I wonder if it’s taboo to endeavor to be a lighthearted children’s book author who also writes disturbing adult murder mysteries and teenage romance? I’m sure there’s no real cause for concern, seeing as I’ve never even completed a project I might deem suitable for submission! But looking ahead and remaining optimistic, I’m wondering if I should just pick a genre and stay there? Wait? What’s all this about remaining optimistic? As if I’ll somehow fall short as a person if my name never finds itself imprinted on a book? As if I will have “arrived” if some publisher one day cuts me a meager check? As if having my story on a shelf somehow makes me a better wife, mother, sister, friend? What is this I’m so willfully striving for? Tsk. O, the woes of a fledgling writer… overly confident, self-important, self-obsessed… and shamefully insecure so as to paralyze the very process that offers such gratuitous, egomaniacal joy.
Gianni Be Good February 26, 2008
A delightfully wonderful first birthday gift courtesy of our next-door neighbor, Paul:
Deep down in New Jersey, south of Burlington
Moorestown is the place where it all begun
In the house that Neal was tryin’ to heat with wood
There came a little boy named Gianni be good
How’d his mama ever learn to write so well
With daddy playin’ guitar just like a ringin’ a bell
Go go, go Gianni go, go. Go Gianni go, go. Go gianni go, go.
Go, Gianni go, go. Go, Gianni go, go. Gianni be good.
Somedays when his mama packs the diaper sack
They walk with Michaelina by the railroad tracks
People come to see him sleepin’ in the shade
Smilin’ at the faces that the neighbors made
Wednesday night when people come and stay and stay
Oh my, but that little boy sleeps anyway
Go go, go Gianni go, go. Go Gianni go, go. Go gianni go, go.
Go, Gianni go, go. Go, Gianni go, go. Gianni be good.
Billsy likes to think it’s biological
Ernie doesn’t see how that is logical
Neal’s been out shopping for a small guitar
Peg is pretty sure he’s gonna be a star
When Irma’s gotta watch him till the morning’s light
She says Gianni be good tonight
Go go, go Gianni go, go. Go Gianni go, go. Go gianni go, go.
Go, Gianni go, go. Go, Gianni go, go. Gianni be good.
His mama told him one day you will be a man
And you will be the leader of a big ol’ band
Many people coming from miles around
To hear you play your guitar when the sun goes down
Maybe someday your name will be in lights
Sayin’ “Gianni Be Good Tonight”
My Baby and My Blog February 25, 2008
So big baby G-man turned one yesterday. It’s hard to believe that a year ago I was beside myself with anxiety about not having a job, going stark raving mad at the thought of having no choice but to go back to the retail hell of Victoria’s Secret. While I was on maternity leave, my boss had called me and offered me a position in my home town. That was supposed to be an improvement… nee a dangled carrot… to the 1 and 1/2 hour commute (each way) I had been enduring for the past several (and very pregnant) months. I had known all along that I would never be going back. That job was a means to an end, providing the health care for Gianni’s delivery. It’s a good thing I took that job too, because the out-of-pocket expense for his birth was somewhere to the tune of $10,000. The health insurance company’s statement, no lie, read $216,000. Yeah, I totally thought it was a typo too. I remember after I spent the first hour at home with Gianni, I knew I’d never go back to work. I was born and bred to be a mother. If only I could be paid to stay home and raise my babies. But I have freely chosen to live in this unaffordable state of NJ, so on the day of my first interview, I bawled my eyes out in the truck before going in. I hadn’t even gotten the job yet, and I couldn’t conceive of having one. It felt so unnatural to be dressed in a suit, makeup on and hair sprayed, with my 5-week old son squirming at home in a bassinet next to my empty bed. I knew his daddy would take good care of him, but in that moment I couldn’t help but feel a certain ironic resentment for feminists. Sure I am smart, talented and worthy of making as much money as any man, and I’m certainly grateful for my equal rights. But it’s a ferocious, primal urge to nurture and soothe your baby. It’s nobody else’s job. I feel for every woman that has had to go back to work and leave their babies in the care of total strangers. I, for one, could never do it.
