No pedant, I.

But I still reserve the right to correct bad grammar I find in graffiti.

'Cause that's just fun.

It Gets Better.

____________________________

Ellen Degeneres



Dan Savage & his husband Terry



Neil Patrick Harris

Tim Gunn

Meta Cat

You're welcome.

There Are No Words.

Neil Gaiman. Me. Amanda Palmer.

In that order.

It was probably a few weeks ago that tickets for ART's production of Cabaret starring Amanda Palmer went on sale. Shortly after that, I saw Neil Gaiman tweet that he'd gotten a couple VIP tickets for himself. And I may have tweeted this, and may have just thought it... "I'd spring for a VIP ticket if it meant I got to see Neil Gaiman on top of getting to see the show. Anyone know which night(s) he's going?"

And then the thought went out of my head. I tried to schedule a night to buy a regular ticket, but Husband has been doing lots of traveling for work, and Serious Girl has not been amused by my attempts to find babysitters other than her beloved nanny (who now has another family as her priority), and it just never came together. The show sold out, and I was S.O.L.

Naturally, I was disappointed, because Cabaret is one of my favorite musicals. First of all, I am a fool for the really dark and disturbed musicals (see also Sweeney Todd). But I also took "Broadway Dance" classes at Crunch Gym in NYC during my first year as a practicing attorney; in these classes, the gym hired Broadway dancers to teach the stage choreography for the shows they were currently in. As a result, I actually learned the Broadway routines for "Don't Tell Mama" and "Mein Herr." So, I love this show because part of my brain insists that I've actually performed this number, yes, I am one of you, cabaret dancers, and life is beautiful.

Ahem.

Then, on Monday, Neil tweeted that he had two VIP tickets for sale for Wednesday night, first come, first serve. After some frantic texting and emailing, it turned out that our nanny COULD babysit that night, and wait, even better, Husband's overnight trip was postponed and so he could just stay home with Serious Girl if I wanted to go out that night, and HOLY CRAP the ticket is still available, YES, I will buy it, MINE, The Precious... ssss... ssssssss...

Ahem.

So I got to go to the show. And I got to say hi and thanks-for-the-ticket to Neil during intermission. (Turns out his daughter and his assistant both bought tickets for the same show, and obviously he was going to sit with his daughter, so the tickets his assistant bought are the ones that became available at the last minute.) And because it was a VIP ticket, I got a free drink and an awesome little swag bag. And then I got to hang out and chat with Amanda and the other 3 VIP ticket-holders after the show. During which time Neil got me another drink. And then I got to meet the two women who were going to GET MARRIED ONSTAGE during the late-night cabaret after-show. Here, I took photos:

Rosalie is in red, Sarah is in black.

Punk cabaret lesbian wedding, can I get a HELL YEAH?

No exchange of rings, just clasping hands.

Brides.

Newlyweds.

Congratulations, ladies!

It was amazing.

And after all that, I was finally able to grab both Neil and Amanda at the same time for a photo in a manner that I hope did not disrupt their night (because, dude, she was running a show, and he was with his daughter, I was SO OBVIOUSLY not their priority) and Neil's daughter Holly took the picture, and it came out great even though she had to use the flash... and then, even though it meant I had to miss the second half of the late-night cabaret, I ran home before I could turn into a pumpkin.

And that, honey, is why I didn't make it home until after midnight. And why I was barefoot with my shoes in a pink swag bag. Thank you for understanding how awesome this was for me.

And of course Amanda's performance as the Emcee was spectacular -- although I have to say I think the actor who played Fraulein Schneider was the best of the evening. He was heart-breaking and mind-blowing and there are no words.

Okay, apparently I lied. That was a LOT of words. But I still fall short of describing it all.

The Art of Anticipation

Before I say anything substantive about last night's Grub Street class, I would like to thank our instructor, Hallie Ephron, and my classmates for being so patient and kind with me... and with Serious Girl. I actually brought Serious Girl to class with me last night, because Husband was in South Dakota overnight, and I was unable to line up any of the babysitters SG trusts (it's not a long list).

