview him. Not that they could hear the other side of the conversation; there was just something cool about vicariously interviewing him. I stayed at my desk but tried to be really quiet.

After he hung up, Scott was as angry as I've ever seen him, which wasn't much. He told the guys they made him nervous, and that was about it. Working in newspapers tends to take the easygoing right out of people, but it hadn't touched Scott.

I never knew him well. I knew that he was a good writer, he loved talking to people and he enjoyed his work. That's a lot to say about a person these days. He found what made him happy and did it for as much of his too-short life as he could (he was only 39).

We may never know how he died or why, but we do know that this is a big loss, even for those of us who worked with him long ago. I always feel guilty when I mourn someone I never bothered to keep in touch with while they were alive, and I guess that's why I haven't tried to write about him. I don't feel worthy of eulogizing someone I never knew well. But I still feel his loss, much more than I might have expected. Not only because it is a shock to lose someone so young, in such a strange way, and to find out about it by reading the paper at work. I miss him because he could be any of us; he could be all of us. As much as we hate to admit it, we all walk that slender thread of never knowing when it's our time to go, never knowing what we'll have to leave behind. Scott leaves his words, and his stories that the paper continues to run are like visits from an old friend, or a ghost.

I don't like Phillip Martin as much as the next person, but yesterday in his weekly column he wrote about Scott, and darn it if the bastard didn't make me cry. He wasn't just talking about Scott, of course, but about how we all get blindsided by death and the only comfort we can have is that we are still here. Here's part of what he said:

I look around this office and know people are hurting. Some are shocked, some are numb, and some feel something black and oily gnawing at their guts. There are others who feel nothing and worry about that, who wonder if it is appropriate that they should wake up in the morning and feel refreshed by sleep, that their limbs tingle in the bright air, that they are beginning to anticipate the coming crispness of the season.
I don't think that they are wrong to feel good when others don't ; I think we'll all have our portion of grief and trouble and sleepless nights before it's over. If you can be happy, you should be.
You could spend a life giving eulogies, reducing the contents of a life to a few hundred words. But human lives resist capsulation. Any attempt, no matter how well intended, to assign meaning to anyone's passage through life trivializes that passage. We are big and strange and flooded with contradiction. Inside each of us, there are darklands and vast territories, uncharted places beyond the margins of our psychic maps where monsters be. Goethe could not conceive of a sin of which, under the right circumstances, he would not be capable. If you can, it's probably more due to a lack of imagination than the strength of your character.
I don't know what we owe the dead, but if they're listening, let them understand that they are missed, that we are diminished by their going, and that we all will eventually learn whatever secrets redound to them.

So, thanks, Scott, for being here in the time that you were here, for sharing your stories with the world, for being a nice guy in a newsroom of self-interested, not-always-nice people. You are and will be missed, and we are in a lesser world without you.

Welcome Back, When Are You Leaving?

2006-08-17T16:17:00.000-05:00

It's dorm move-in day on campus today, and I've got to say I wish those damn kids (*fist shaking*) would just stay gone. They don't do me any good and they just take all the good parking spaces.

They were allowed to infiltrate the parking garage today, which meant the people who legitimately need to (and have paid way more than a pretty penny to) park there had to scramble to find spaces. And then these new-to-campus people don't seem to realize they're supposed to yield to people in crosswalks.

I guess that's because they aren't aware they're supposed to use crosswalks, either. Some of you have heard me tell stories about heckling the orientation folks for letting (or actually encouraging) their charges not to walk in crosswalks and to cross in front of traffic. It makes me feel better even if it does no good.

I had a similar incident today with a couple of parents when I was walking back to my office with my lunch. They were walking a few feet in front of me and the wife started crossing not in the crosswalk while the husband stayed in the crosswalk.

"You rebel," he yelled at her.

I couldn't resist saying to the back of his head, "Yeah, and if your kids do that I'll try to hit them with my car."

He laughed. Why am I not taken seriously?

The woman says, "On campus pedestrians have the right of way, anyway."

I said, "Except when they're not in crosswalks, then we try to hit them with our cars." Then she laughed.

Don't these people get it? Obviously not, if they think it's cool for kids to just walk out into the street and it's supposedly the responsibility of the person going 25 (or faster, to see some people drive around here) to get out of the way of the person on foot who can obviously see the car coming.

Just for fun, I tried to find a page on the university's website that said something to the effect of, "hey morons, don't step out in front of cars," but to no avail. All I could find was a PDF from some school in Ohio saying pedestrians have the right of way on sidewalks and in crosswalks but must yield to cars anywhere else. Which just makes sense. Unless you're on this campus.