And here I am, one year later. I work as a graphic designer and copy writer 35 hours a week, right down the road from home. Neal is super-daddy, doing the child care, the laundry, the shopping, the nurturing. Thank God Almighty that our lives permit this – and thank God Almighty for Neal’s schedule, his tolerance, his ethic. I know it’s a rare and beautiful thing, and I am eternally grateful. I’m home everyday for lunch, I’m home everyday to pick up Lina from school. I take her to her piano lesson every week and I’m home to hear her practice while I cook dinner every night. It’s a far cry from retail hell. It is heaven and I know it.
Gianni is growing by leaps and bounds. He got his first haircut and is the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen… although I’ve said that countless times before about his big sister. He is cruising all over the furniture, pulling himself up on couches, tables, chairs and pantlegs. He claps his hands and hums along to tunes, gyrates his fat little belly whenever he hears music, and sucks his thumb and hugs his “lovie” whenever he’s feeling tired or insecure. His Aunt Peg taught him “So big” and his Pop-Pop taught him “Putchyerheaddown, putchyerheaddown” and “bah bah bah bah bah.” Nana taught him how to love his name by singing and dancing with him to “When da moon hits your eye like a bigga pizza pie, dat’s Gianni…” and his Aunt Sue has yet another sweet little “Whoozit” in her life. Countless other relatives and friends have a big old soft spot in their hearts for “The G-man” who elicits sheer joy at the sight of him… including his ol’ lady.
As for work. It’s ok, but clearly I’d rather be blogging… and babying.
Ready February 22, 2008
I started writing a murder mystery. It’s a bit unexpected and outside my typical means of creative expression, which is often more expository – for better or for worse. I’m actually pretty excited. I’m finding plot twists and character complexities pop into my mind at the oddest of times. It’s affirming. The fact that I could be scraping the ice off my windshield and suddenly I’m hit with a devious little plot nuance that in an instant finds me feeling mischievous and savvy in an otherwise bland life moment. I am invigorated with ideas, and wish I hadn’t called too late about that fiction writing course this semester. It was already full by the time I went to register. Oh well, COM252 – Intercultural Communications must have it’s reasons for having me. I have to believe that there are scenes in my life well-suited for any story that may want to write itself. And it does feel that way. I’ve heard authors say that their story wrote itself – they just allowed it to play out as they moved their fingers across the keyboard. That’s pretty much how it feels. The story has been unfolding in my mind as if on a screen before me. I watch, entertained, if not enthralled. Then I write it down. As I was showering the other day, the scenes were playing out so smoothly that I had to wash my body faster so I wouldn’t forget what happened. And I’m one tall drink of water, so a quick wash is no small thing. It made me laugh that I was so charged up about something. I’ve never felt so connected to characters before. It’s like they’re friends and are trying to get my attention. They want me to come out and play. I’ve been ignoring them for far too long. I’m that friend that decided not to play anymore once I fell in love. I was swept off my feet and turned my back on the game, right in the middle of a play. I let the ball go rolling into the outfield as I skipped off the field, leaving all my friends to look at each other baffled with their arms in the air as if to say, “Hey?! Where ya goin’?” Now, I’m back and the game is on and I’m ready to kick ass.
Fortunes Fool Is Fortunes Full February 19, 2008
Great. Now I’ve got Shakespeare on the brain:
Benvolio – Romeo, away, be gone! The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain.Stand not amazed: the prince will doom thee death,If thou art taken: hence, be gone, away!
Romeo – O, I am fortune’s fool!
Benvolio - Why dost thou stay?
For some reason, I always thought he’d said, “I am fortunes full.” I only very recently discovered I’ve had it wrong all along. Somehow that changes everything.
My dad bought me the complete works of Shakespeare for Christmas when I was 16. So you’d think I’d reference these things prior to making any assumptions. But no, 20 years later, I still say “I am fortunes full”, secretly proud of my ability to inaccurately borrow such an elegant phrase from the most brilliant writer of all time.