So, from 7-9:30pm, SG sat on my coat in the corner of the classroom, eating dinner and watching The Backyardigans on the iPad. In this (intentionally) dark and low-res photo, you can see her holding one headphone to her ear, while holding her spoon with the other. There are two stuffed Backyardigans along the wall, and she's actually under a large easel. Class went until 10pm, but I decided not to push my luck or SG's bedtime any further and left at 9:30, taking the last writing assignment home with me.

Serious Girl, you were a nearly silent all evening, and you were a ROCK STAR. Hallie and my fellow students, thank you so much for giving us a chance and I hope we never disturbed your class experience.

So! Last night's class was called Writing Suspense. I am simply going to share some of Hallie's insights in bullet-point form:

• Suspense is the potential that something bad is going to happen. When something bad actually happens, that's not suspense, that's conflict or action.


• Suspense often involves taking ordinary objects and imbuing them with a sense of menace.


• Suspense requires a clear sense of scene (time, place, etc.) because you cannot build suspense if the reader isn't grounded.


• Suspense requires the laying of groundwork... if the reader doesn't have the critical information before the moments of tension, it's not suspense, it's surprise. As a writer, chances are you won't know what this critical information is until you've written the key scenes. That's what editing is for: go back and put that gun in the closet, that cell phone in the hospital room, that cliff near where the car chase will eventually happen.


• Explanation ruins tension, which is another reason why the writer must provide any critical information and/or backstory before the suspenseful scenes, not during them.


• Suspense can often be created by giving the reader information that the characters don't have (although some people can't read this kind of story at all).


• The writer must raise the stakes so that characters will do things no normal person would. You know how you scream at the movie screen for characters in a horror flick not to go down to the basement? Make it so that the reader understands why the hero has no choice but to go into that basement.

Suspense and tension can be built through slowing the pace, creating a vivid sensory setting, putting the reader side-by-side with the character in peril (the "closeup" camera angle), juxtaposing the innocent with the unnerving, having the critical elements already established, and raising the stakes.

Suspense and tension can be eased by action, the anticipated bad thing actually happening (the payoff), something unexpected but harmless happening (the false payoff), humor, distancing the reader from the story (the "long shot" camera angle), summarizing or cutting away from the scene, or providing back story in the scene.

This class was a delight, and I'm picking up a copy of Hallie Ephron's Never Tell A Lie today. Hallie also authored Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel, which a mystery-writing crit partner of mine recommends most highly.

Any suspense-writers here? What are your favorite techniques? Or, like me, do you just like the have the occasional moment of reader anticipation thrown in? What are your favorite suspense books?

You are NOT lazy.

Image found at the Visual Ambassador

On Sunday I took (yet another) Grub Street class, called "Time of Your Life." Taught by Hillary Rettig, the class focused on ways to find time to write for those of us who cannot give up our day jobs and/or are unwilling to sacrifice family, friends, and everything else in the name of our art.

Hillary spoke to us about living a conscious life: if you do not manage your time, someone else will be happy to manage it for you, and you'll end up working hard to fulfill someone else's dreams, not your own. She also spoke to us about PROCRASTINATION.

She spoke of the "laziness myth." Writers don't procrastinate because writing is "too hard." If it was really just too hard and we were lazy, well, we'd probably just give up trying to write altogether, and focus on watching t.v. instead. We could embrace the lazy lifestyle. But no, we want to write. We want to do this hard thing because it fulfills us and gives us joy in some way. We know that the work pays off with rewards. So then why do we put it off?

Fear.

It's not going to be as good as it is in my head. It's not going to be as good as that other author who writes in the same genre. The first 20 pages came out magically awesome, and the rest won't be as good. The first 20 pages came out kinda crappy, and surely the rest will be worse. I don't have the knowledge I need to write this well enough. I only have a few minutes, that's not enough time to write anything worthwhile... and suddenly we're doing the laundry instead of writing. Or doing more research when we probably have enough to get started. Or surfing the internet looking for a new blog that will give us the secret key to writing like James Joyce and getting published like Stephenie Meyers.