Maybe it's a small thing to get peeved about. But I read something today to the effect of don't stress other people out in your attempts to give yourself less stress. It's kind of the golden rule. You wouldn't want me to walk in front of your car, so don't walk in front of mine. Unless, of course, you want to get run over.

Ten Years After

2006-08-16T13:47:00.000-05:00

My ten-year high school class reunion is this weekend. For a lot of reasons, I'm really ambivalent about it. One, it's crazy expensive. To go to just one event is going to cost me $40 (for a cash bar), and there are very few people I will want to see who will actually attend such a function.

Part of it is knowing that I'm a million or more miles away from where I thought I wanted to be ten years out of school. I'm still in the town I grew up in, which I so wanted to leave for so long. Instead of being an ace reporter at the New York Times, piling up Pulitzer nominations, I'm not even in the newspaper biz any more. So there's a certain bittersweetness for the what might have been and the what really was that turned out even better than that hoped-for reality.

Like most people I'd say I didn't have the greatest high school experience in the world. It wasn't the house of horrors that a lot of people get, don't get me wrong. I went to a great school where people actually valued learning (unlike, say, my elementary school) and there were kids there who were both cool and smart. Of course, I wasn't in the cool smart group. I didn't go to governor's school so I was pretty much excluded from the group that did (which was almost everyone in my AP Lit class, including the teacher's daughter).

And of course there was being super shy, having no confidence, falling in love with every boy who didn't know I existed, and the dear friends moving away, death, and other losses of friendships that seem an inevitable part of growing up.

Once again, words saved me. I had the newspaper kids. Freaks and geeks all of us. They were, on the whole, wonderful people. We'd hide in the journalism room at every opportunity--before school, during lunch, during our classes there and any opportunity we had to skip another class. There was much playing of hearts (and breaking of hearts), flash wars, blaring loud music and dancing around, talking shit, making art (or at least newspapers and yearbooks) and basically being kids. For some of us it was the one rare place of relative easy in complicated lives.

Of course, my favorites were all a year older than me, so the reunion holds no hope of seeing the people I really miss. (Schools should totally have five-year-range reunions, so you get to see more of the people you actually went to school with.) Still, I'll go for the selfish reasons: to see who got fat, who got successful, who (else) never moved away and if that girl who swore she'd kill herself if she had to go to the U of A ever made it out of town.

It certainly could be interesting. Maybe not as interesting as the 200th episode of Stargate, but we'll see.

And Another Self-Promotional Entry

2006-08-10T20:56:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I know, two links to clips in one day. What's come over me? But it just occurred to me earlier today that the big honking review of craft books I did for BookPage was published this month.

I am really proud of this review. It was a lot of fun, right up my alley, and the books were all good, too. You've got to love it when that happens.

OK, that's all the self promotion for today, I promise. Can you tell my wrist is feeling better?

Check Me Out!

2006-08-10T14:14:00.000-05:00

This is kind of exciting. I just today started working for a company called CalorieLab, a website about dieting that also includes stuff like calorie amounts for different foods and the amount of calories you'll burn doing different activities based on your weight.

What I do is this little roundup of dieting news called Nibbles. I wrote it when I got to work this morning (shhh, don't tell) and it was posted a little while later. The cool part about this story is that a link to my roundup was featured on the front page of Google's health news page. When I started writing this it was there but now it's gone. If you click on the story you can still find it, and it will probably rotate in and out through the day.

That was a very cool feeling to see something that I wrote on Google News (even if it was only a link). And I caused a traffic spike on my first day on the job, which is always a good thing.

A Story About Nightbird

2006-08-02T08:40:00.000-05:00

Check out this story from Bookselling this Week about Fayetteville's newest bookstore, Nightbird Books. It's nice to see it doing well and getting some good buzz. I need to go in and see the new birdie!

Words Hurt

2006-07-26T14:44:00.000-05:00

I was trying to meet an insane self-imposed deadline on a project at work last week, so I sat at my computer and didn't more for about three, three and a half hours. I won't go into boring details, but it involved mostly pressing the same two buttons over and over.

I stood up to get my lunch and my right hand went numb. The next day I didn't go to work because it hurt too much to bend my elbow. I pretty much stayed in bed all day with an ice pack alternating between my elbow and my wrist.

It's been almost a week and it still hurts. Went to the doctor today and she said it'll probably be two months before I'm back to normal. I need to wear a wrist brace at night and I should ice at least once a day.

