Finally, I can Breathe Again

Last weekend I had the total pleasure of sharing in the surprise birthday celebration that I planned for Matt and 23 of his relatives and friends.

Before I go any further talking about this particular soiree, it will help to understand the title of this post if I back up to about 3 months ago when this party first started taking shape. As a manner of comparison, for my 40^th birthday all I asked was to be let in on the day and time I had to be wherever I was being taken. Matt obliged me that information but I knew nothing else.

He never asked for the same.

And I knew what I wanted to do for him as the words…

“I don’t know what to do for your birthday, you have to help me, tell me what you want.”

…came out of my mouth back in early 2016. Because this year he’d be turning 40. This year was a huge milestone birthday. And I knew just how he was feeling about hitting that magic number.

In one word, freaked.

I remember when I was getting closer to the big four-oh. In the months leading up to my birthday I swear to you I was convinced I would just up and croak before I ever got there. Now I know everyone says ‘forty is the new twenty’ or whatever other platitude they like hearing themselves say out loud, but to me it was hard to imagine myself getting older.

Yes, despite the graying eyelashes, sagging boobs, slowing metabolism, I somehow managed to delude myself that I was still in my twenties or something. So when Matt admitted that he was kind of losing it over the upcoming day, I was just glad the party planning was already set in stone.

Because nothing makes a person feel younger than getting together in a room, filled with people they love, to laugh, cheer, eat, drink, and do all that ‘be merry’ stuff that makes life the best thing ever.

I chose to surprise him with renting a suite at Chase Field, on opening weekend, then filling it with 12 of his good friends, and get his dad and step-mom in from California, and get family in from Tucson, and get his mom in from Mississippi, and somehow manage to convince his sister and her 3 boys to make the trek out here from Boston.

And by some miracle of chance, all 23 of us (plus the handful of people at his office who also knew what was going on) managed to keep the layered secret since I first asked people to express their level of interest in buying their ticket to the game, and celebrating Matt, back on January 5.

Can I just for one second take a minute to acknowledge just how difficult it is to keep that much awesomeness inside your body? Especially considering:

• I’ve never kept secrets from Matt in the 17ish years we’ve known each other.
• He’s usually the first person I see at the end of the work day and I like recounting my day with him.
• I work at home, alone, so I like to yammer on for a while after he gets home.
• I just don’t lie. Ever. To anyone. Not anymore. I mean, when I was a kid, sure, but as an adult that seems pointless.

Boy was I ever wrong! The good news is I only had to tell one lie during all of this scheming and plotting. Amazing to say the least.

So are you ready to relive the whole experience along with me? Here’s how the timeline went…

January: Who’s in?

January: Holy crap, everyone is in?

January: Start thinking about where to house people.

February: Collect money from everyone – PayPal, shove cash in my pocket at a happy hour, stop by after work and drop cash just moments before Matt gets home (there was a lot of that kind of stuff).

February: Pay the first half of the suite rental fee / repeatedly hunt down the ticket rep.

February: Start the process of our home’s refi (meaning we shouldn’t put new, expensive purchases on our credit card and obviously the extra added challenge I really needed during party central planning stages).

February: Start formulating how I/we would get Matt to the ballpark. Deposit the last of the money from outside sources. Pay a huge chunk of the credit card bill & pray it won’t be an issue for the refi.

March: Email Matt’s boss/our loan officer to fill her in on the situation (AKA: don’t ask Matt about huge charges on the card, ask me!)

March: Final payment to suite rental. A small lull in party stuff ensues.

March: Close on the refi and (because Matt doesn’t know we will have people sleeping here), start doing construction again all around the house. Silently curse at my ladder every time I walk by it.

March: See about 100 new gray hairs starting to sprout while I try to maintain my composure because despite all the running to pick up/drop off, plan, email, etc. back and forth on party business, I still have to work every day, clean the house, do the life stuff I always do like there’s nothing else going on. Develop twitch over left eye.

March: Watch as my frayed nerve endings start jumping out of my body and realize there’s nothing I can do about it. Sweep dead nerve endings under area rug to be dealt with in April.

April: Finally! But wait, my in-laws, I hear, have plans and can’t house family. I start texting and making calls. Nobody responds in the ten seconds I expect them to respond in. Sheesh, how rude!

April: Oh shit, where will my SIL stay if my in-laws aren’t free? Agita takes hold.

April: Calls back and forth with my MIL – we can split the cost for a hotel stay. Begin researching hotels with a shuttle from the airport and/or are walking distance to Chase or our house.