I don't have the answer to help you figure out which fear is yours, but I do know that this is a powerful message, and it should be passed along: YOU ARE NOT LAZY. Procrastination doesn't make you a bad person or bad writer... in fact, it's a pretty common-sense defense mechanism that protects you from feeling terrified of failing. But if you face the fear down? Then you can write anything you want.

Hillary has an ebook available for download on this subject as well: The Little Guide To Beating Procrastination, Perfectionism and Blocks (she told us that she no longer teaches the section on "hypersensitivity", but that the rest is still recommended material).

I've gotten some positive feedback on a project, and I'm scared of messing it up. But I have to edit, and have to finish, or I'll never get any further. And this project DESERVES to go all the way. HOW ABOUT YOU?

Oh, thank goodness.

Finished First Draft Badge
from Merit Badger's badges for writers and readers

I finally finished my edits to a short story that I adore. In some ways it's a first draft, because it's the first version that didn't have actual story gaps in it. In other ways, it's almost a final draft, because I almost never write anything straight through. When I write longer pieces (more than 1K words), I pretty consistently end up at some point with a draft that is 85-95% complete, mostly revised and edited, but still missing some connecting scenes that would get the reader from Important Plot Point A to Important Plot Point B. This is apparently my style.

So, once these last scenes finally make it into the draft (in this case, saved Version #4), I'm actually, well, done. Those scenes are freshly written, but they've been mulled over for quite a while, and they're of a pretty reasonable quality to begin with. But I'm making sure to leave it alone for at least a few days just in case. I'll let it settle, try to forget about it, get beta readings from the two writers who were with me when the idea for this short story was inspired, and THEN do a final polish before submitting. And then I will have earned this badge:

The Finished Final Draft Badge.

I can't tell you how glad I am to have this done. This is the same short story I was telling you about when discussing methods of editing, and it's also the one that was inspired by my Monsters & Mayhem class at Grub Street back in Jan-Feb-March of this year. That's long enough to be working on a 7K-word story.

Seven thousand words! Most of my short stories are fewer than 1,500 words. Have I mentioned how thrilled I am to have this written?

PLEASE SHARE A RECENT WRITING ACCOMPLISHMENT THAT YOU'RE HAPPY ABOUT!

Maybe we'll get it right next year.

This post first ran in my blog on 9/11/09. I thought that since 9/11 falls on a Saturday this year, maybe I'd get to skip blogging about it. But I'm seeing the same inanity and self-serving posturing and misuse of real tragedy and other people's pain... and so I'm going to repeat myself, too. Goddammit.

Here's last year's post.


I wasn't going to write about this. I had a bad and insecure day yesterday, and I was going to blog about how you pick yourself up when you feel like you've made an ass of yourself all day long... and this is a writing blog, not a political, or social, or personal one... but then I read a few posts this morning on the subject... and now I have to talk about it.

If you don't want to read about 9/11, stop here.

If you don't want to read profanity, stop here.

I am from NYC. On 2001, I was working at a law office in midtown Manhattan, but on September 11th in particular I was part of a group of attorneys doing document review in Newark, NJ. My train that morning went under the WTC pretty much moments before the first plane hit. I arrived at the NJ location to see people glued to a tiny t.v. that was black & white, and full of static. But we were just over the river and could see the towers out the floor-to-ceiling windows in the back of the NJ office. We kept on the radio, and the t.v., and we saw the towers collapse as we watched through the window.

I had a cell phone, and my then-boyfriend-now-husband relayed messages between myself and my parents as we confirmed everyone was safe. NY-to-NY calls wouldn't go through (too many local cell phone towers down, I guess), but my husband was out of state, and we could call him.