I know it's not a huge deal. I know people have repetitive motion problems all the time and a lot of them never have to have surgery or anything drastic like that. I know this was meant to scare me into caring about ergonomics (you should see my nicely lifted wrists, not sitting on the table while I type like they normally do).

Still, this whole situation has got me kind of depressed. I feel like words have betrayed me. How could something I love so much cause me so much pain? I know it's not the words that are to blame but how I work with them, but still.

Anyway, long story short out of necessity, I'm probably going to lay off the blogging (at least except for important stuff) for the next little while. I can't afford the extra keyboard time. I've got so much work to do I need to be on the computer a lot, but I don't want to aggravate it by doing more than I absolutely need to.

So, I'll update when I can.

PS. Did y'all know Ken Jen has a blog? He's getting hell right now over his Dear Jeopardy! letter he posted a few days ago. Some people have no sense of humor!

When Al Gore Came to Town

2006-07-19T15:14:00.000-05:00

AlterNet's Muckraker spent some time in Bentonville when Al Gore was here showing his movie, An Inconvenient Truth (which I really still need to go see), to Wal-Mart executives, managers and others who were talking about the company's ambitious green goals.

It's worth a read if you're at all interested in that sort of thing. I like to hope that Wal-Mart will keep even some of these promises and be the company that leads the revolution in all things sustainable. Of course, I hope they'd pay people a living wage and promote more women, too, so obviously there's a long way to go on a lot of fronts.

Still, it's nice to see them taking environmental impact seriously. If only the government were as committed to change as Wal-Mart seems to be. And that's maybe the only time ever you'll hear me say something nice about Wal-Mart.

WSJ to Sell Ads on Front Page

2006-07-19T08:59:00.000-05:00

They don't run photographs, but soon the Wall Street Journal will have advertising, including color ads, on the front page.

Starting in September, the Journal will have what it's calling "jewel boxes" in the lower-right corner of the front page. A strip ad across the bottom of the front page is also a possibility. The paper is also going to shrink, probably to 12 inches in width (which the New York Times also just announced it was going to do).

It's a hard time to be in newspapers. Many are still profitable but since they (virtually) all have shareholders, they have to find new ways to cut costs and make bigger profits. Shrinking the paper makes the news hole smaller, but it also saves money on paper. Running ads on the front page makes some journos uneasy, but advertisers will pay top-dollar for that prime real estate.

It will be interesting to see if this starts a trend, now that executives won't have to say things like, "Gannett did it, so it must be a good idea."

Funny Things You May Only See in Fayetteville

2006-07-18T13:27:00.000-05:00

Oh, I wish I had a camera when I was driving back to the office after going to the bank this afternoon. There was a guy riding a bicycle on the sidewalk on Dickson Street (of course!) smoking a cigar while riding. Hilarious. I'm not sure this is what the "Keep Fayetteville Funky" people had in mind, but it sure seems typical of this crazy city in which I live.

Legislating Pregnancy Health

2006-07-18T08:54:00.000-05:00

Normally I try to keep my rabid feminism out of this blog, but there was a story in AlterNet today that I just couldn't resist commenting on, mostly because it's in part about Arkansas. Those of you who live in Arkansas might remember a recent attempt in the legislature to ban smoking by pregnant women (on the heels of a law prohibiting smoking in a car with children).

On the surface, this might seem like a good thing. We all know smoking is bad for mothers and their fetuses, so why not legislate what the woman can do with her body? (Uh-oh)

And lets forget for a minute that only 71 percent of Arkansas' moms get adequate prenatal care, we'll just pass a law making it illegal for them to smoke (and drink, too, our beloved governor says) and it'll all be OK. (Whoops)

And that's pretty much the point of this story; our governments are focusing on the wrong things. According to the stats I can find, nationwide about 10.6 percent of pregnant moms smoke and 15 percent drink. I'm not saying that's OK, but if the legislatures really want to get involved in protecting the health of children, they'd do something about the 8.4 million kids without health insurance (that's almost 12 percent) or do something about the more than 45 percent of children and adolescents who are obese. That would really make a difference.

Voting for Dollars

2006-07-17T08:51:00.000-05:00

An unsuccessful candidate for governor of Arizona has gotten a measure put on the ballot that, if approved by voters, would turn each statewide election into a lottery, where one lucky voter would receive one million dollars. (You can read all about it here).

