My Current State of Mind

A Thanksgiving Meme

Saw this meme today on Market My Words and decided to play.

(I know, this doesn't really count as a blog post in the traditional sense of blogging about the topic your blog supposedly features. Of course I mention this because I'm feeling a tad guilty about ignoring the blogosphere lately. Then again, as guilt is such THE timelessly classic holiday-time emotion — not to mention very common among writers — I think the meme fits right in! Besides, I will get back to blogging about children's writing and freelancing and freelancing and children's writing soon enough for my two readers.)

1. How will you spend Thanksgiving this year?
I'll be home with my (not-so-)fresh-from-a-biz-trip husband and happy-to-be-in-the-three-pack greyhound. No traveling, no guests. It will be low key and involve little else besides food prep, background jazz, a long neighborhood walk, some quiet conversation, family phone calls, and eating.

2. Will you be cooking, or are you just an eater?
Cooking, always cooking. Then eating.

3. Do you watch the parade or football?
We try to watch some of the parade.

4. What's your favorite float?
I can't think of one that I need to see, but I can do without any floats featuring singing Disney kids. (Is that Scroogey?)

5. Dark meat or white meat?
Yes.

6. What is your favorite dish besides the turkey?
Everything else, and I'm not kidding.

7. Homemade cranberry sauce or sauce from the can?
Homemade. I make either a jalapeno cranberry sauce, a chipotle cranberry sauce, or a citrusy cranberry sauce.

8. Do you decorate for Christmas on Thanksgiving Day?
We do celebrate Christmas at our house, and it's the only holiday for which we decorate. After Thanksgiving dinner (and during cleanup), we begin the process of trying to power through our out-of-control collection of holiday music. Sometimes we'll have enough time to start fetching decorations from the basement closet. If not, though, we'll haul them to the living room on Friday and attempt to distribute all during the coming weekend(s). We regularly fail to carry out the original plan.

9. What are some special holiday traditions?
The whole day I've described is traditional, and special, to us.

10. Pumpkin pie or pecan?
Pumpkin or sweet potato if I'm making it (although this year I'm doing a pumpkin-banana mousse tart); I'll always choose pecan if my mom's hosting.

11. What's your favorite thing to do with the leftovers?
If we've cooked for just us, we'll have two more full dinners (my favorite thing) before using the remaining fixins (my other favorite thing) in sandwiches, "bubble and squeak," soups, and so on.

12. How long do you spend eating your Thanksgiving meal?
A long time. We'll eat and then linger over the wine to stall on the cleanup. Coffee and dessert are served after everything has been put away.

13. Are you worried about putting on weight this Thanksgiving?
No.

14. What do you normally eat at Thanksgiving?
A light, healthy, breakfast. Easy appetizers (antipasto-type stuff) and a cocktail at 2 o'clock or so. The main meal, which we serve in the early evening, includes turkey, gravy, garlic mashed potatoes, a sweet-and-savory sweet potato dish (no marshmallows here), cranberry sauce, roasted brussels sprouts w/garlic and capers, sausage stuffing, dinner rolls, ice water w/lemon, and wine. Pie and coffee a few hours later. Too much?

15. What will you be thankful for this Thanksgiving?
Health and hope.

16. What is your favorite Thanksgiving memory?
I fondly remember our extended family gatherings on both sides of the family. On my dad's side, we celebrated Christmas on Thanksgiving because his parents fled Iowa for their Florida digs as soon as possible after turkey sandwiches. My favorite memory — as it relates to an experience I can draw upon when creating child characters (see how I'm making this "count" just a little?) — is the Thanksgiving-Christmas gift exchange circa 1976. My dearly loved grandmother gave me a Quick Curl Barbie . . . and it took ALL my concentration to both offer a sincere-sounding thank-you during the family show-and-tell and to keep myself from bursting into tears. You see, I fancied myself All Grown Up (I was E.LEV.IN, for cryin' out loud!), and I just about couldn't bear thinking that anyone saw me as childish enough to play with Barbie. It's one of those long-ago scenes I can recall with exacting, slow-mo detail. And I love it!

17 & 18. Will you be waking up early to hit the sales?/Are you planning on going shopping the day after Thanksgiving?
No way. No shopping that day.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

7 Random Facts Meme

Oops, it is November 26, and I'm just noticing that illustrator Dawn Phillips tagged me on her blog — and mine — for the 7 Random Facts About Me meme 10 days ago . . .

Bad, bad blogger, Lisa!

Here's my list:

(1) I bailed on a writing gig last week. My role was to write a slew of Little Readers. These books truly are fun to write. But my development-group client repeatedly changed the schedule and assignment content/tasks/fees with no dialogue, no advance notice, and no pleases or thank-yous.

I'd already been increasingly uncomfortable with the company's (lack of) communication style in the months leading up to the work. And, a quick exchange with a colleague confirmed that others out there in our small-ish world of freelance children's writers had already sworn off working with this client due to BAD experiences. So when my first assignment finally arrived, late and completely different in every possible way from what had been confirmed the day before, that prompted me to finally just say no thanks.

To other writers out there: Remember, you ALWAYS deserve to be treated fairly and with a modicum of professional courtesy. Your time is valuable, and your writing is work.

(2) I am ambidextrous. Thank goodness, so says Wikipedia, that I don't shoot for sport. Apparently, though, the condition might be good for my word-processing skills. Seems I'm in pretty good company — Michelangelo, Einstein, Beethoven, Gandhi — not bad. I like this quote I just found: "Ambidexterity is neither a goal to aspire to nor is it a gift from God. Instead, it is first and foremost the mark of brain damage." That might explain some things.