One of the attorneys on site that day had a boyfriend in NJ, so we stayed at his place overnight. I wanted so badly to get back to the city, but even just across the river, it couldn't be done. Our hosts drove me to the train station, but the trains weren't running. I just wanted to go home. Not to my boyfriend in Boston. Not to my parents, even, because I knew they were way uptown and safe, but to MY home. My home in Manhattan. My apartment on 63rd and First. To my little green parrot. I wanted to be alone with my small pet, in my city.

I came home the next morning. I've never seen the city so empty. Silent. Even when there were people on the street, there was no noise. No cell phones, no chatter, nothing.

And then there was the smell. The haze of the smoke that enveloped everything, even miles uptown. I remember the smell.

I went back to work right away, I think. Everything felt hollow. Our company donated office space to lawyers displaced from downtown, and asked us to spend the company money in the WTC area whenever possible. We did all our business lunches downtown, from the first moment that the area was open to us.

There was an earthquake in Manhattan not too long after 9/11, and that vibration was the most horrifying thing I'd ever felt. And a month or two later I saw a low-flying plane disappear behind the Prudential Center Tower in Boston, and I screamed.

There was a tribute concert on television shortly after the attack, and it ran on damn near every station, and it made me furious. Who did these people think they were? Who did they think we were? If a New Yorker had time or money or blood to give, they'd already given it. I didn't want to think about this shit anymore. I didn't want to watch Celine fucking Dion singing in front of a backdrop of how my city used to look. I didn't want to read on the internet about how traumatized people were, when they lived in totally different states where there was no chance of a similar attack ever happening, had never so much as known a single person in NYC. They saw it on television, and I'd seen it out my goddamn window, and I smelled it every day, and I saw how empty the subways were every day, and I saw the military presence on the streets, near the courthouses, in the 14th Street station on the platform for the 6, every day. And I didn't even think I had any particular right to be "traumatized," because I didn't have any damn bodies falling on me. I didn't lose anyone I loved.

My dad was already retired, but his company had an office on the 105th floor in the South Tower. Some of his friends got out. But he went to funerals for about 3 weeks straight. I went to dinner with one of his best friends, who had lost one of her best friends. The friend she'd lost had also been her weight-loss buddy, and now she knew exactly how little his remains had weighed after he'd jumped out the window. That is some fucking trauma. So who were these shitheads singing on my television? I switched to the SciFi channel, then a DVD.

People like to talk about how the crisis brought out the best in people in America. Hell, all over the world. (And, personally, I think we squandered some of that potential, but I'm going to try not to get political on top of being morbid.) But I saw it bring out the worst as well. One of my coworkers that day lived right in the shadow of the towers. Her kids went to school right next door. She couldn't get back to the city, so she called her ex-husband who was still in the city, and asked him to pick them up and take them somewhere safe. He agreed.

And then he kidnapped them. Custodial interference, technically. But he took those kids out of the state, and enrolled them in another school and moved to get new custody papers -- claiming his ex-wife abandoned the kids during the 9/11 crisis -- because the NYC courthouses were completely out of commission, and there was no paperwork available to contradict his new story. (Yes, she got them back, with a little assistance from some lawyer friends and a cop or two.)

There is no grand lesson to be learned from 9/11. People can be evil. Life can be short. We already knew that. If you were motivated to do something great after 9/11, or after Katrina... can you go do it again, now? Donate blood, donate time to a homeless shelter, visit kids in a hospital, something? Just do it. It's not about a motivating crisis. I think New Yorkers know this. It has a reputation as a harsh city, but it never really was. New York is certainly more welcoming to strangers and visitors and new residents than Boston is. (I love you Boston, but seriously, you're pretty clique-ish.) New Yorkers got on with life because we had to. We don't forget, we just don't fucking talk about it. If 9/11 made you want to be a better person, then just get off your ass and go be a better person.

I had a bad day yesterday, and I may well have made an ass of myself on multiple occasions. It doesn't fucking matter. I'm going to go do something worthwhile today. And maybe tomorrow. And hopefully the day after that. Not because of 9/11, but because it's the right thing to do.

