Also. Also! My parents came to visit! They dropped off my sister, W, at a college a few hours away, then stayed in KC for a few days. We went to the World War I museum, the jazz museum, and the toy museum, for starters. Dad and I rode up the memorial tower and looked out at the KC skyline, then wandered inside the WWI museum for several hours. We could easily have spent all day there.

The toy museum was amazing—tons and tons of intricately detailed toys ranging from the Victorian era to my parents’ childhood to a few more modern things. We got to hear a lecture by one of the artists on how he carved tiny buildings, people, figureheads, and sailing ships. We left in awe of his patience and skill.

The jazz museum was small but fun. We examined a small exhibit outside, then went in to watch a short film and look at/listen to the exhibit. I could’ve sat at each listening station for an hour. The afternoon brought back pleasant memories of that period during my teenage years when I devoured books on jazz history.

We came out saying, “Well, that wasn’t bad for a free museum!” And then we noticed the ticket counter, waaay off to the side. Dad went over and paid after the fact. “Oops,” he said.

We also went to Loose Park, church, the Awakening service at IHOP-KC, and a bunch of restaurants, ending with chocolate bags at McCormick & Schmick’s.

I always love spending time with my parents and this was just an awesome mini-vacation. Later that month I went to visit W for another mini-vacation. Experienced dorm life complete with nasty ghetto bathrooms, terrible cafeteria food, and weird roommates. But at least I got to see my sister.

When not grappling or playing tourist, I helped the Gumby Ninja take care of the puppies. She moved their box downstairs and so I had some cute roommates for a while, although they were kinda smelly. But when you’re that young you roll around in your own poop and don’t know any better, I guess?

Catching Up

When last I wrote—really wrote—it was the middle of June. Temperatures were reasonable, and I’d just moved into a new place (or rather, back into an old one) and started my new job. Now temperatures are taking a turn for the irrational, I am thinking of moving, and I’m plugging away at the job. Let us find out what happened between then and now….

(Here is the part where I admit I couldn’t actually remember most of the summer and had to consult my Twitter archives. [Twit-archives? Twarchives? Something cutesy that begins with "Tw" and indicates my past usage of an ephemeral social networking website?])

July

July was pretty okay. I worked, went to jiujitsu (helped with a women’s self-defense seminar), got to meet Meghan, and desperately wished I could go to Comic-Con.

I did not get to go to Comic-Con, but got to go home instead! Went dorm shopping with W, watched our favorite TV shows with W & K, went to dorky city festival with my dad, went grocery shopping with my mom (grocery shopping is like our thing, idk, it’s great). Got to celebrate my birthday with my family.

Celebrated with my KC peeps too. Well, celebrated with my girls, anyway; I neglected to inform my TV night peeps, and they ribbed me about it for a few weeks. Aaaaanyway.

Now I am going to tell a story about something that happened during July. It should probably be about my birthday, because birthdays are awesome!

I woke up to a gorgeous and hot day (which incidentally describes me, but I’m pretty modest so I won’t go on and on about it). On this, the day of my birthday, what do you think I felt?

View This Poll

I won’t tell you the correct answer, but if you know me at all or have read this blog for a while, you can probably guess.

Went ahead with birthday plans anyway. We got dressed up and went to see a movie at the Plaza theater. Afterward we went to Blanc just around the corner and had malts, shakes, and sweet potato fries. I remember sitting back in my chair, just enjoying the summer night, the food, and being with some of my favorite people. And then I thought, This is going to be the last fun I’ll have for about a week.

Which ended up being true. Although the Leverage marathon I had while I was sick was nice.

Later, when I was not sick any more, my roommate’s dog had puppies—five adorable little balls of fuzz who required a lot of looking after…

Just dropping by today to post this link to an interview with editor and writer Gordon Lish. Yes, that Gordon Lish. Here’s an excerpt on revising:

GL: With a word one can hold back the world. You know? A common comma, for pity’s sake. To shift, where in the mouth the sound is uttered can make all the difference, one likes to think. Probably irrationally … The fiddling, the ferocity of its possession of one, is just what writing is. The telling and the told aren’t separable, of course …

And I love this exchange about writing the beginning of a story, because I have such trouble with that at times:

GL: The opening is to get the thing opened, to overcome the inertia of silence, indifference. Whatever means convince you you have achieved this effect ordain what follows.

BCE: The silence that precedes the reader beginning to read?

GL: The silence that precedes the writer beginning to write.

Playing in the sand

Sand between our toes

We got back this Sunday. I took the Monday before my job started to do laundry and run errands—and more importantly, to enjoy being alone. I’ve had hardly a moment to myself these last three weeks and have been sharing a bedroom with one or more of my friends as we’ve been taking care of Crystal. For an introvert, that’s tough. How introverts who have kids or share a room can survive is a wonder to me.

I started my job on Tuesday. Not much copyediting to be done, I’m afraid, and it’s not full-time. But at least I’ll have some money coming in and I can listen to music while I work. My officemate is nice and doesn’t talk much, spending most of her time plugged into her own iPod. So that’s perfect—I don’t like it when my coworkers try to talk to me all the time. I just want to be left alone to do my work.

Transitioning to getting up early in the mornings wasn’t too bad—I got on Michigan time during vacation and didn’t stay up too late—but it still feels weird to go to bed before midnight. I get done with work around 2:00 or 2:30 and have the rest of the day free, which is nice; I have time to work on my freelance project, run errands, hang with friends, and go to jiujitsu.

And hermit, of course.

We dropped Bethy off somewhere in Illinois and made it to Michigan several hours later. Holden’s house is in a small town about half an hour from Cadillac. It’s gorgeous and quiet out here. (Well, mostly quiet; the neighbor down the hill blasts his radio all day.) Here’s the view from our bedroom window (I didn’t take my camera, so the poor quality is due to my phone cam):

We’ve been taking it easy for the last few days as Crystal recovers. Mostly we’ve been sleeping, watching TV, letting Holden’s mom feed us, and petting the dogs. Jake, formerly known as Awesome Possum, is fitting in well with the other two dogs (a Golden/Lab mix who carries two tennis balls around in his mouth at all times and a springer spaniel/Sharpei mix who excels at cuddling).

The house doesn’t have internet, which is why I haven’t been online and am Twittering only by text message. It’s been nice to unplug. Right now we’re at a small coffee shop to check email and such. We’ll be back in Kansas City by the 13th. Oh, and—the company that wasn’t able to hire me until August? Called me today. I start on the 14th. Whiplash much? I remain cautiously optimistic about the whole thing. Mostly I am just planning to enjoy vacation and see how things pan out once we get back.