April: There are zero hotels available in greater Phoenix. This is high season. You can stay in Scottsdale for $400 a night, but only 4 of you, not 5.

April: FIL & StepMIL save the day, the plans they had are altered, all 4 of the Boston fam can stay at the RV, plus I don’t have to lie about where I’m going at 10PM on a Thursday night because they have a vehicle big enough to pick up SIL and the kids at the airport.

April: I manage to exhale just a bit while I start doing the happy dance.

April: I tell Matt my mom is also coming up for the weekend and have to lie when he questions why – the one lie!

April: Coordinate with my sister and mom to be the drivers to the ballpark and arrive for early set up.

April: Consider hugging my friends and not letting go when they agree to put up my MIL for the night before the party as well as agree to be the carpool loading station for the bulk of the group.

April 6: Create an actual flowchart for the timeline of Friday’s events because I’m afraid of forgetting some small detail that will throw off the entire thing and cause my already thinning skull to implode.

April 4-7: Finish the small construction projects that need done for safety when family is in town, work, dry run to the ballpark so I don’t get lost, ensure Boston family is in safe and sound. Drop tickets for friends who won’t be able to meet up with the carpool caravan. Drool on myself and pass out on the sofa at 9PM just about every night.

8:20AM Friday April 8: Matt leaves the house late for work, like really late, for the first time maybe in his life. The moment the garage door closes I fly through a shower because I need to get to Sky Harbor to pick up my MIL, which happens with no drama but lots of traffic. We get breakfast then head to the mall to waste some time and catch up (this was really nice, I don’t always get time with my MIL because she lives pretty far away). My mom arrives at our house to drop some stuff. MIL and I head over to meet mom (praying Matt doesn’t come home for lunch or something). Mom and MIL take off for the afternoon. I haul ass up to the Musical Instrument Museum to drop tickets and a parking pass to FIL, StepMIL, SIL & nephews. I haul ass back home so I can clean before the rest of the Tucson family arrives for our “normal weekend” routine.

4:18PM April 8: I sit down on the couch with a snack, finish it, and go to get up to put my plate in the sink when I realize my legs will literally not move. Sit staring at the wall for about ten minutes while my brain does a hard reboot. Cannot compute. System failure. Switching to back up brain for next 24 hours. Running at 11% capacity.

5:00 – 5:15 April 8: Pray my mom remembers how to get to friend’s house to drop MIL, get text from Matt – he’ll be out 15 minutes early! Text friend to make sure my mom is on the way back.

5:22 April 8: Stare out front window praying the mom mobile rounds the corner before Matt. She does! We get bags inside approximately 4 minutes before Matt rolls into the driveway. Wendy & BIL roll in about 6:00. Drinks and a fun evening ensue.

Until Saturday mid-afternoon our weekend contained nothing out of the ordinary – Matt made a couple runs to Harbor Freight to do a project that morning, the family got showered and ready, and when Matt booted the compressor they all took off to go meet the crew of peeps at our friend’s place.

Then it was just the two of us.

And I knew he was going to want to lie down for an afternoon nap so I had to tell him something.

“Do you love me?”

“Of course.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

“Okay, then you have 15 minutes to finish this project before you have to be in the shower.”

“I knew it! I knew something must be happening this weekend!”

And at 3:06PM on April 9 we were on our way to Chase Field. I took a weird route to throw him off. But it’s impossible to hide a ballpark. He started getting really excited. He knew there would be at least 3 people at the game because they left our house early.

I text Wendy to tell her we arrived.

We head to suite level and he about loses it because he never sat in a suite at a ballgame before. I text Wendy that we’re a few minutes out.

We arrive at Suite 5 and I tap then he enters the room…

Countless phones are up recording his reaction as 22 amazing people yell SURPRISE!!!!!

And let me tell you something right now. All the stress, panic, exposed nerve endings of the last couple months? TOTALLY worth it at the sight of his face when he scanned the crowd and discovered just who was there to celebrate him!

As the day wore on (into the wee hours of the morning with the after party back at our place of course) small bits and pieces of the planning and scheming were revealed but mostly it was a time where Matt could be with so many people he loves. People he doesn’t get to see all that often.

My work was done. He was pretty much over the moon. And as far as I’m concerned, that sounds so much more fun than being over the hill.

• • • • • • • • • • •
In addition to this drivel I also write books, both fiction and non-fiction.
Learn more on my author page.

What Makes Us Label (Almost) Everything?