I was born in Tokyo. I grew up in Manhattan. I live in Boston.
I am from New York City.

This is my city.

This is my city.

This is my city.

This is my city.

To read the comments to this post from last year, click here.

Read EVERYTHING

Photo from a very cool ad campaign for a library

I am here to share a cautionary tale.

Once upon a time, there was a reasonably intelligent writer-type who happened to have grown up in New York City (Manhattan, to be precise), where driving is unnecessary, and owning a car -- let alone trying to park the damn thing -- is actually a burden. Once, when this writer-type was a child, someone asked her what color her family's car was, and after some thought, she replied "Yellow." Neither of her parents had a license, and her mother had never learned how to drive.

And still, there came a time in this young writer's life when driving seemed like a Thing To Do. A universally-required Life Skill To Be Learned, even. So, she bravely went down to the RMV to obtain a learner's permit. This permit would be granted upon the correct answering of 18 out of 25 multiple choice questions, most of which were insulting to said writer-type's intelligence. For example, "What color is a stop sign?" The writer-type additionally has a history of handling standardized testing quite well (see, e.g., SAT, LSAT, NY bar exam, MA bar exam).

HOWEVER. This writer-type is also 36. Therefore, when preparing for this exam she thoughtlessly skipped the section on Junior Operator Licenses and the rules governing the drivers holding such licenses, who are exclusively between the ages of 16.5 and 18. "I'm thirty-f*cking-six," she said to herself, "None of this will ever apply to me."

The computer that chose her 25 questions, however, had no way of knowing if she was 17 or 77. And so, the computer (and possibly the gods of hubris) "randomly" chose a large number of questions regarding the rules of drivers in possession of Junior Operator Licenses, with an additional emphasis on the non-intuitive state-specific penalties for underage drinking and driving, drag racing, and driving past curfew without being accompanied by a parent. This very clever writer-type then failed her driver's permit exam, much to her embarrassment and annoyance, and her husband's great amusement.

This writer-type learned her lesson. She proceeded to restudy the driver's manual, reading everything in it, no matter how random it seemed to her at the time, which was a good move, because the next day she was able to retake and pass her learner's permit exam despite the bizarrely disproportionate number of questions about motorcycle safety. She tells this story so that you will also READ EVERYTHING (such as, perhaps, any submission guidelines when querying or submitting a short story to a lit mag for consideration), so that you will not be similarly embarrassed or annoyed, or have to pay another $30 exam fee plus babysitting costs to sit in the f*cking RMV for 4 hours on a busy Friday in order to rectify one's sloppy mistakes.

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

Editing Hits the Wall

One of my current WIPs

Many, many weeks ago, I took an excellent intensive course at Grub Street, entitled "From Revision to Submission."

Intended for the writer who needs a final push to submit their work, this class provides one last objective look to make certain that the writer is in the best possible position for publication. The first half of the class will be a revision workshop, focusing on the art of sanding down, smoothing out, and touching up the writing. The second half will help students discuss and find markets for their work. The last class will partially be devoted to assembling submissions and celebrating finished pieces.

The instructor was James Scott, who among other things is an editor at One Story, which is possibly the best lit mag out there right now, I think. The man knows his stuff, is what I'm saying here. He especially was a good instructor for me, because he has a natural instinct for plot and structure, where as I am more of a language-and-character writer, finding structure rather challenging.

So I am here today to share with you the single best piece of editing advice I got from the class: cut and paste, and stick it on the wall.

See that photo up there? That's a 20-page short story, which has been cut-and-pasted by scene (yes, actual scissors and tape, not computer-clicking) and spread out on the wall. I pasted certain scenes higher or lower based on the focus of each scene -- Character #1's POV was the baseline, omniscient narrator POV went slightly lower, Character #2's POV was taped slightly higher. Jim writes a lot of flashbacks, so he tends to tape sections higher or lower based on whether a scene is in the present or past. You may think of other ways to use the vertical as well as the horizontal.