Well, let’s be fair. I do have it all. The loving husband, the beautiful babies, the house in the suburbs, the (former) adopted greyhounds, the sport-utility vehicle, the ability-to-work-from-home job, the brains, the wit, and perhaps even the legs. It’s fitting for me to say I am fortunes full. I am. But saying it keeps me humble.
I didn’t know I should have been saying I am fortune’s fool all this time. How embarrassing. My sense of abundance now stands before me, mocking not only my total recall of Shakespeare, but also life itself. The revelation has suddenly invited a rather dark realization. I equate the feeling to a veil of comfort and security, draping over an obscure face that is the grief and longing of my life.
Why dost thou stay?
Which is to say – How can you just stand there staring?
I guess it’s one of those things you can’t turn away from. You watch it happening in sheer disbelief, yet you have no ability whatsoever to affect the outcome. When dumbstruck realization sets in, time tends to stand still, while a competing sense that this life is having it’s way with you occurs simultaneously. Events are completely outside your control, and time is moving swifter than you can possibly comprehend, but at the same time holds you weightless in it’s grasp. You stare slack-jawed at the events as they unfold, often paralyzed by an inconceivable numbness and holding onto a palpable grief for what could have, should have been.
I am fortune’s fool, indeed.
Indeed.
Sweet Love February 15, 2008
I had to steal today’s material from my pal Julie’s blog. I was submitting a response to her post when suddenly I realized I was writing my own. Too funny. Thanks for the subject matter Jules!
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
How I do love Shakespeare. I like to think of myself as an uglier version of Gwynneth Paltrow in “Shakespeare in Love” - a sad, swooning sack of romantic delirium.
I think that’s the toughest part about being “in” love. A solid relationship ebbs and flows, while hopeless romanticism balances carelessly on the threshold of paranoid codependence.
Once silly, sappy, gushy romantic love moves out and routine, practical, steadfast permanence moves in – and it’s an ambiguous thing as it happens – you find yourself eventually grieving the loss of the warm fuzzies. The trick may be to zero in on the fuzzies ricocheting off the walls inside the glass box that is the long, breakable haul.
If you are spry and savvy enough to manage to intercept a flutter every now and again, then your relationship for the time being may be considered salvaged. If not, then fuck it and file the divorce papers.
Still, even for the most resilient of lovers, the challenge inevitably becomes the consoling of your own heart – for the simple fact remains that nothing in this life is permanent, and we are all… utterly… alone.
Ew! Happy Day After Valentine’s Day! 
I Fell In Love Today February 14, 2008
I can think of no finer morning than the one that begins with a chocolate surprise.
A complete stranger left a chocolate on my desk this morning, along with a valentine of Pooh & Piglet. Her name is Shannon. She works in my office and we’ve never met, but she’s the object of my affection today.
Anyone that can start my day with chocolate ranks superior in my book, especially when they give me my favorite chocolate of all time – Reese’s. As if Reese’s could possibly be improved upon, they go and make a heart out of it. It’s like falling in love twice! How delightful!
So my heart is all a-flutter. It doesn’t take much to win it. I began swooning under the chocolate spell at 8:03 am.
If my hubby has done right by me, when I get home from work today there will be a dozen red roses in a vase on my dining room table. I’ll think to myself, “Good boy” then start scanning the room for chocolate. I become like Veruca Salt on Valentine’s Day
I want a party with rooms full of laughter
Ten thousand tons of ice cream
And if I don’t get the things I am after
I’m going to screeeeeeaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAMMMMMM!
Good God man, get the girl some chocolate!
I’m a chocoholic. I’ll admit it. It’s the first step. But hey, vampires know they are vampires. It doesn’t change the fact that they’re stone dead and can’t do a damn thing about it.
For now, Shannon, my thirst is quenched…
Worth It February 12, 2008
I went away this weekend to attend a writer’s conference in NYC.
