Editing begins

I haven't blogged that much this week because I've been going cray cray with a certain red pen. I've started unmercifully editing my book and let's just say this type of editing takes much, much longer than writing. Which is surprising since conventional wisdom says writing down made-up ideas is the harder of the two but conventional wisdom, like most things, is wrong.

I'm happy to report that I've put my book away long enough to now see gaping plot holes, problems with character development, and straight up bad writing in more than a few areas. (I think reading Updike's four Rabbit novels last year gave me an education in the art of consistently good writing and how much more practice is needed to get even close to his level, if that's even possible. The dude is a master.)

Anyhoo here's what they looked like before, all pristine and happy to be sparkling words on a clean white page:

And here is the aftermath:

So far a couple pages have huge red X's through entire blocks of texts, and some pages need to be rewritten entirely, but it's coming along swimmingly and is -- dare I say -- actually fun? It's empowering to be able to truly criticize your own work, call it shit, and change it until it looks like a shade of its former self but is made into something much better.

On another note I have been listening to this song nonstop today and I suggest you do as well. After the first couple listens I was hooked. Apparently over 5 million other people were too:

House hunting begins

Confession: I am mildly (read: insanely) obsessed with real estate, and my obsession has kicked into high gear in 2011. I am on a mission to find a house, people. This hypothetical house does not need to be The Perfect One (if we were going for perfection here my dream home would then look a little something like this:

Straight up Cribs status (and highly unattainable at the moment). Basically I want to be as disgustingly wealthy as this guy from those Direct TV commercials:

But for now I suppose I can do without my own private backyard vineyard, heated marble bathroom floor, and miniature pet giraffe. All J and I need right now is something with a roof, some semblance of a backyard (patio, even?) where I can enjoy a glass of wine outside, located in a relatively safe neighborhood. I'm not picky, but I also haven't let go of all my standards...yet. Things I know I don't want in my first home:

• High HOA fees. This means that most condos/apartments/town homes are out.

• Located on a busy street. There's almost nothing I love more than hearing buses and big rigs blaring by right outside my front window. Almost. I don't need iron gates or tall stucco walls up around my estate, but I do want a little privacy for my starter home, which means living across from a McDonald's is out.

• Located in a dangerous neighborhood. I would like to steer clear of areas with ample amounts of hurricane fencing, barred windows, plaid shirts buttoned only at the collar, and sketchy dudes hanging out on street corners in the middle of the day. (Hello, obvi drug deals.) I really don't want my life to turn into one long, unedited scene from Friday (though I definitely would have gotten my bike back if Deebo stole it. Just saying.)

• No parking. I'd like an attached two-car garage since J has a vintage '60s Volvo we need to garage, but I'd also like a driveway and street parking for when friends and family come to visit for one of my fabulous Breakfast at Tiffany's-style parties, where women in pearls and men in suits need to crawl out bathroom windows and down fire escapes once the po-po makes a grand appearance due to noise violations. Because this is clearly a common occurrence in my life.

• The best house in the neighborhood. I'm concerned with the resale value of any home I buy since it is just a starter and not something I see myself in long-term if we want to keep moving up. Once we're ready to relist on the market I'd be pretty disappointed to find out that our house's value is being dragged down by our neighbors' properties.
  

• Rot, mold, termite infestations, cracked foundation, et. al. I am all down with a fixer upper, but there's a difference between special ordering granite countertops at Home Depot to replace existing linoleum ones versus hiring a contractor to jimmy up the entire home and fix jacked structural issues for nearly $100,000. Nope, not so keen on the latter. I fantasize about house flipping but the thought of actually having to do it (especially with my first) is somewhat terrifying...so that's out. Same with other, lesser problems like termite infestations. Yuck. I don't do bugs.

So there is my list. I did find a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath home nearby that was just listed for a scant $238,000 ("Unbeliebable!" exclaim J. Bieb fans worldwide), but by the time we contacted our realtor (yes, we have a real live realtor!) she told us there were already 11 bids on the place -- after only five days of being on the market. It's a short sale so that price may not even hold once the bank gets in on it, but I'm convinced there's something seriously wrong with the place since it is practically brand new (built in 2001) yet is by far one of the cheapest properties in this area for what you get. I'm going with someone might have been murdered in it, or perhaps it's haunted.  "Neither of which is true," my realtor tells us as she gives J a worried look that his wife seems slightly deranged. 