Step back. Take a look. What do you see?

When I looked at the short story in that photo, I saw a lot of imbalance. Okay, it makes sense for that fourth scene to be super-short, because it's really just a teaser/introduction to the second character's POV, but the sixth scene is crazy long. Especially if the fifth scene is also that long... I want the narrator POV and 2nd character POV scenes to be places the reader can catch his or her breath in the story, and if scenes 5 and 6 are back-to-back enormous, that just won't happen. Scene 6 needs to be cut into at least 2 parts.

And look how front-loaded the story is! Scenes 3, 5, 6, and maybe 8 are the long ones, and then it's short-short-short all in a row at the end. No wonder the damn thing feels like it ends abruptly. Now, I already knew there were some plot elements that needed to be added to the story towards the back third, so some of those additions were already planned, but now it's even more obvious where this extra information has to go.

Depending on the nature of your story, you may also want to highlight sections. Is your dialogue evenly spaced throughout the story, or weirdly clumped in the center? Is your action where you thought it would be? Jim showed us one of his works-in-progress, and we saw that all the flashback was up front -- not good. The reader will want to know who everyone is and what the stakes are before they start dipping into reminiscences. How else will the reader know WHY those reflective moments are important?

Now, just because I'm talking in terms of balance of course does not mean that the story needs to be totally even throughout. Maybe the action really does belong all at the end. Maybe the story should start with all long sections and get increasingly tighter as the tale progresses. Only you know what your story needs, but this is a very good way to figure out what your story is already doing. They might not be the same thing, and sometimes it's just too hard to see the forest for the trees on the computer screen.

Jim swears that he's sold every story that has gotten this revision treatment. We'll see how my story fares when I'm done with it...

DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE EDITING TECHNIQUE?

Better Book Titles

aka The Odyssey

They just keep making more, and they just keep being funnier than the last... Better Book Titles.

I Should Be...

I am the show notes writer for Mur Lafferty's amazing podcast, I Should Be Writing. I am also several shows behind. Which means that yesterday I started listening to a nearly six-hour backlog. I'm here to officially apologize for my failure to prioritize this work sooner, because I think Mur's podcast is a truly wonderful resource for writers, especially writers who are still learning the craft. (And if you think you've got it all figured out, she has interviews with people like Neil Gaiman.)

I was going to write more about Mur's genius, but Serious Girl just woke up from her nap, it's 4pm, and we have no groceries in the house, so we're going to have to go shopping if we want to eat dinner. SO! Please go check out ISBW. Because ISBAISBW (I Should Be Assisting I Should Be Writing. Like the t-shirt says.)

ALSO! Episode #146 starts with a hilarious "I Should Be Writing" anthem, and then at about 24 minutes in, there is the additionally hilarious song "George R.R. Martin is Not Your Bitch" based on Neil Gaiman's now-famous blog post on reader entitlement. Go listen: George R.R. Martin is Not Your Bitch on John Anealio's SciFi Songs website, and also in YouTube format (fan-posted).

High School Teacher Appreciation Day

Hunter College High School
(formerly the Squadron A Armory)

I was having a talk with someone about mentors and influences, and I hadn't really thought I had many "official" mentors... but it has occurred to me that one need not explicitly and personally take a student under one's wing in order to be an influence. So, here's to two English teachers who I now realize were, in fact, inspirations to me, simply by loving their jobs and doing them well.

Daniel Rous

In addition to being an English teacher, Mr. Rous was also an opera-quality singer, although I don't know if or where he ever performed. When I hear Kelsey Grammer singing show tunes as Sideshow Bob on The Simpsons, I think of Mr. Rous singing for us in class (maybe once a year, when all exams were over) and how damn good he was. He also managed to tell my class -- twice! -- that his wife was in labor with their son for four days. (Perhaps obviously, they just had the one.) He was unwaveringly passionate about the books he taught. He clearly adored all his students, and when they didn't adore him back, he just let it roll right off him. I cannot remember ever once seeing him in a bad mood. It was a joy to be in his class, and I hope he thought it was a joy to teach me in return. I remember hating (and having no respect for) at least one book in every English class I ever took... except his. Somehow, he made it so that I appreciated them all.