Wait a minute, isn't bribing people to vote illegal? I know this (supposedly) doesn't go to someone based on who they voted for, but it still seems to me like a nasty way to manipulate people. And if they don't want to vote until there's a potential for getting money from it, I don't think I want them voting in the first place. Talk about ensuring an uniformed voting populace!

Judging a Book By Its Cover

2006-07-14T12:59:00.000-05:00

Lets be honest. We all do it. You're in the bookstore or library and you see a cover that stops you in your tracks from across the room. You just have to get a closer look, and, if the subject is something you're interested in, you'll take the book home.

I do this, too, but I'm a lot more likely to pick up a book because I love the title than because I love the cover (I am a word person, after all). This happened to me this afternoon when I was at the library picking up One Mississippi, the next book I am reviewing for the Democrat-Gazette. Because I can almost never leave the library with just one, I wandered the nonfiction stacks (and left with six, instead of just the one I "needed").

One of the books that grabbed me with its title was Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun & Spite by June Casagrande, author of a weekly grammar column in a supplement to the Los Angeles Times.

Now I know what those of you who know me are thinking: Sarah, you're a grammar snob. Why are you delighting in a book that calls you a meanie?

Truth is, I'm not a grammar snob. Word nerd, yes. Grammar geek, occasionally. But not a grammar snob, no, never.

What's the difference? The introduction to this book lays it all out there (yes, I brought it in the office to read while eating):

For someone who's been victimized by a grammar snob, it's easy to lump all word aficionados into the same category. But we should be careful here. We must be fair. Grammar snobs are a distinct breed from their gentle cousins: word nerds and grammar geeks. The difference is bloodlust.
Word nerds and grammar geeks might find it fascinating to know that the word "gerrymander" comes from nineteenth-century Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry (bless their little hearts), or they might actually try to quote Shakespeare to their auto mechanics, but they're a separate species from the types who send me raging e-mails about how no one uses the word "whom" anymore or the ones who write to me demanding I publish a column telling people to stop using profanity (*!#@$! weirdos).

Sure, I like to make fun of people's grammar gaffes as much as the next person (when the next person is Kathleen, or Ken), but the only time I write nasty letters to writers is when they confuse states based on postal abbreviations (I've actually done this twice--people have got to learn that AR is Arkansas, not Arizona or, puzzlingly, Alaska).

But I really try not to be meanspirited. I know that it's hard to be perfect all the time, and I certainly don't want people pointing out my every misplaced modifier or sentence fragment. It's still really fun to make fun of The Traveler, or really any publication that makes horrific mistakes.

I read a fun story in Slate today that's about the grammar wars and different theories of grammar (see, I told you I was a grammar geek). There are basically two schools of thought: those who follow the rules because they're written down and those who say if someone writes or speaks in a certain way and can be understood by the average native speaker, what they're saying must be "correct."

I tend to fall somewhere in the middle. I like rules. Rules keep chaos at bay and give me a better reason for my edits than "you sound stupid." But I'll split infinitives, end sentences with prepositions and, on occasion (the horror!) use a which in a place that doesn't involve a comma directly before it (so there, Dr. Chappel!).

Grammar is and must be ever changing. Some flexibility is required. I can't remember what we were talking about not too long ago, but someone said "that's a made-up word," meaning that it was wrong. I said "everything's a made-up word," which is true, somebody had to "make up" all the words that we now use every day. And Google is in the dictionary. As a verb, which I hate, but everybody uses it that way so it might as well be OK.

Yes, that means our standards slip as people's casualness with spoken language drifts into the written word. But English is flexible, she can handle the grammar snobs and those who would make every noun a verb. That's the beauty of language.

Making Plans

2006-07-13T20:17:00.000-05:00

Today I've been mired in "what to do, what to do?" so I decided I needed to sit down and make some plans. I've just spent an hour pouring out my head into a Word document, and I feel a lot better. I have some idea of how I would like to finish some of the many unfinished manuscripts clogging my hard drive, and I'm resurrecting the idea of having a newsletter.

I think I would like the newsletter to be for busy folks who want to be more creative. Probably mostly geared toward women writers (because that's what I am) it would help people find time to create, justify taking that time from their families and make them see that they are worth taking the time for and don't have to feel guilty about what they're not doing during that time.

I think it's so important to have creative time, even if you're not creating as a side business like I am. It's just such a wonderful thing to do something that isn't your job, to create something that only you could make, to have a thing to treasure that came from your own hands and your own mind. That's what I live for.

And I guess that's why I like books so much. Because a book is nothing but a creation from the maker's own mind, combined with the reader's re-creation based on the information given on the page. It's a wonderful two-sided act of creativity where the two sides never really meet. I like that.