"But that's what was said about the Amityville Horror house and look what happened to that couple," I gently remind her, my pointer finger flailing around all matter-of-factly. 

Haunted or not, our search continues....

Highs and lows, Jan. 2nd edition

High:

My high was having this last week off from work.  By Tuesday I forgot I even had a job, what with all the playtime I got to spend with friends and family, shopping and eating and reading and writing and exercising. My perfect day involves waking up sans an alarm clock, and this last week or so I got 10 of those days. Pure bliss. D and I stayed at my parents' house for most of the week, where the fridge is always fully stocked with yummy goodies and the ocean is only a couple miles away. We took many lazy walks along the beach cliffs and "grazed" every night on aged gouda, olives, grapes, and red wine. 

Having all that time off was much-needed therapy. Of course, that makes tonight even harder to cope with since it's back to work tomorrow where I'm 100% sure I'll have to deal with an annoyingly stressful situation that will inevitably carry over from before Christmas, but I need to just breathe and deal with it. Like my grandma said a few days ago: "It's only a goddamn job." Tell yourself that every time you feel your blood pressure rise, she said. And she's right. It's only a goddamn job. Rinse and repeat.

Another high this week was a shopping spree D and I had at Banana Republic. The entire store is basically 50% off right now, so we made out like bandits. We got $500 worth of clothes for a little over 200 dollars total, with most of those clothes being for me. My fave purchase was a classic khaki trench that I got for $65 (originally $200). I'm still in shock for scoring such a fabulous find:

 

And I can't wait to wear it with my new Hunters!

Low:

Well, coming home to a cat puke all over my living room carpet was no walk in the park. Sometimes I feel like my cat forces herself to throw up like a bulimic to boycott us leaving her for days at a time. Luckily I have a husband who doesn't think twice about cleaning it all up himself. Why it doesn't occur to him to ask me to do it, I don't know. Score.

The only other low I can remember is having a terrible nightmare at my parents' house. I woke up petrified and needing to pee. Since my bedroom is downstairs and far from the bathroom, walking through a darkened house and down a dark hallway alone freaked me out (I suppose I could have turned on a few lights, but it was 3am and I wasn't exactly thinking rationally, all I remembered was that terrifying scene from The Sixth Sense ), so I nudged D awake, told him I had a bad dream and I was scared to walk to the bathroom by myself. Without hesitating or complaining about how pathetic I was (I mean, hello, I'm 28 years old and still scared of the dark?!), he got up out of bed and walked with me down the dark hall, waiting for me outside the bathroom door till I was finished. It was a little act, but one of the sweetest things a guy has ever done for me. Through the little (and big) things in my life, it's comforting to know that D always has my back.

Typical Monday

I must say that if it wasn't for my good friend, B, I'd go crazy at work. Just like my office, B's office uses instant messenger, which means the two of us sit online all day gabbing away about things we can't talk to our coworkers about. These include daily observations of office absurdities, like what I witnessed today...


Me: omg
Me: this is so hilariously lame
B: que?
Me: you know how my boss and I share one long table, with each opposite end as our desk?
Me: (i took pics when he went to the bathroom so i can show you our setup.)
Me: ANYWAY
B: ahahaha
Me: he set up his picture frames so that they go all the way to the edge of his desk, like creating a little barrier between us
Me: WEIRDO
Me: now when i look over to my right, instead of a long table i'm staring at a bunch of picture frame backs with his stupid kids pics in them
B: LOL
B: that's hilarious
Me: i wanna be like buddy, don't kid yourself -- you don't and will never have your own office. creating a little wall of picture frames isn't going to change that
Me: freak
B: i'm surprised he doesn't his own office, or at least a partition
Me: our head boss has his own office...obviously SOMEONE is bitter about that.
Me: it's like the beginnings of a pillow fortress, but not...

So I wonder if one day he thought "Hey I've got it! Let's play a game called 'We're going to pretend we have more of an office space than we actually do.' It involves barricading ourselves in with an avalanche of family photos and picture frames and playing King of the Fort at work."

This further encourages me to put NO pictures up at work (something I've always done in past positions). I feel like once I put my first picture/personal item up, I will be acknowledging the fact that this is my life. And I'm sorry but I refuse to accept that fact. Ignorance is bliss.