Having not blogged for the last 2 months I'm going to guess that I've lost the interest of my fan base (yes mom, that means you), freeing me up to say what I really think. Which unfortunately is nothing scandalous, just something basic: writing is hard. For me, doing anything consistently is hard. I can only do one thing at a time, especially if it's something good for me. Like eating right and exercising. Rarely do I manage to eat celery sticks for dessert after a big day at the gym- except for that one memorable day last July. Right now I'm not doing either, which leaves a lot of space for me to think positive thoughts- about how one day I will grow an organic garden and do handstands over my personal patch of okra in the backyard. For now, I'm working in the newspaper industry which is just booming these days- especially with the thriving economy and growing demand for print products (loads of job security and generous raises to boot!!), a broken muffler, bug sightings that would shock Gregor Samsa and the daily joys of raising a three year old. With this last, I do spare the sarcasm, for he truly delights me. Like right now he is demanding that I make a fort out of a folding ruler and 2 minutes ago he was in my lap begging me to make the world stop after a particularly nefarious spinning bout and 4 minutes before he showed me his paper with 2 large "O's" one large "E" and a squiggly line. What's that squiggle? I asked and he said "I don't know, it just looks like a wolf yelling in the snow." So he truly is a miracle, and no less a miracle is the fact that I've written anything at all in the last 10 minutes since I decided to tackle this beast of a blog that has been haunting me in its big empty, blank, dejected sort of way for the last month and 27 days or so. So once again I am at that place in my life where I have lots of excuses for not writing in the past, but the excuses for not writing in the present are growing shabbier and lamer by the nanosecond. Excuse me, I must go stuff a pillow up my son's shirt, but I must say, in a weird little way it feels good to be back.

more adventures of bad valley

Bad Valley is on her third divorce in New York.
She lives on the 8th floor without windows or an elevator.
She can run up the stairs because she never gained weight because she never got pregnant and she never, ever lived west of the city in the suburbs.
Bad Valley has the names of her most prominent lovers tattooed on the small of her back. However she can’t quite keep track of them all, so she has them sign a guest book on the way out the door. Bad Valley lives next to the bus station. She eats breakfast at 7-11 or Waffle House or Aunt Sarah’s every morning. She eats chocolates and skittles for lunch and has a steak dinner with fried onion rings every night. Bad Valley does not go to bed at a respectable hour. She jay-walks and hitchhikes and goes to midnight movies and after hour clubs. She has a whole different group of friends from dusk to dawn, friends whose last names she never bothers to discover. Bad Valley sleeps in a different bed every night of the week. She does not use a planner. She does not know what day it is or which month, only the season and sometimes the year. Bad Valley runs away with the circus for a month every summer. She is very flexible. Bad Valley does not go home at Christmas and is not sure to call. She does not own flats or sneakers or snow boots. Bad Valley wears flip-flops and heels and impractical clogs. Bad Valley never memorized her social security number and keeps cash wadded up in balls under the mattress and behind the mirror. Bad Valley does not have savings or mastercard or visa. Bad Valley has an endless cash flow from an unknown source. Bad Valley is very, very good at cards. Bad Valley has a poker face. Bad Valley can shoot darts and play pool. Bad Valley gets tips even when she’s not working. Bad Valley has a pocketknife. Bad Valley has a bottle opener on her key chain. Bad Valley has over due library books that she’ll just go ahead and keep. Bad Valley does not adhere enough postage. She signs all of her letters with red lipstick kisses and dots of perfume. Bad Valley lies to the clergy. Bad Valley wrecks automobiles and gets tickets for speeding. But nobody makes Bad Valley pay because she is too beautiful and beguiling. Bad Valley doesn’t use coupons or drive to different grocery stores in search of sales. Bad Valley does not plan the future or think about the past.

introducing my alter ego!

Bad Valley does not want to meet your mother.
Bad Valley doesn’t do windows.
Bad Valley does not take a multi-vitamin.
Bad Valley kisses boys on public transportation.
Bad Valley didn’t write her own vows but if she did, she wouldn’t mean them. Bad Valley only prays for herself. Bad Valley looks for a new apartment when it’s time to clean the house. Bad Valley lets the bills and the laundry and the dishes pile up and then stuffs them all big black garbage bags to be hauled away with the trash. Bad Valley has never filed state income tax. She eats nothing with artificial sweetener and at restaurants she orders cheesecake and French fries. Bad Valley drinks whiskey from the bottle and wine from the jug. She smokes unfiltered cigarettes from a skinny silver cigarette holder that has turned ashy black and is hot to the touch. She chain smokes in nature. Bad Valley never came back to Virginia, never sought a therapist and still speaks trash to her mother. Bad Valley doesn’t attend family reunions, write thank you cards or send wedding gifts. She does not get oil changes or state inspections or update her license plate tags. She never checks beneath the hood. She uses full service at gas station and tips with a kiss.