It was good… I think? Unfortunately, I was unable to participate in the writer’s intensive on Friday night. All the spaces were filled by the time I had registered. I found out from some friends who attended that I definitely missed out on the privilege of enjoying round-table breakout sessions with experienced professionals. Participants had their work read and critiqued by industry editors, agents and publishers.
I tried not to be too disappointed at my missed opportunity, and went into Saturday’s conference feeling hopeful and optimistic. I did learn a few things, however my relentless marketing mind wouldn’t allow for any restraint from picking apart virtually every nuance of how the day was flowing… or wasn’t, as it were.
I would have done things so much differently. First of all, there were over 1,000 aspiring children’s book authors and illustrators in attendance. That’s a lot of people with a lot of questions. We were hustled and shuffled from one speech to the next, from conference room to conference room, with little time leftover to address inquiries.
I got the basic impression that the industry professionals were in attendance solely to protect their vested interests and uphold certain relationships and networking motives. I didn’t get the sense that I was surrounded by promising children’s book hopefuls. I felt like I was surrounded by people who hoped they might one day be considered hopefuls.
I didn’t feel like the editors and agents really gave two shakes about anyone’s material, but they had to be courteous and gracious to support their relationships with the society, which was helping to put caviar on their table.
Call me cynical, but the overall feeling was that the publishers’ open invitations to submit directly to them felt less like preferential treatment and more like a crafty smokescreen. I don’t like being fed lines. I don’t like being made to feel like what I have to say matters when it doesn’t. I don’t like being pacified. I don’t like playing the fool. And I certainly don’t like paying hundreds of dollars to feel that way.
For that reason, I’m undecided whether the fact that my alarm clock failed to go off the next morning was serendipitous or not? At first I was panicked and heartbroken that I had overslept by 5 hours. It meant that since I was staying in Brooklyn, I still had a 40-minute commute ahead of me… after I peed, brushed my teeth, got dressed and packed my bags.By the time I got to Sunday’s conference, there was less than a half hour left of it. I sat in my car and resisted the urge to cry as I weighed the drawbacks and benefits of going in for a measly 20 minutes.
Turns out it’s a good thing I chose to leave, because I got lost trying to find the tunnel, so I got home just as Neal was leaving for his gig. If I had stayed, he would have been late to his show and furious with me.
So… what can one do? Maybe I learned a thing or three. Maybe I learned I have to shit or get off the pot. Maybe I learned that children’s book writing is what I’ve always been cut out to do… or maybe it’s only become a sedative to what I’m really supposed to be doing. Maybe courage is the only thing missing. Maybe the answer is more obvious than I think.
All in all, I look at it this way: when was the last time I got to sleep for 12 hours straight? Methinks it was worth the money.
A Rose For Daddy February 7, 2008
The first time I ever received roses, I was 15 years old. I remember sitting at the dinner table with my family. I was the only girl of four kids. It was as ugly a day as any – a rather pathetic status quo for me back then – just another suburban middle-class Tuesday filled with lamentations over my latent pubescence, stubborn acne, gingivitis and a nose too big for my face.
A lanky, red-headed tomboy, I knew no admirers… secret or otherwise. Although I had my crushes, the extent of my courting experiences boiled down to wishful thinking. I’ll admit I always shot too high, ambitiously ogling over popular upperclassmen, soccer jocks and hot guys that were generally way out of my league. After all, I was the smart girl with the wiry french braid, pink satin blouse, black skirt and white flats, who the handsome varsity superstar had asked to dance during the big homecoming event… only to find my vulnerable, hopeful heart standing all alone in the middle of the dance floor, watching as he and his teammates laughed and high-fived one another at my expense.
Clearly, I’m all for a good sob story, but that’s actually not where I’m headed. Although I will for the sake of context, describe a typical family dinner. At the table my brothers would amuse themselves by playfully tormenting me – calling me “Klutz” and “Scrag”, and laughing at me for wearing a bra, as if there was any need? One might think them cruel and insensitive, but I’ll admit I had to have been an irresistible target. I didn’t stand a chance. I had no sisters to teach me how to dress or do my hair and makeup. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t will myself to be beautiful.