I haven't updated the "what I'm reading" section in a while, speaking of books. I just finished a book about economic incentives that towns and states give to businesses, which I found a really ironic thing to be reading while Springdale was voting to spend some $50 million to build a sports complex with the hopes of attracting a minor-league baseball team. I heard on the news today that they estimated the park would bring 350 new jobs to the area. That's more than $142,000 per job! And it's not like we've got a lot of underemployed minor-league ballplayers lying around just waiting for such an opportunity. I'm all for baseball, but our neighbors to the north are talking crazy talk.

But I digress. Over the July 4th weekend I read a couple of books, which was really nice. In anticipation of a new review I'm going to do for the Democrat-Gazette I read Crazy in Alabama, by Mark Childress, which I loved. Anyone who hasn't read this book really ought to. It is funny, disturbing, touching, sad, sometimes all at once. Aunt Lucile is the Scarlet O'Hara of her generation, without the fiddle-dee-dee. Good stuff.

I really plan to do better with this blog. I know it's been pretty spotty lately, and nothing about books at all. Things have been crazy, but I guess that's nothing new. There is very little balance in a life that is full of work and more work. But at the end of the day (which it is!) it is still mostly a whole heck of a lot of fun. I don't know what I'd do with myself if life were any other way.

Babies Everywhere (Except Here)

2006-07-05T08:26:00.000-05:00

My BFF just had a baby last night, Audrey Caroline, born just after 8:30 p.m. on the Fourth of July. I won't get to meet the little one for a while because she's in Tulsa and I'm (thankfully!) not, but I hear baby, mom (and dad!) are doing well.

It struck me last night, as it has been doing a lot lately, that there's a little baby boom going on around me. Lots of friends are having babies, about to have babies, in the process of adoption, etc. The one person I'm still in touch with from college just had her second (imagine that!) little girl in May. Pretty soon we're going to go from a group of couples to a group of parents.

And that's just fine. It is, in fact, the way it should be. But at the same time I can't help feeling like we're losing something precious. I guess I'm just hoping we don't turn into one of those groups of friends who has nothing to talk about but the kids, who pits the children against each other, is constantly comparing them and showing off the parlor tricks their kids can do, hoping to prove that one is smarter or developing more quickly than the others.

Or maybe I'm just being selfish because I'm the one woman in our group who isn't itching to have babies.

It's not that I don't want kids, I just don't feel ready. Maybe you're never ready and you just have to do it anyway. Our friend Robyn was in town last weekend and she said her response to the why no kids question is "my husband and I are chicken." I can relate to that. But it's when you admit to the fear and do it anyway that really interesting things start to happen.

When Karen called me last night she said "It's easy, Sarah, you should have one." I said, "that's easy for you to say, you're on narcotics." I should have said, sure, birth is easy, it's the 20 years after that worry me. But I didn't want to scare the woman. That all comes later. For now, it's enough just to celebrate another little life brought safely into the world. So welcome little Audrey, and kudos and love to Karen and Kelly.

Busy, Busy

2006-06-29T21:55:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note to apologize for not having more time to post lately. It seems like everyone says things get slower in the summer, but I haven't found that at all. I am about to lose one of my steady freelance jobs (because the project is ending after six months) and that will probably help me have more time to work on other things, so at least I'll feel more in control.

I've been feeling really grumpy about my day job lately, wanting to quit even more than normal. But I'm beginning to think maybe I don't need to quit as soon as I'd planned; maybe I can just make it work for me a little better. I don't know if it will work out the way I want, but it could be cool.

It doesn't seem like there's even anything interesting to report. My review of Between Here and the Yellow Sea is finally going to be in the paper on Sunday, and I'm working on a review of a new edition of Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin stories, which I'd never read before and didn't really enjoy. Still, I can see how there's a lot in modern detective fiction that came from them, and I think I can write an interesting review.

On the personal side of things, my best bud from junior high/high school, Karen, is going to have a baby on Monday. That pretty well freaks me out. She's the first close friend to have a baby, and though we don't live in the same town so I won't see the baby often, it still feels like this big change, like suddenly I'm a grownup by association. Not that Nick and I are any closer to parenthood, if that's what you're thinking. But getting to see other people "like me" do it I'm sure will be inspiring.

I don't have much else to say. I think I'm using all my words professionally and can't create any more to share with you. I'm completely looking forward to a long weekend, even if I had to take vacation to make it long. Be safe everyone!