Sweet Dreams

I sing Jesus Christ Superstar songs to my son as lullabies, mainly because these are the only songs I know from start to finish, having listened to the soundtrack a couple thousand times between 1973 and 1976. All the songs are pretty depressing when you think about them, not exactly comforting, but as soon as I let loose I don't know how to love him, my son's eyes drop to half mast and he gets that drunk little smile that says he is about to go out like a light.

Speaking of lights, whilst I sang He scares me so, a little earwig scuttled along the edge of the light fixture in his room and when I say little, I mean little—barely longer than the fingernail of a long-fingered person, but the shadow it cast on the wall from the extreme backlighting of the bulb made this earwig the size of a rat—its antennae forming the tail—scurrying along the wall. I'm talking huge.

If you're waiting for the point to this post, there isn't one.

How's Your Novel Coming?

I spent the better part of last week at a writing conference in Virginia, an exclusive little gathering of 25 or so members of Writers and Critters, an online writing and critique group. The youngest attendee was 24 and I think I was the second youngest at 43. The ages went up from there to 69. I loved the crowd because one person called me skinny, a word not used to describe me in ten years, and another person thought I was in my thirties. But none of that is here or there.

What is here is information we received from a literary agent. Listen up, all you budding novelists. This agent receives about 300 queries a week—that's 15,600 a year. She spends an average of 30 seconds on each query. Wanna guess how many authors she signs on a year?

Five.

If that is not enough to make your ink run cold, she also says that the average author writes 4-6 complete manuscripts before getting a book contract. Not 4-6 revisions of one manuscript, but 4-6 separate, whole, complete stories.

You heard it here.

No, Penny, No!

What is the Mint's obsession with switching up our currency? Seems every time you get a ten, it looks different. They may be trying to dissuade counterfeiters but I think they're doing them a favor because if someone gave me a twenty with Mickey Mouse on it I'd probably accept it. Now they have to re-design the penny? Hasn't it been shown that it costs more than a penny to make a penny? For a list of reasons the get rid of the penny you can go to Citizens For Retiring The Penny web site. The spinning penny with the caption "Isn't it annoying?" is the best part of the site.

What's Another Word For Screech?

I've been riding the El lately, due to an on-site gig I have in River North where parking is imposible unless you want to pay $18 to park in a lot. Plus which, the commute is a good time to work on my novel, as things have been super hectic at home since Child #2. Plus plus which, my protagonist takes the El for the first time and waiting for the Purple Line provides the opportunity to take in the sights, sounds and smells of the El with which to write this scene poetically. But all I hear are the standard sounds of public transportationage: whoosh of doors, screech of brakes, rumble of train going down track. So pedestrian. So banal. There is no poetry in public transportation, I grumble. I also happen to be reading The Bonfire of the Vanities on the train and came across Tom Wolfe's description of the subway:

"Every time a train entered or left the station there was an agonized squeal of metal, as if some huge steel skeleton were being pried apart by a lever of incomprehensible power."

Gulp.

Think bigger, I tell myself. The next time I find myself waiting for the Purple Line I listen, and still all I hear is whoosh, screech, rumble — plus I picture a huge steel skeleton being pried apart by a lever of incomprehensible power.

My protagonist also experiences a great amount of fear and another place I get stumped is describing the physical effects of fear without resorting to the usual my hair stood on end, etc. Again, Tom Wolfe:

"The blood drained from Fallow's face, and then his chest and arms. His hide turned cold. Then a million little scalding hot minnows tried to escape from his arteries and reach the surface."

So the first thing I'm going to do, I'm going to stop reading Tom Wolfe.

Wednesday

Creativity is at its lowest on hump day, ergo the unoriginal title of today's entry. Speaking of unoriginal, I am linking to Smashing Magazine, who manage to be creative even on Wednesday, for today's content. They've got a bunch of items that will make you happier, or think you are happier, because everyone knows things don't make you happy, heh. My favorite is the cell phone adapter above. I hate cell phones. They are small, and ring at the wrong time at the wrong volume at the wrong places and make my el rides intolerable because it is hard to work on my novel with the guy next to me screaming into his phone. But most of all you can't stick them between your ear and shoulder. You may say, get a headset but then you've got things sticking in your ear, which is unpleasant, or everyone says Eh What? I can't hear you and then you have to scream I'M USING A HEADSET! and no one on the el can work on their novel with you screaming into your headset. But here, a old receiver adapter for the cell phone and—happy.