As I do every morning, today I got up, got my coffee and settled down on the sofa to ingest the life-liquid as quickly as I possibly could. Matt usually gets up a couple hours before I do so the television is already on when I “shuffle my slipperless toes to the kitchen” most days.

Most mornings he goes for the Today Show. It’s easy and always there. Reliable.

Before I go on here I’d just like to say that I have nothing specific against the Today Show. I’ve watched that show on and off for years. I was even a little sad when Katie Couric left. The way I feel about the story I saw this morning isn’t specifically attacking the show.

Instead, my baffled head shake comes from the fact that people must want to hear about stuff like this, otherwise they wouldn’t report the story. The people out there in news program land enjoy hearing stories like this one, it isn’t about placing blame on “news” anchors or the writers.

Now I know a bunch of you probably think I’m talking about the Amy Schumer v. Glamour Magazine debacle that took place a couple days ago. They have a Plus Size women issue, Amy gets named in the issue, they don’t label her as plus size but she freaks anyway and takes to twitter to release her frustration.

No. I mean, that story is an interesting experiment in political correctness but it isn’t the labeling issue I’m referring to this morning.

What got me all riled up this morning has to do with food.

Before you say the “ugh” that’s dying to escape from your throat give me a minute.

You know I’m pretty environmentally focused, and that goes for the planet as a whole as well as the tiny speck of space I inhabit on the blue and green rock. I like my home to be clean and try for a chemical-free existence. I prefer to make a lot of my own stuff like laundry detergent and lotion. And I try to buy organic options whenever possible.

So, with all that said, you might be thinking I’m talking about labeling food with GMOs. And in a way, I guess I am, but that still isn’t the issue at hand. It raises a whole bunch of questions though and here’s why:

The story I saw this morning was about labeling our junk food with recommended exercise time in order to work it off.

Now, I’m not sure you had the same reaction as I did. Mine went something like this:

I’m sorry, but, what the actual fuck?

Once that went through my mind, the next three things I thought about, in this exact order, were:

• We can’t get GMO labeling but this stupid shit is okay?
• Who in the hell thought of this and how did it end up as a story on a morning talk show?
• Idiocracy

I really can’t understand this world we live in sometimes. Big huge corporations are creating seeds resistant to pesticide and pests – and they all tell us those seeds are perfectly safe to consume – but the fight to have packages marked with that information is like asking the CEO of that huge company to pull his teeth out with a pair of rusty pliers.

Who wants to place bets that we get big bold stickers next to all the nutrition information on our bags of chips that tell us to shove in 5 of those chips then go do 100 sit ups before the fight is even over on GMO labeling?

Like I said, it makes me sad for our society. Watching people watching segments like that and knowing there are tons of people sitting at home and nodding along at just how great an idea that is makes me mental.

I mean, come on.

And I don’t mean to offend anyone here, because I’m basically talking about myself, but if you’re a person who sits around shoving snack foods, junk food, fast food down your gullet, is it safe to assume you don’t really give a shit about the nutrition label that says you need to go jog around the block?

Because, and answer me honestly here, what’s the first thing you want to do after ingesting a few (hundred) handfuls of cheddar and sour cream chips? I may not know you but, using myself as the example again, I feel pretty secure in saying it isn’t 'go to the gym'. At least not for the majority of the world.

The good news, if for nobody other than Mike Judge, is that at least we’ll all know how much we have to exercise while drinking our butter. It's just unfortunate, that butter is probably going to kill us with chemicals before we ever get off our ass to go workout.

• • • • • • • • • • •
In addition to this drivel I also write books, both fiction and non-fiction.
Learn more on my author page.

Daydreaming is a Contact Sport

Lately I’ve been longing for the good old days. When a girl only needed her pen, journal, and a daydream to write a story. During those days she could sit and write for hours. A time before she put a whole bunch of pressure on herself to try to make a living from her book sales.

Back in the days when authors at traditional publishing houses got an editor, book tour, paychecks. Because, back then, published Authors – the writers who were really, really, good at crafting a story - also ended up making a living.

It was hard to break in back then, but getting paid to be an author was a viable dream. Especially if you had talent.

That dream was mine.

I honed my skills. Worked on the art and technical aspects of writing, being a writer. Learned to spell. Typed while looking down at the keyboard because I never learned how to do it while looking up. Learned to craft a lead-in for a fiction story from every conversation I ever had. Used those lead-in writing prompts to spin out some short or long tale that I worked to edit numerous times before I ever considered putting it out into the world. Read books for inspiration and used my imagination to craft something that people wanted to read.