Where, oh where, is my weekend away?

I am lucky enough to have a room of my own (quite a feat for a 980 sq. foot house that hosts a boy, a man, a crazy girl (me), a dog, a cat and 6 big, fat fish), but I've shared a nook with my 3 year old who has decorated as if he's a drunken painter marooned on a Mardi Gras float.

Not to mention my husband is drawn to my computer like a fly to shit. He can't help himself, God love him, the moniter is BIG and the leather chair is adjustable. And all he has is a shed, a mock-shed addition and a LA-Z-BOY in the living room that offers an endless view of Koi butt.

So. To put it mildly, I have begun to pine for some time to myself. Not an hour. Not an afternoon. Not even a day. A WEEKEND!! A WEEK!! GIVE IT TO ME!!!

OK. I've calmed down a little. But after all this time strapped into my home-work-wife-mother-worker seat like a good little girl I am bursting! Give me an itinerary, a flight time, a roomate, nasty plane food, a map, a visor, a window seat, a destination, a boarding pass!

Of course nobody on God's green earth has kept me home but me. For Chrissakes, I'm a Cancer- I've wanted to stay home the last 9 1/2 years!

But maybe something in me is finally ready to go on that silent retreat, that writer's conference, that yoga/meditation/kundalini/swamibeyondananda getaway.

I spoke with a woman on the phone today who made it sound so easy. She's gone to writer's retreats for weeks at a time-- for the last 8 years. Since her daughter was 1. And she hasn't imploded. She hasn't lost her identity with her baggage. Her husband and child still speak to her. And right now she's on tour with her book.

Maybe I'll start small. Like if there's something for 2 days. In Virginia. That's free.

If you find it, sign me up and tell me where to go.

why didn't i like the nice boys in college?

Unfortunately, my freshman year at Sarah Lawrence, I was not terribly interested in the special manner of learning that the school could provide, the extensive opportunity to be near NYC, the internships, the clubs and coalitions, the special interest groups or the opportunity for close relationships with my professors.

No. I wanted to party. I wanted sex, drugs and rock n' roll~! (Well, if Leonard Cohen counts as rock n' roll.) I didn't even know it, but the truth- or at least part of the truth, is that I was out to educate my Id. And it did my thinking for me.

I suppose that's why after taking the subway into the city to see Grace Paley it was so easy to let go of the nice boy who'd taken me out. He was studious, sincere, authentic and sweet. I was not. I was deeply invested in finding just the right guy to break my heart. Which I did.

And so, just around the time I accepted my third or fourth waitressing position post-graduation, that nice boy of yore became the Senior Fiction Editor at Viking Penguin.

And he's still nice. So nice that when I called him last year to get an interview about the state of the publishing industry in 2007, he reminisced with me as if I were nice too.

all about me

Finally there is an article all about me!

Of course, all I think about is me, so an article about me is my favorite kinda reading. Join my fan club, and read the article about me, here at Richmond.com. Oh, it's so endlessly interesting. I wish that all of my articles from now on could be all about me, too. Of course they already are-my thinly veiled view of the world- wrapped up in someone else's ideas, thoughts, words. But what I hear, how I hear it and what ends up on the paper, is of course, really just more about me- disguised as someone else.

In all seriousness, you really should read about me. I'm so fascinating. This little preview will whet your tongue and get you revved up for my book, due out in no less than 10 years, which is of course, also about me, (plus an additional 200 pages.)

First of all, I want to thank Catherine Baab, the literary figure writer-abouter at Richmond.com for recognizing my amazingness and choosing to interview me. Catherine is an excellent writer whom I first met when she won 2nd place in the Style Fiction Contest in 2006, for her story, "The Last Reader." She also recently won the Best Unpublished Manuscript Contest sponsored by Richmond Magazine for her novel, "I Love You I Get Good Grades," for which I was also a judge. No connection or relation, purely subjective coincidence, as is all good judging.

Secondly and lastly, I would like to thank my mother and my father for working so hard to make me so great. They let me fall and rise again and they handed me their faults and their blessings on a big, endless platter, over which I still have free reign.