Faking It Until I Make It

Sometimes I feel like an impostor. I hear myself talking to someone on the phone at work and I sound authoritative and knowledgable and then I hang up and I think, ‘They actually bought that?’
Not that I don’t think I know a little about a lot of things, but it seems strange to me that someone would seek me out as a person who has good information to hand out.
These people have obviously not seen me in my natural habitat, where I start a sentence and lose my words so my kids have to interpret what I want from my hand signals. Sometimes they even get it right.
I suppose what I really mean is I want people seek me out for information, just not the kind I give at my day job. I don’t dislike my day job—I am grateful I have a job to go to every day and that they treat me well and pay me regularly—it’s just not what I want to spend the rest of my days doing.

Someone I know just decided to follow her heart. It was a brave decision. It looks crazy to some, but it’s brave. She is more than 20 years older than me and it took her this long to get up the nerve. I hope it doesn’t take me two more decades to make my decision.

You Remember What’s Important

I tend to make notes and write missives on every available writing surface. I have random notebooks with half-filled pages and scribbled sentences in my own shorthand. There are envelopes from old bills (hopefully paid) that have words, phrases, titles of books, and authors names written on the back at various angles. I write on calendar pages, on sticky notes, with pencil on my desk top, and I have even been known to write on my hands when there is nothing else available.

I am always on the lookout for the next great notebook or notepad. You all know what I’m talking about—the one that is going to hold all my fantastic ideas and help me turn them in to the best stories of all time. I am most lured by paper items, but use iPad apps and notes on my phone to keep some thoughts. I have recently become fascinated with the Boogie Board ewriters. Have you seen these? They are like high tech versions of the wax and plastic writing boards (Magic Slate) we used as kids, but instead of erasing when you lift the plastic sheet, you just push a button and your work is gone.

I want to buy one—they aren’t expensive, maybe $25. I can think of many uses for it, like writing shopping lists or words of the day, etc. The only thing keeping me from buying one is fear. Fear that I will find it when I have just had a fantastic idea. I will write it down, because it is available and easy to use, and then, before I can write the idea on something more permanent (like paper), I, or my kids, or my dog, will accidentally press the little round button that erases it forever and ever. The original, inexpensive version, does not have any kind of memory capability, no back or undo button and no wax backing that holds the grooves and shadows of what was on it before. I suppose I could buy one of the models that syncs via Bluetooth, but I’m too cheap for that.

After re-reading the above paragraph, I wonder if that is exactly what I need. Maybe the good ideas are only good if they stay—if they have permanence in your brain and needle at you to be written even when you don’t want to bother with them. My mother always said, “You’ll remember it if it’s important.”

Writing Unconstrained

I’m watching the sun set from my desk. I stare a little too long and I can’t see my screen anymore, just a big ball of orange light. Writing blind. I do that sometimes- write without looking at the page/screen. There’s something about writing freely without worrying about the grammar or punctuation—allowing sentences to trail off when an idea has broken or you’ve run out of page. Not to get philosophical, but life might be better if we lived like that once in a while. It’s cathartic to go a day, or even an hour or two, not worrying about what you’re wearing or how you are perceived by others. It’s exhausting to always be on, to always be correct. Sometimes it’s okay to let yourself trail off the page for a bit.

The Best Squash I’ve Every Eaten

I met a woman this weekend, who under normal circumstances, I might not have looked twice at, let alone stopped to talk with her. She had a deep, reddish tan not unlike some of the women of my mother’s generation who didn’t know about skin cancer until it was too late to make up for the hours spent under harsh UV rays. She stood with a bit of a hunch in her back. Her shoulders were rounded, but not in a tense way.

I noticed her hands first. I want to say it was because my eyes were down while I was busy looking for something, but the truth is I try to avoid eye contact when I don’t want to converse with someone. Dirt stained her knuckles, and the undersides of her nails were caked black with soil. Her fingers didn’t straighten—I’m sure it was the result of arthritis. As she handed me my bag full of zucchini and summer squash, I looked up to pay. She smiled and a million tiny cracks appeared at the corner of her light blue eyes.

I told her how beautiful her produce was. This was not a lie. The colors were vibrant, the smells wonderful, and the prices just right. She said, “This is all I do. I sleep for a bit, tend to the plants, eat and tend some more. This is what I love.”

“Then you have a wonderful life.” I said this thinking about how I would love to spend all my waking hours doing what I love.

She looked at me for a moment, then nodded her head and said, “You’re right, it is wonderful.”

I thought about her again last night as I ate her life’s bounty. It tasted like happiness.

Facebook Ruined My Life, Now They Must Pay

This is a fantastic post- I’m especially loving her Shar-Pei filter idea for Facebook. Someone should get on that.

Peg-o-Leg's Ramblings

Should a ginormous corporation be allowed to humiliate a child and profit from her pain? Could $167,000,000 in compensation even begin to make up for her suffering? We can only hope so.

I give you, Exhibit A

Oh, the humanity

What’s the first thing you notice about this picture? (Besides the vast number of people piled onto 2 chairs.) Your eyes are drawn to the child on the right.

She sits alone. Two skinned knees are proof of a life spent tripping and bumping into coffee tables, and it’s not hard to see why.  Her cats-eyes glasses hint at the weak eyes beneath, while her chubby body attests to a complete lack of athletic skills. Her hand-me-down dress is so short the viewer can practically see both London AND France. From the top of her head (uneven hack-job on too-short bangs) to the soles of her feet (in black knee-socks…

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