When my brothers finished their dinner, they’d jump up from the table and go off to do boy’s stuff. By then, my father would arrive home late from work and eat with me. In years past, we all ate as a family and I relished being protected by my dad, who kept everyone in line. But anymore it seemed our family tended to wolf down our food in shifts, with regard to what was on our respective schedules. This particular night, I was the last one left at the table. He’d taken off his tie and asked me how my day was. I shrugged miserably. “It was ok, I guess.”
“Just ok?” he asked as he pierced a slab of cold roast beef and placed it on his plate.
“Yeah.” I poked at my carrots.
He began to slice his meat and pressed on, “Well, what did you do all day?”
I sat there, trying to come up with something worth mentioning. I came up empty.
“Anything good?” He asked.
“No.”
He stopped and looked squarely at me, making the face that suggested he’d had enough of my evasive maneuvering. He spouted a bit of signature stock wisdom, “What is your problem Denise? Basic or otherwise?”
I was often annoyed with his brand of sarcastic truth. I groaned and shifted in my chair. “Ugghh, I don’t know, Dad.”
He reached over and touched my elbow. He didn’t need to say anything more. I involuntarily let my guard down and resisted the urge to let tears well as I told him about the jokes, the insults, and the ridicule seemingly coming at me from all directions.
He placed his fork down and said, “Niecee, let me tell you something. You are the most beautiful girl I know.”
Now that was taking it too far. I rolled my eyes and made the sound of sheer disgust. I pulled my elbow away and slouched, “You have to say I’m beautiful because you’re my dad. But I know I’m ugly…”
He interrupted with a laugh… his deep, hearty, fatherly laugh. It caught me by surprise and I felt mocked in my self-pity. “Why is that funny?” I demanded, half pouting and half scowling.
He composed his laughter enough to manage, “Denise… I seen ugly, and believe me… you ain’t it!”
I smiled, against my will to be obstinate, and for a change didn’t feel so bad. At 15, I was still rather sheltered and naive. I had yet to witness any horror, tragedy or sheer ugliness in the world, but somehow I guessed he knew what he was talking about.
When two dozen roses arrived – one for my mother and one for me – I accepted my bouquet with a new and unfamiliar feeling. I remember my heart leaping at the sight of them… and the idea that I might be loved beyond limits, in spite of all my self-loathing.
Staring at the deep, red, silky petals, somehow I felt a little softer, sweeter, prettier for having been on the receiving end of something so lovely. From that day on, each and every February 14th, a dozen roses would arrive like clockwork with my name on it. And with every passing Valentine’s Day, it seemed my confidence grew a little more, along with a sense of purpose and perhaps even some beauty. I can’t help but think about God’s sheer genius in crafting such a perfect creation. It’s amazing how all those wicked little thorns so perfectly guard and protect the rosebud, allowing it to bloom to it’s fullest potential.
How could I have known that 8 short years later, I’d find myself placing a rose on my first valentine’s casket? I kissed it as I said, “I love you” for the last time. “Thanks for all the roses, Daddy… and for helping me believe I really am beautiful.”
It’s Raining, It’s Pouring February 1, 2008
Keep it locked up inside, don’t talk about it. Talk about the weather.
- Dave Matthews: So Much To Say
Today’s the perfect day to talk about the weather. In New Jersey it’s rainy, cold, dreary, an generally blah. In my office, co-workers pass the time in their cubes chatting amiably, yet miserably about why our ancestors chose to live in this state. People who wandered here from sunny California question their judgement. The rest of us think about retired relatives golfing somewhere in Florida.
At the proverbial water cooler, few alternative topics govern conversation. I used to work with a woman who only talked about the weather. I felt sorry for her. I wondered how many skeletons must have been in her closet. I would visualize deep, dark secrets that prohibited her from venturing outside the safety of the global warming topic. She probably killed someone. She lives in Florida now, probably golfing as I type near this cold, wet window.
