glosses

Some good friends of mine are running a charity to try to save Vera Nazarian, a writer and a very good person, from foreclosure.

Vera has been through series of unfortunate events uncluding a crook who scammed her, illness, caring for her sick old mother (who has cancer), and her father’s death earlier this year.

http://community.livejournal.com/helpvera/751.html

I’ve contributed as much as I could. This is one of those moments when even 1$ donated makes a huge difference. If you can, please consider donating and/or spreading the word.

76. My new house.
77. Dreaming about dinner parties in my new house
(77b) note that planning a move into my new house and the remodeling hassle do NOT make me happy.
78. The smell of oil paints. It reminds me of my childhood, and my dad’s studio.
79. The fact that I’m alive.
80. That two of my lost-touch friends emailed this month.
81. Hearing my child say a word.
82. Autumn leaves.
83. Brushing my thumb across the bristles of a paintbrush.
84. Yellow roses.
85. That I am useful to other people.
86. Beautiful furniture (which I can’t afford).
87. Crisp autumn air.
88. The book “African Dilemma Tales.” I wanted to buy it since 2005.
89. A French cream cake from Masse’s, and I will be getting one in the end of December!!!!!!!!!!
90. Shiny things.

I have this wall in my new dining room that is currently covered by wallpaper. The wallpaper itself is nice enough, but… but. Most of my other walls are covered by mahogany paneling. I’d like to strip the wallpaper and paint a mural on that wall.

I’ve painted a mural once before, six years ago in a rental apartment. (it is in the photo). I’d like to do something along these lines, but a bit more modern, with trees and birds. Perhaps owls.

We moved here almost four months ago, and lived without a sofa (or much other furniture) all this time. We thought this time we would get a new sofa. I found a store I really liked, but alas, the 1000$+ creations are out of our price range.

Finally this sofa came up on Craigslist. It originally came from that store I liked. It’s used, but in a very good condition. Color is mushroom. Nor my first choice, but nice.

Paid 250$ and the guy delivered it for free. Neat.

It’s hard to live simply if you’re a slob, a bibliophile, and are married to a packrat. But we’re working on it.

Here are some things we did/are doing.

• If you don’t need it and don’t love it, don’t buy it.
  This works great. We’ve lived here for three months, and still no sofa. :D

• recycle
  Taking care of the environment is important. We have a pick-up recycling service that takes away our cans, paper recycling, etc.

• give up TV
  No TV here. May have something to do with having no sofa…

• use Freecycle.org to donate unused items.
  Minimizes clutter and makes me feel warm and fuzzy to find good homes for my unneeded treasures.

• give up cellphone.
  We do have a prepaid cell for emergencies.

• do a wardrobe purge
  I purged/sold/donated 80% of my clothes. Now my wardrobe takes little space and ironically I have more to wear.

• Set up automatic billing.
  Minimizes paperwork.

Still to do:

• Minimize and organize paperwork.
  We’re simply not good at organizing. Maybe we need professional help.

• update the library.
  Between the two of us we own thousands of books, and have no more shelf space/money for new additions. A good strategy would be to sell some books we no longer need and instead get new (well, second-hand) books. I actually did quite a lot of this, but my husband refuses to part even with a single volume. We use the library all the time now instead of buying books, unless we absolutely have to.

• be neater and cleaner.
  If pigs could fly.

• switch to all organic/non-toxic cleaning supplies.
  We’re doing moderately well on this one – the dishwashing powder, soaps, and floor cleaning liquid are now Seventh Generation. Coming next: detergent.

About a month ago, we found the perfect house. It’s from the fifties, architect-designed. It is beautifully preserved on the inside, with mahogany paneling and ugh shag rug carpet. My agent says many people looked at the house and passed because it was “too small.” It is a 1500 sq.ft. house! It’s not small at all. It’s perfect. Of course by “today’s standards” of McMansions it is small; it lacks, for example, a master bath.

I couldn’t care less.