Boxed In

I worry, you know, about things. Over the weekend I had to pick up a ream of paper and I automatically thought of Office Max even though it is three times as far as the closest CVS, which at four blocks away, is one block further than the closest Walgreens. After working out, I thought, yuck I have to go to Office Max in the rain. I thought this, even though there is a CVS directly across the street from my gym. Maybe because it was pouring and I was in a hurry, it dawned on me as I pulled out my car keys that the CVS was directly across the street. What have big box stores done to me, that I so slavishly drive there for reams of paper?

Another thing that worries me: I've been cribbing my daughter's vitamins. This is not new. She has those gummi vitamins and I have eaten about three a week for a while now— my little pre-bedtime sugar/B12 fix. But we just switched brands to Disney Princess. These taste exactly like Dots. Exactly. I could eat the whole jar. In a night. So I went ahead and bought a box of Dots (with my ream of paper) and eat those instead of traumatizing my kid by eating all her Snow Whites.

Oh Google

I am none too happy about the new way Google autofills my search field not with my most recent searches, but with the world's. Or maybe it is U.S. searches. Google doesn't say. Or English speaking searches. Or all searches everywhere, translated to English. I don't know, but it bugs me. I do a lot of research and I'm somewhat compulsive hence I search the same things a lot and I want my searches. Not only am I not getting my searches, I am learning more about my fellow humans than I care to.

I was searching the title of a magazine article I'd recently published, to see if had become an internet sensation yet and I got as far as typing "is o" when these options presented themselves:


Is Obama the antichrist? For real? A half million results? My internet is slower than rush hour on the Dan Ryan because you're researching whether Obama is the antichrist? OK fine. Internet for all. Freedom of speech. Freedom of search. Whatever. My search is narcissist and delusional so who am I to judge? Lots of questions about Obama, I noticed. Then I remembered Sarah Palin's gotten more hits in the past two weeks than Britney and Paris combined so I wondered what the world was asking about her and typed "is s" thinking I'd get a bijillion questions on her. Instead I got this:


Is Sean Hayes gay? Please. Does tinsel sparkle? What's the obsession with who is gay? Nothing on Sarah P. yet. Here we go with "is sar" (yes I know we skipped "is sa" but I forgot to get the screen shot and I am too lazy to go get it):


Gay, gay, gay, gay, gay. Again, what is the obsession? Onto "is sara":


Now we're becoming more curious. We want to know if they are gay and Jewish.


Jewish, gay, married, getting a divorce? We want to know! Here is "is sarah p":



Finally! There she is. I know a lot of misinformation has been flying around the tubes, but I didn't think her pro-lifosity was in question.

Now we know the burning questions on things that begin with "S". Can I have my old autofill back?

I Like Glide

Add this to the list of Best of Costco: Glide Dental Floss. Usually I get Le Genéric at CVS but I was at Costco and in desperate need of floss and this billion pack of Glide was all Costco sold. Glide is super expensive, you can tell by the faux chrome packaging. It's $3-4 a pop even at Costco but wow, what an experience. It's like flossing with buttered silk. It's a massage for the teeth. There is breath freshener and teeth whitener soaked right into the floss.

And it's not string like the fishing line floss of yore. Crest calls it tape. It's wide and thick and soft and yes, it glides between your teeth. It doesn't gouge the gums like the CVS brand. Not convinced? Fine. I have a passel unused CVS floss you can have.

Possibly flossing daily adds 6 years to your life. 100, 106—do I want to live six years longer? How much cat food can I eat? But now that I have kids, I don't want to miss out on anything. I may be blind and deaf and wheelchair-bound at my great grandkids birth, but my teeth will look great.

Home Sweet Home

Just published yesterday on Inc.com: check out my feature article Is Outsourcing To China Over? (No.) and its sidebar Why Some Companies are Insourcing Software Development.

Random-ish Thought 2

I've been vaguely aware of a lot of Madonna in the news lately, and not for possible illegal adoption or divorce fracas, but for a real live music tour. There was even a photo of her in fishnets and a bustier looking exactly like she did twenty years ago, except she's now 60 pounds lighter.

My question is: who is Madonna's fan base these days? Back when I was in college, those Like A Virgin days, it was my peers. But now my peers are in their mid-40s and I haven't heard a single reverence to Madonna since 1992. Is it the kidz? Aging gay men?

Twins?