The RedMolly Picayune-Democrat

How Molly got her groove back

I'm speaking of it in the past tense, but I'm actually waiting for it to happen.

How can a nominally self-employed, gig-hungry critter like myself spend so much time sitting at her computer and so little of it actually accomplishing anything?

Today I'm having a fun adventure called "Fighting with the Content Management System." I'm a writer, dammit, not a CMSer... and my creaky old HTML skills are showing their age & infirmity.

In happier news, I got an $800 check from CK Media this week. Yay! Three and three-quarters* more of those and we will be GOL.DEN.

And in other happy news, Jim and I have a "date" this evening; we're going to a creative professionals networking event downtown. Free hors d'oeuvres and cheap wine for all, huzzah! I was really hoping to have some sort of functional web site URL and/or business card-like substance to pass out at this meeting, but no such luck. I have frittered away far too much of my time and it's just not happening.

Also: BrickFest was awesome. Hundreds of adult Lego fans get together for a weekend, build build build, then open up the Convention Center to display their creations to an adoring public. We liked. (All photos by James Newman.)

 

Look, it's Lego Portland!

Back up and take a look to figure out this mosaic...

A street scene

These modernist apartment buildings were like the coolest Lego constructions ever...

...except for maybe this suspension bridge (complete with river & boats underneath)...

...or this pool hall. (Jim has been inspired to create a Lego version of Billy Ray's Neighborhood Dive. AWESOME.)

An epic battle!

More Lego carnage around the Lego Tree of Life; also, Lego crops in Lego fields.

"Have fun storming the castle!"

This Lego roller coaster apparently really worked, though I didn't see it in action.

Lego massage chair

Lego heavy weaponry, incongruously touted by a small headbanded child.

Now we're looking forward to BrickCon in Seattle this October. With a vengeance!

*disclaimer: this may or may not actually be correct. math is hard.

Procrastination and delayed gratification

So we all put off things we don't want to do or are a little intimidated by doing, right? Like mopping the floor or filing taxes or writing a novel. Understandable and somewhat universal.

So why on earth would someone put off things that one is really looking forward to doing and that offer a huge return on investment... like, for example, taking a shower?

I think I need to go acquaint myself with some nice hot hot water and tangerine sugar scrub, and then maybe the hot water will melt away the procrastinationism temporarily. Hopes, though, are none too high.

Love to hate

I took a big step today.

I deleted a blog from my RSS feeds.

Not really sure why it was on there in the first place. Not for politeness--this person doesn't read my blog, and I don't have any real-life contact with her. Not for content--it is a personal blog in the very personalest sense of the term. I certainly never learned anything from it, was inspired to new heights by it or even picked up a good recipe.

I kinda think it might have been on there just so I could get irritated with her every day. Though I'd never met her, her constant annoyed-at-the-world attitude gave me something to be bugged with. Her litany of woes, her complaining about various family members*, her superior-because-I'm-cynical attitude... man, this lady irritated me so much that I even caught myself telling Jim about her one time. Twice, actually. And the second time he gave me a very kind and loving look that said "Sweetie, you have completely lost it, and you are trying to drag me down with you."

So, about a week ago, I started wondering "Why the hell am I reading this? This is worse than DListed, which is at least funny (even though I feel like I need a shower after every time I read it). This is worse than the blog by that bizarre New Mexico fundamentalist survivalist lady. I mean, this is just not even interesting any more."

And so today, I took the big step... I took a habitual irritation, something as annoying & familiar as poking at a sore tooth with my tongue, and removed it from my life entirely.

Pow! Zap! Wow. That took like half a second, was utterly painless, and has left me with nothing more than the feeling that I am an incredible stone-cold idiot for not doing this, like, months ago.

But I never said I was a quick study...

Now I'm wondering what other love-to-hate relationships with objects, routines, organizations or whatever I can find and root out. Do you have any of these bizarrely attractive dysfunctional things going?

*I only ever complain about my kids and I'm damn proud of it.

The thankful post

Be thankful and happy for what you have, because you never know when it might disappear.