Parker Baratta

Parker was profane, sarcastic, and fabulous. Rumor had it that he'd had an affair with a senior at one point, and ended up married to her. I have no idea if this is actually true, but it fit nicely with his persona as the teacher who treated his students like adults. He let us in on all the jokes (in particular one obscene joke about a dolphin, but that's not the point). By the time I took his class, I was coasting pretty comfortably in all my English classes. I was getting As without even reading the materials by twisting the assignments into what I really wanted to write about, and I did it with enough flair to carry it off in most cases. But Parker busted me. On my third-semester report card, he gave me a 65. A sixty-five. Now, I'd gotten a couple bad grades from him (one in particular for a truly abysmal Great Gatsby paper about that damned green light), but not D-minus bad. I went to him to ask WHY? He looked me dead in the eye and said, "Because you can do better." The third-semester report card didn't count on the permanent record, and he was using it to make a point. He was right. I could do better, and he f*cking knew it. I got something in the high 90s for my final grade from him that year.

Gentlemen, THANK YOU.

P.S. Elena Kagan, HCHS class of 1977! WOOT!

HuffPo Loves Me

In yesterday's Huffington Post article The Making of a Novel: Can You Write a Real Person Into a Fictional Story?, author Jennie Nash mentions this blog. Specifically, the guest blogger post by Audrey Beth Stein: Writing About Real People.

Okay, so if you read the article you'll see that HuffPo really loves Audrey; my blog was just the incidental host. But I loved Audrey first. So it totally counts.

Conversations with my family

Conversation #1:

Husband: Serious Girl, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Serious Girl: I don't know.
Husband: Well, you could be an astronaut, or a doctor...
Serious Girl: A doctor!
Husband: Yeah! Or a writer, or a fire fighter...
Serious Girl: I want to be a writer.
Husband: What are you going to write?
Serious Girl: I don't know.
Husband: Are you going to write stories?
Serious Girl: Yeah!
Husband: What kind of stories are you going to write?
Serious Girl: Stories about elevators and toys.
Me: Serious Girl, did you know that you really can do that? There are some really famous and wonderful stories about exactly that -- elevators and toys.
Serious Girl: Also, I want to be a turtle.

Conversation #2:

[Husband finishes telling Serious Girl the story of Pandora's Box.]

Husband: Serious Girl, do you know what that story's about?
Serious Girl: Did everything get away and go way up in the air?
Husband: Yes. But really, it's about telling girls what to do. Every culture has some story that tries to tell girls that they shouldn't be smart or curious. You should be both. You should open every box.
Serious Girl: Really?
Husband: Really. You see, it was a trick. The gods would have let out all those bad things anyway, but they wanted to blame it on Pandora. Never do what you're told just because someone else says you have to. It's up to you to figure out the right things to do.
Serious Girl: Really?
Husband: Really. Can I have a smooch?
Serious Girl: Of course.

A Day in the Life, w/o nanny assistance

All will be explained in time.

6:00am: Wake up because Serious Girl has woken and is asking for more music. Restart album of lullabies on dedicated iPod in her room, go back to bed hoping she will let the whole album play without complaint so I can get the whole half hour additional sleep.

7:30am: Wake up again. Miracle! Serious Girl actually went back to sleep too! Start morning with Serious Girl: hugs, potty, milk.

8:00am: Move through house cleaning up and removing tempting fragile items from within reach of those who are toddler-height; Serious Girl is responsible, but we are hosting her playgroup today, and I do not know how responsible the other five 3-year-olds are. Move SG's play stove, food, and table & chairs into living room for "kitchen/restaurant" play. Get SG dressed. Realize I have totally forgotten to feed SG breakfast, provide blueberries and toast at last minute.