It has a nook off the living room which would make a perfect library.

And it’s not that expensive – less than we planned to pay for a house.

Closing is on Friday. Wish me luck!

I found this agent through the internet and tried to work with him in the last month. I am not in a hurry, but he didn’t seem to care at all about me. He returned my calls a week or so late explaining he had other clients with more urgent needs. He never even showed me a single house! So today I emailed him to say I found another agent.

Sure enough, later today a new friend recommended her agent. He seems wonderful, returned my call within 20 minutes of me leaving a message, and I am meeting with him tomorrow.

I am not a very assertive person, but I’m feeling happy that I made this decision. Buying a house is supposed to be my happy time. I want to be happy and excited, not annoyed and bitchy.

So this is about pitching my freshly finished novel to agents.
I guess this goal breaks up into mini-goals.

a. write a query.
b. get the query critiqued.
c. tear out hair.
d. rewrite query.
e. get it critiqued.
f. put a wig on.
g. achieve perfection.

h. send the query out!

I did a, b, c, d and e. I need to go buy a wig because this query obviously needs to go through another dozen iterations. :D

Wish me luck!

53. Selling a poem.
54. Selling a short story.
55. My new job!
56. The walrus ivory Alaskan walrus that my best friend gave me.
57. Yiddish.
58. Klezmer!
59. Thinking about a house I’ll buy one day.
60. My colleagues.
61. My colleague’s corgi dog.
62. Thunderstorms!
63. Being in New Mexico
64. Watching my son eat corn!
65. Metaphors.
66. Sand through my fingers, in the darkness, like stars.
67. Touching old wooden furniture.
68. When people smile at me.
69. When people think I’m a student (I’m a professor).
70. Being a professor.
71. Research! I probably said this earlier.
72. Old Yiddish movies.
73. Champagne.
74. When I happen to write something beautiful.
75. That my mom really loves me now.

I am going to see some houses next Tuesday. Not buying yet, just testing the waters…

I finished the draft of my dark fantasy novel (actually this is a second draft, but the first didn’t have an ending- this one does). The book stands at almost 100k words. It took me a full year to get to this point. I’m not ticking this goal off yet, because I am not done – need to send out to beta readers, revise, polish, and then query.

It’s been a very frustrating process – alternating between immense pleasure and complete despair. I have no idea how I didn’t give up on the book. But I’m very happy it’s complete. All kinds of things can be done with a full draft, whereas an incomplete draft is the worst thing in the world, imho.

Another dream coming true for me this year – I’m now a tenure-track faculty member at a large Midwestern university.
Semester starts on Tuesday.
I’m scared to death.

I wrote five and sold two this year. A bit overwhelmed with what’s going on in my life.

This is really weird, but it’s actually happening. I am on the second draft of my novel, completed about 40% of it… We’ll see how it goes.

Believe it or not, I finished and filed my dissertation last month. I thought I would never be able to finish, but here I am. All done.

It’s actually happening, though I’m a little bit stuck at the moment. I’ve written about 30,000 of the novel’s first draft. I am hoping to move some of my other writing along in November, and come back to the novel refreshed in December.

41. Little flags waving in the wind.
42. Being in Mendocino.
43. Putting on a crazy hat.
44. To see my son smile – that’s when all four teeth are showing.
45. Thinking of names for future children.
46. Drawing imaginary maps.
47. Paper goods stores.
48. The sound of rain.
49. The sound of snow.
50. Singing when nobody can hear. In Old Norse :)
51. Pictures of birds.
52. Birds.

Listed a bunch of new cards in my store, among them this Jewish New Year card in pumpkin and cream. Let me know what you think :)

http://firewhale.etsy.com

Etsy seems so huge that the personal touch seems lost at times…

Well, my tortoise lost some weight and now I am worried that she is getting too light for her shell. Perhaps I should let her eat as much as she wants, and that’s it. She’s a tortoise, not a beauty pageant contestant!

I’ve met one “friend” and hope never to go through such an experience again.