And on a less nihilistic note:

• Hot coffee and crisp bacon, prepared by my skilled & loving sweetie while my lazy ass was (a) still in bed, or (b) upstairs putting together a DVD of photos
• Fun, kind and generous friends who appear in said photos and who have invited us over for a festive Thanksgiving dinner
• Peeling carrots and potatoes with Rhys, marvelling over the irregular sizes and torqued twisty shapes of the organic and oh-so-sweet carrots we picked up at the farmer's market
• Having Rhys tell me, at some length, why he would like to visit Easter Island (his newest obsession... why? I have no idea) and realizing it's the longest uninterrupted speech I've heard him make, like, ever
• Having Fisher come into my room in the morning and snuggle under the covers with me and his Star Wars book
• The opportunity to be sad that we can't see more of our friends on Thanksgiving--this means we have friends, which is swell
• Faraway family to whom I know we will be talking today (and whom I'm already missing)
• At least I don't have freakin' hepatitis or something
• As ever, the kitties
• And books, and the ability to read them
• And pictures:

• And finally, I guess, priorities and the abilities to rearrange them as needed. Yeah.

Happy Thanksgiving. Wish you could be here to taste Jim's fab turkey and my peerless (ahem) mashed potatoes.

A nibble

which feels encouraging.

Cross your fingers for me, huh?

Also: science is awesome.

I want so badly to have a setup like this at our next party. Whenever that is. Thanksgiving, maybe? You bring the stuffing, I'll bring the fire.

Snippets

Oh, the things that I know! (Or at least suspect...)

• If you are in the business of providing court-mandated anger management counseling, you might not want to load your site up with a useless Flash intro that clogs the screen and plays hideous vaguely inspirational music and DOESN'T LET THE USER TURN IT OFF. Just, y'know, saying. Of course, I guess maybe if someone were to smash the monitor in the library computer lab as a result of your site, that person would be more likely to be packed off to anger management counseling, and then hey... profit! Hmmm, abysmal Web design* or clever marketing scheme? The line can be so fine...
• I was following a rabbit trail of links loosely themed around the idea of writing children's science books ("Our Friends the Frogs" and its noir sequel "Our Nemeses the Nematodes") and discovered that I am not halfway cute or perky enough to write for innocent young minds. Also I have a nose, and that may disqualify me.
• Tomorrow morning (oh, no, wait! later today!) at the ungodly hour of nine-freakin-a.m.-in-the-morning, I am getting a free haircut and color. I have a nagging feeling I may rue the heck out of this seemingly thrifty decision.
• There is something about Tylenol PM that disagrees with me rather strongly. I keep forgetting this and taking it, only to be rewarded with six to eight troubled hours of nightmares from which I can neither fully wake up nor fall fully back into sleep. And even after the election, they keep featuring Sarah Palin. In a towel.
• The all-natural, MSG-free, miraculously healthyish Campbell's Select Harvest version of Italian Wedding Soup tastes like burnt dog crap fried in gasoline. Pass the Progresso and the chemicals, please.
• Master of Puppets is still, after 22 years, one of the finest albums of all time. Bow to Leper Messiah!

Anyway, I figured it was time for a post where I didn't bemoan my unemployed state or beg you to check out one of my money-making clever plans. And I almost made it, didn't I? So close, and yet so far.

*Honestly, the design is bad enough, in a non-linear baffling sort of way, that it kind of invites you to explore.Can anyone figure out what the purpose of the zoomable image in the "Your Planned Path" section is? I got a nice close-up of the model's nose but no deep life-changing messages or anything. I sort of suspect that their Flash designer wasn't sticking too close to the recovery path, if you know what I mean...

And so... and sigh...

I've sent out tons of resumes.

Contacted friends & business acquaintances, all while trying to strike that balance between friendly cheer and oh-god-the-world-is-ending-won't-someone-throw-me-a-life-preserver.

Posted an ad on Craigslist. Drafting another (expert Photoshop retouching, woo hoo!)

Even gotten a pitch out to National Wildlife (though, admittedly, that was technically avant le deluge).

Now, especially since it's the weekend and no one is sitting in front of her computer except for jobless sad sacks like me, I'm sitting and waiting.

("I hate waiting." --Inigo Montoya)

Fall has fell

Ch-check it out:
 

No more temps in the 80s. Not much more in the way of temps in the 70s. This makes me happy.