(3) Speaking of word-processing skills, I never took a typing class in high school. This was back in the day when (a) people used typewriters; (b) everybody took typing class for an easy A; and (c) some guidance counselors were still telling girls that they MUST have good secretarial skills to "fall back on." I remember being insulted that my assigned counselor didn't want to talk about my college/career aspirations and adamant that I'd be the one with the secretary working for me and so shouldn't waste my academic hours on such a useless class. Instead I needed to study world domination and such.

I started needing to type nonstop right away in college, and so, luckily, typing proficiency followed. Joke's on me that I became a writer and editor, both of which require quite a lot of the clickety-clack.

Just the other day I saw a report on the average salary of executive-level administrative assistants. Upon growing up and entering the workforce, I quickly learned that administrative professionals do demanding, highly specialized, crucial work (and that EVERYONE could benefit from developing great secretarial skills). But gee whiz, I didn't realize just how lucrative the job category could be. I think I coulda been a contender. Darn you, my smug, surly, sexist guidance-counselor man!

(4) I recently brought home a bag of half-priced books, and I don't know where I put it. I know that at first it was in my office, right under my desk. But now? No clue. What's more, I'm not entirely sure I know what all is in the bag. I just know the bag exists. One might rightly guess that I experienced a wee episode of emotional book buying. (Come on, you know you've done it too!)

(5) I replaced my dog's office bed a few weeks ago. She seems to be missing her old, worn cushion and hasn't been spending as much time with me during the day. She'll come in, sniff the new cushion and kick it around, give me a forlorn look, and then go flop down in the adjacent family room. Did I mention that the old cushion was flattened out and discolored and maybe even smelly — and old? At least now I have a better picture of what the draw was in here.

(6) I'm not really working today. I'm sitting at my desk, willing to answer the phone or an email if necessary, but I'm mostly goofing off. My to-do list includes tasks like finding a new pumpkin pie recipe, scouting shopping sites for holiday gift ideas, and burning CDs of the new holiday music I've downloaded. I needed this day.

(7) I happily post a meme when I've been tagged, but I rarely tag other people. I always either feel too busy or too lazy to check other blogs and see whether they've already participated. I suppose this practice is kinda spoil-sporty of me, but I didn't forward chain letters in the 70s and 80s and I don't pass along modern-day email forwards either. Drag!

Literary Meme

I could use a distraction this Wednesday morning, so I'm posting a meme that's been floating around the blogosphere for a few months, especially on writer blogs.

The inspiration for the meme: The NEA reported that American adults have, on average, read just 6 out of the (NEA-selected) top 100 literary works of all time. So bloggers started posting their own "scores."

You can see from my list that I've read fewer than half the titles. Is that good? Is it bad considering my profession? Does it matter?

I don't know . . . although I read quite a few on my own, I can claim many of these reads only because they were educational and/or occupational requirements. I enjoyed all of them, though. And I've read gazillions of works not mentioned (including stuff I personally think should be on a list of musts), as have most writers and reading-inclined adults I know.

I haven't looked into the NEA's specific concerns re the list — as in whether they feel adults should have been exposed to these works in school or should be seeking them out in lieu of watching American Idol (a winning idea, btw). But reading is good no matter what. And playing with lists is fun!

The instructions:

1) Look at the list and bold the titles you have read. (For books I started but didn't finish, I've bolded a roughly proportionate amount of text.)

2) Place an asterisk* next to the books you LOVED.

3) Flag those you've read multiple times.

4) {Bracket} the titles you have viewed in the form of a movie/miniseries.

5) Reprint this list on your blog.

1. {Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen*}
2. {The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien*}
3. {Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte*} (5)
4. {Harry} Potter Series - J. K. Rowling (I'm reading Book 4 now.)
5. {To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee*}
6. The Bible
7. {Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte*} (3)
8. 1984 - George Orwell (2)
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. {Great Expectations - Charles Dickens} (3)
11. {Little Women - Louisa May Alcott*} (4)
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. {Catch-22 - Joseph Heller*}
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier*
16. The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien* (2)
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger (2)
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. {Middlemarch - George Eliot*}
21. {Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell}
22. {The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald}
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. {War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy}
25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
26. {Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh}
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. {Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll}
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame* (4)
31. {Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy}
32. {David Copperfield - Charles Dickens}
33 The Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
34. {Emma - Jane Austen}
35. {Persuasion - Jane Austen}
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis* (2)
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. {Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden}
40. {Winnie the Pooh - A. A. Milne}
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving*
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins*
46. Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
47. Far From the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood* (2)
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding* (2)
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. {Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen}
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens*
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon
60. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. {Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck}
62. {Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov}
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones
65. {Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas}
66. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. {Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding}
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. {Moby Dick - Herman Melville}
71. {Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens}
72. {Dracula - Bram Stoker}
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett* (2)
74. Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath*
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. {Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray}
80. Possession - A. S. Byatt
81. {A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens*}
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. {The Color Purple - Alice Walker}
84. {The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro}
85. {Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert}
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. {Charlotte's Web - E. B. White*} (3)
88. The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. {The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle*}
90. The Faraway Tree Collection
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams* (2)
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. {The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas}
98. {Hamlet - William Shakespeare} (5)
99. {Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl}
100. {Les Miserables - Victor Hugo*} (2)