Then there was someone else’s dream – the internet.

Digital content.

Talent had to shift. It wasn’t about the story anymore. Writing a book took on a new meaning. It wasn’t about entertainment. If you released a book it became a companion piece for the other thing you wanted to sell.

Books suddenly became just another form of marketing.

Stories faded away. Fiction became passé.

If you weren’t giving away free books you could never grow your email list. And without your precious email list, nobody would ever know when you released another book.

The book you’d use to sell other things. The book itself was irrelevant, see.

The big circle of marketing. There are no corners.

And I don’t care if you have 10 Doctorates in marketing, nobody knows how it all really works. Because as soon as you pick a platform or a brand type or anything else that “helps sell your work”, you find out you did it wrong. You should have done this or that instead.

Everything current is already yesterday’s news. That article written yesterday is an old strategy. Time to learn something new, written by all the people who sold you books to learn about how they wrote books and sold them yesterday.

More circles.

Authors like me, who originated back in the days when you could identify a writer by the blob of ink on the first knuckle of their middle finger, are in competition with a whole bunch of people who have been working at this writing thing since all the way back in 2008.

Those people who sat around and said “I’ll get rich by writing books!”

And then they did.

Because those people apparently had their PhD in how to work a system they don’t even know. Or had tons of money to invest into their advertising efforts.

Or were just really, really lucky.

Get-rich-quick digital writers figured out how to make the internet and all the people who go along with it, to do their work for them and sell their books.

But not the books that were all the rage when I was just starting to form my daydream team. Not those well-crafted fiction stories of yore.

Because imagination is apparently dead. And if not dead, at least punched in the face to the point of bloody unconsciousness.

Someone took her out back and completely jacked her up with a syringe full of words like content, affiliate, click-through, backlink, SEO, page rank, impressions, keywords…

How many authors write without all of that spinning around their head anymore? Seriously. I need to understand how many writers are simply writing, sharing the imaginative worlds they craft despite everything already being done?

How many authors get to tell stories anymore and, if they do, can they possibly live on income from those stories?

Or, better yet, does anyone care about those stories enough to want to read them anymore or is it all just 800 word articles about what color your aura would be underwater?

Approximately 105,120 books are published on Amazon every single year so I suppose there has to be something to the whole book writing craze.

I just wish all those writers who used to say “everyone has at least one book inside them” would have shut their damn mouths. Because doing this job is about more than having an idea for a book. Being an author is about more than having that MA in marketing.

An author in this age of literature also has to know all of the following:

• School is irrelevant, spelling isn’t really a thing anymore. (Don’t believe me? This being defined in the Oxford dictionary might change your mind.)
• Plot is thin and wearing away because nobody cares.
• Most characters have the exact same voice, inflections, dialect.
• Books with a lack of shock and awe won’t sell.
• If you want to sell fiction it better have some graphic sex, violence, or both by page 5 or don’t bother writing it.
• Graphic sex scenes are written so often and in so many genres now the word “smut” should be revised in the dictionary.

But probably the most important point to remember is that everything I just said is wrong. There’s already a new strategy where some author in some desolate corner of the internet just made a six-figure income.

You can read all about it in the book they release next week telling you how you can do it too.

Look, I know I’m just whining here. And without the current way of things I couldn’t call myself a published author of fiction books. Ah, irony. Believe me, I don’t want to look the gift horse in the mouth.

However, while I don’t want you to think I’ve got this overly inflated ego, I know I have talent for fiction writing. For crafting a story based on characters. Plus, I know I have the dedication to keep doing this because I’ve been writing for almost three decades and don’t plan to stop.

So, I also know that if the internet never became a thing where I could share my work, I would have eventually persevered into published regardless.

It just sucks that what they tell you is to write more titles, release more books so your name can be seen from space. Better known as page 1 on amazon. Write more books simply so people find your titles, not because you want to tell a story.

And the merry-go-round marketing circle continues.

But I’m jumping off. I’m writing and releasing fiction no matter what the experts try to tell me is in or out. I never really cared about all of that popularity shit to begin with. And I can’t be the only one who thinks this way.

There must be some kind of audience out there for the work I do. People who are still interested in characters. In imagination.

I’m leaving the circle behind and getting my shit together in a straight line. Putting all that daydreaming to good use.

Finally.

• • • • • • • • • • •
In addition to this drivel I also write books, both fiction and non-fiction.
Learn more on my author page.