It also makes me hungry for soup, which is what we had for lunch today:

Red Pepper Soup

3 red bell peppers, seeded & chopped
1 large-ish carrot, scraped & chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 small celery rib, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 Tbsp olive oil
4 cups chicken (or vegetable) broth
1/4 cup uncooked long-grain rice
1 Tbsp minced fresh (or 1 tsp dried) thyme
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
A couple pinches of cayenne pepper
A couple pinches of red pepper flakes

In a soup-making vessel, saute vegetables in oil until onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in broth, rice and all seasonings except red pepper flakes. Heat to a boil; reduce heat and simmer, covered, 20-25 minutes until rice is done and vegetables are tender.

Let cool for about 15 minutes (or a little less, if you have an immersion blender). Puree in batches with a regular blender, or puree in situ with an immersion blender. Return to pot; add red pepper flakes; heat through gently.

We didn't have this with it, but I think a little swirl of crème fraîche on the top would have been just lovely. Even without this lily-gilding, however, the soup was delicious enough that the boys polished theirs off straightaway and Jim and I went back for generous seconds.

***

I've always liked spring and fall better than either summer or winter--they're seasons of moderation, pleasant times, not too hot or too cold. But since my limited Portland experience seems to indicate that we have crap springs here in the great Northwest (rain, rain, rain, rain and more rain), I guess I'll have to content myself with fall alone. (At least the summers aren't so hot that they can't be enjoyed.)

But weather aside, there's something about fall that seems to invite both introspection and a sort of coziness the other seasons lack. The crisp mornings invite you to snuggle a little longer in bed; the sun warms up the afternoons just enough to beckon you outside for some leaf-raking or maybe some last-chance tomato harvesting. The evenings fairly cry out for my favorite kinds of dinners: hearty stews, roasted vegetables, good rib-sticking meals that leave you feeling pleasantly warm & drowsy after eating them. And once fall shows up and starts sniffing around, Thanksgiving's not far behind... my favorite holiday of all, I think. (Who can argue with a day devoted to cooking and eating in the company of family?)

Then there's the creative impulse that seems to blossom in fall--maybe creativity is a member of the winter squash family, or perhaps some sort of a cruciferous vegetable? After weeks (er, months) of neglecting The Book, I feel new ideas and details and bits & pieces of narrative structure finally opening up in my mind, sending tendrils of excitement down long-dormant neural pathways. Who knows? Maybe this year I'll not only sign up for National Novel Writing Month, but actually accomplish something during it.

So even though there's always something a little melancholy about fall, and I know winter with its long stretches of dreary grey blahs won't be far away now, I'm always excited for the first days of digging through dresser drawers for sweaters, the first sight of a turning leaf.

I need to make sure we get a few more hikes in before the rains come and the trails get too sodden to walk.

Not worth it/Worth it

Not worth it:

• the horrible pukey feeling I get whenever I see, hear or run across a mention of Sarah Palin. I think I've figured out why I have such a viscerally negative reaction to her--it has to do with the perfecter-than-thou mommies at MOPS who offer up chunks of godly advice like "if your three-year-old son isn't potty-trained yet, try sticking him in a cold shower whenever he messes his pants"--but I'm trying really freaking hard not to dwell on it.
• feeling helpless and paralyzed about anything career-, goal- or money-related. Can't someone just come tell me what to do? I promise I'll do it, or at least try.
• freaking out over the smudgy light switches which have been bothering the hell out of me for like four weeks now so you'd think I'd just grab a Magic Eraser and wipe them down already. God.
• the waves of self-loathing that wash over me whenever I look down at my big ol' muffin top jelly belly. Which I then try to push back into the generalized tide of dissatisfaction with the help of a nice big slab of cold leftover roast beef out of the refrigerator.

Worth it:

• hearing Fisher and Rhys cracking up over the dopey homemade Lego Star Wars videos on YouTube.
• snuggling up with the boys for our daily read-aloud of a chapter from the Landmark biography of Alexander the Great (how retro is that?).
• listening to Rhys read through another Little Bear story (this time, my favorite: "Little Bear Goes to the Moon") with growing confidence and a genuine giggle at the silly parts.
• having two boys (three if you count Jim) who genuinely appreciate my cooking and get all excited about corn dog casserole.
• going for a solo stroll through the neighborhood on a perfectly beautiful almost-fall day, earbuds screwed into my ears, Beck's "Peaches and Cream" cranking, crows and squirrels scolding as I pass under their tree-limb stakeouts.
• wriggling on my belly through the narrow spooky part of Ape Cave Lava Tube and emerging on the other side to a constellation of flashlights in my face.
• lifting weights and doing pushups 'til my arms get all trembly and I'm reminded how good it feels just to move.
• spending two and a half days in Vegas with two of my favorite co-workers learning awesome stuff about Photoshop on the company dime... and picking up a stellar Betsey Johnson coat in the process.
  