9:00am-11:00am: Playgroup. Kids entertain themselves primarily with toy kitchen area, SG's dollhouse, and SG's extensive supply of toy cars. Some disagreements over who is allowed to play with the stuffed Backyardigans, and when, and how. Snack of blueberries, peaches, and string cheese is devoured by all. Other moms/nannies are awesome about helping to clean up when they leave, and certain parts of the house end up cleaner than when the guests arrived.

11:15am: Final farewells to guests. SG plays patiently (read: relieves the sofa of all its cushions, builds mountainous pile of pillows, takes flying leaps from former onto latter) while I check email. Lunch! Mom & daughter chores -- taking down the trash and recycling, putting away clean dishes, etc. -- and settling down for nap.

12:30pm: Paperwork and writing while SG naps: completing forms for preschool, signing up for "toddler tumbling" gymnastics, writing and submitting short non-fiction piece, submitting two short fiction pieces. Email best writer-friend, indulge in complaints about writing, parenting, how much more sleep we need, and how damn old we are. Check to make sure chicken in fridge is still edible, rejoice when expiration date is days away: no trip to the grocery today.

2:30pm: SG is awake! Hang out together listening to music, then get up for milk. Finish some of my work on the computer while SG plays patiently (read: sits quietly with some stuffed toys in her lap, oh crap, she's probably coming down with something). Off to kitchen: prepare dinner while SG eats raisins. Peel & slice potatoes, season potatoes & chicken. SG says she has to do some work, drags stool over to kitchen computer, turns it on, opens Twitter, sends out some status updates. Clean up lunch dishes. Check flight information, realize Husband doesn't get home until midnight, probably could have gotten away with cooking a smaller meal.

3:30pm: Pressed into singing Jim Croce songs by SG. Finish obsessive email checking, ask SG if she wants to go to the pool. SG says yes, but we have to wear our cowboy hats first. Pack for pool while wearing hats.

4:00pm: Arrive at gym, get changed for pool, climb pool stairs, informed halfway up that pool is closed because someone threw up in it. It will take an hour to clean, at which time kiddie swim will be over and we will not be allowed in pool even if we wanted to. SG takes news with grace and aplomb; spend next hour in empty yoga studio, stretching and playing with the giant yoga balls.

5:30pm: Arrive home, told to put cowboy hats back on. Put dinner in oven, tell SG she can watch cartoons while I work. Cartoons refuse to play on any computer except the one I was planning to work on. Promise eventually fulfilled to SG; nothing else accomplished during cartoon time except checking email on iPod. Call Husband during layover in TX. Inexplicably, SG starts sobbing hysterically and saying that I can't call Husband. Husband does not answer phone. SG is inconsolable, does not want to talk to Daddy, does not want me to talk to Daddy. Phone rings: it's Daddy. SG leaps to answer phone, has lovely chat with Daddy. Take SG's temperature after phone call. She normally reads quite low, but now is 99.4 degrees: SG is definitely coming down with something. SG begs for me to read a book, ends up ignoring me and playing with Han Solo and Boba Fett action figures instead (see photo).

7:00pm: Dinner. Books.

8:00pm: Getting ready for bed. Books. Ritual bedtime kisses and farewells.

9:00pm: Album of lullabies ends, SG asks for more music. Return to her bedroom, re-tuck her in, remind her we only play the album once at bedtime. Ritual bedtime kisses and farewells.

9:15pm: Back to computer. Until husband gets home (scheduled arrival at Logan airport, 11:43pm), there will be writing, paperwork, Twitter, further emails to best writer-friend, and general kitchen clean-up. Make mental note to buy more Diet Coke.

9:25pm: SG sobs hysterically for me to fix her covers. Return to bedroom, tell her of course I'll fix them, she doesn't need to cry. SG: "I'm not crying. I'm just screaming a little bit." Tuck SG back in, ritual bedtime kisses and farewells. Back to computer. Lather, rinse, repeat...