• getting Lightroom 2, Photoshop CS3 and Photomatix HDR tone-mapping software all working together in beautiful harmony.
• waking up half an hour before I have to be out of bed and spending that half hour with my head snuggled up on my sweetie's shoulder and, um, ahem.
• discovering that the boys have a previously-unsuspected love for the music of Kenny Rogers. (Shut up. Kenny Rogers rocks.)
• moments like this (rooty hair, smudgy-faced boy and all):

Yeah, pretty much totally worth it.

How to tell if you're a bad homeschooler

Probably some of this just falls into the "you're a bad parent" camp as well.

1. Your kids yell "Five-oh! Five-oh!" when a police car drives by. (You taught this to them yourself, because you thought it would be funny.)

2. You wholeheartedly applaud the University of California's decision, recently upheld by the courts, to disallow religious curriculum from being used to fulfill science course requirements. Because "Goddidit" is not a scientific explanation. Also, since you used to work for  a UC campus' admissions department, you are fully aware that any homeschooled student admitted to UC is there as the result of an Admission by Exception decision, and so it seems silly to you for homeschoolers to care what sorts of curriculum UC will or won't accept anyway.

3. When people post to the homeschooling e-mail lists to which you subscribe with missives such as this:

Hi ,
I recently joined this group.I have a one 4.5 year old Son and 2 year
old daughter and fairly new to the HS world.My son recently started
writing and he would love to have penpal too.We are in NE .If anybody
is interested pl email me too.

you think to yourself, "Ought this person really to be in charge of the education of other people?"

Because a good homeschooler would think, "Wow, it's so great that this parent has decided to take responsibility for her own children's education, and she'll probably find that she learns just as much as they do in the process." And a bad homeschooler thinks that learning alongside your kids works great for things like the details of World War I aircraft or the plots of the thirty-eleven Shakespeare plays you haven't read yet or heck, even the basics of organic chemistry... but not so much for the essentials of freakin' English literacy.

4. Your intended curriculum for the first year of full-time two-kid homeschooling: math, phonics, grammar, art history, geography, vocabulary study, science science science. Your in-practice curriculum for the first year of full-time two-kid homeschooling: Legos, math when they show an interest in it, library books.

Your intended curriculum for the second year of full-time two-kid homeschooling: Legos, high school geometry when they show an interest in it, library books.

5. You have a nanny. What kind of homeschooler has a freakin' nanny?

6. Your nanny is a pierced, tattooed, Orange County-originating, horse-training lesbian who's majoring in mortuary studies. Your kids adore her and are sad when she's not around. (So are you. She's lots of fun.)

7. Your kids already have their first tattoo designs picked out. (Fisher's: a heart with "Mama Didn't Love Me" written across it--he picked this up from Raising Arizona. Rhys's: a unicorn with a skull impaled on its horn--he made this completely up out of his awesome little head.)

8. You let your kids watch "Metalocalypse," but only the episode where Nathan Explosion tries to get his GED and Murderface competes in the Celebrity Spelling Bee. Because it reinforces the importance of education.

9. Your kids have memorized multiple Eddie Izzard routines. Especially the Death Star Canteen one, which I know I've posted here before but is really worth revisiting. (N.B.: When reciting this one, Fisher voluntarily, and rather inexplicably, replaces all the swear words with "bleep." Rhys does no such thing.)

10. You've been putting off buying a very cool-sounding chemistry curriculum because it costs $30, but you saw an iPod boom box for $50 in the Target ad in today's newspaper and think that owning it would add immeasurably to your kids' lives.

11. Your kids are never, ever home. Right now they're driving with Grandma and Grandpa back from Colorado. They've been gone for almost two weeks. They were gone for two weeks earlier this summer. They were gone this spring, and just before Christmas, and you think last fall too. And every time they're gone, it sucks a little more. (Maybe there's a glimmering of hope for you after all. Maybe you could still turn into one of those good homeschooling parents whose children are never more than three feet from the shelter of her denim jumper.)