Mother Nature's Shakeup

I was sitting at work today writing about a potential tax increase for real estate partnerships -- not exactly earth-shattering stuff -- when the building groaned and my desk and computer screen started to wiggle from side to side. Huh, this must be an earthquake, I thought. And by the time I finished that thought, the earthquake was pretty much over.

Now, I was born and raised until I was almost 10 years old in coastal Alabama, right along the Gulf of Mexico where there are brutal hurricanes every couple of years. So, earthquakes don't bother me. In fact, I kind of like them. They're Mother Nature's way of reminding us that she can kick our butt whenever she wants, most of the time leaving us unharmed. Maybe it's her way of getting back at us for greenhouse gases and global warming. And when I'm writing about issues like taxes, it is a nice way to break up an otherwise dull day.

Granted, I have never been in a bad earthquake, the kind where things fall off of shelves and walls crumble. One time, I was interviewing the head of the city's real estate department when a temblor struck and he said, "Uh, I've got to go," and hung up. I suppose he had a few more important things to tackle besides whatever story I was working on at the time, like whether or not City Hall was still standing.

Another time, I was several floors up in high-rise building when it started to creak and sway. I'll admit, that was a little freaky. Now I know how a bee feels when the flower that he's sucking pollen from gets blown around by a strong breeze.

And, probably most memorably, the night before my wedding, I was lying in bed unable to sleep around 3 a.m. when it felt like somebody slipped a quarter in a non-existent machine on the nightstand. I thought the vibration might have been all in my head or the result of nervous shaking, which was a possibility. But when my maid of honor, who was sleeping in the hotel room's other queen bed, woke up the next morning, I said, "I think we might've had an earthquake last night." She laughed at me, also thinking it was just my nerves, but when we turned on the morning television news, the earthquake was all they could talk about.

I like to think the pre-wedding rumble was a good sign of some sort for my marriage. But as a co-worker pointed out to me today when I retold the same story, "Isn't the Earth supposed to move the night of your wedding, not the night before?"

I'm sure earthquakes freak a lot of people out, especially those who can remember the devastating temblor that shook Northridge, Calif., in 1994 and caused $20 billion in damage. But most of the time, it's a simple shake like the sensation of reaching the top of an incline on a roller coaster -- that "I hope this thing was recently inspected" kind of thrill.

I suppose life is kind of like that too. A little shakeup might seem a bit unpleasant at first, but maybe it was just what you needed to break up the monotony.

Children's Book Bonanza

Since I read five or six books to my son every night before bed, I've become a connoisseur of children's books. Sometimes I'm surprised by how clever they are and sometimes I'm let down halfway through -- and that's saying a lot since these are only 20- to 30-page picture books.

When I read a book that I really like and it becomes one that my son asks for over and over again, I think maybe I should write a children's book, but I don't even know where to begin. Do you start with the story or the illustrations, because some books seem to revolve around the art?

We have two artsy pop-up books by a writer named David A. Carter called "One Red Dot" and "White Noise." The pop ups aren't animals jumping out of boxes or cars driving down a street. They're sculptural puzzles in primary colors. There are very few words, but it still takes a while to read them. In "One Red Dot" you have to find the hidden red dot in each pop-up and in "White Noise" you look for the pieces that make subtle sounds when you turn the page. In these books, the story definitely depends on the art to engage the imagination, not the words.

Maybe it's the immature teenager inside of me, but I like quirky stories, like "Walter the Farting Dog" by William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murray. The first few times I read that book I couldn't get through it without laughing so hard I was crying. Some of the jokes were lost on my son, but he learned that we love other people (and animals) no matter what their affliction, be it a bad and continuous case of gas or a tendency to pick their nose (oh wait, that's my son).

I used to steer away from books related to cartoons, like Nickelodeon's Diego or Backyardigans, even though my son loves them. However, Jack and I both like the Miss Spider books, which are based on the cartoon written from the original "Little Miss Spider" and "Miss Spider's Tea Party" by David Kirk. The Charlie and Lola books by Lauren Child are also just as witty and cute as the cartoons on the Disney channel and vice versa.

As much as I tend to prefer books with more modern illustrations and current language, I do like new books written in a traditional style. One of our recent favorites was "Bumbletum" by Steve Smallman. It's about a new toy in the toy room called Bumbletum. All the other toys welcome him and try to figure out what he does. In the end, they decide he's a toy that's meant for hugging.

The joy of the whole experience is sharing books with my son and figuring out what he likes. So far, he has pretty good taste. Maybe one day I'll write a book for him or we can write one together. For now, we'll just keep checking out books by the dozen from our local library and searching for inspiration in the brightly colored pages.

Nothing Like Hard Work

"Opportunity is missed by most people, because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

If anybody knows what hard work looks like, it would be American inventor Thomas Edison, who is credited with the above quote. He's just the kind of overachiever that makes me feel like a lazy slob most of the time.

I'm not one of those people with the kind of ambition it takes to juggle family, friends, career and lots of side projects, although that's about the order I'd rank all of those priorities in my life. I like having a job that requires little extra work besides the hours I'm required to be in the office. And when I get home, that's when I get to focus on everything else -- my husband, son and the occasional date with my friends. That doesn't leave much time for side projects.

Sure, if I really wanted to earn some extra money and build up my portfolio, I could do some freelance writing in my "spare" time, not that I have any after my top three priorities are taken care of. I just don't have the energy.

That's the reason behind this blog, I suppose, to give me a venue to write about all kinds of things outside of my work requirements. I've given myself a daily deadline, but I have no other quotas to meet. I can write as long or as short as I want. I can cover any topic that I want. I can turn in my daily "assignment" whenever I want.

It is work -- work that is usually fun except for when I can't think of anything to say and I'm staring at the blinking cursor at the top of a blank page. But every day, or night usually, I strap on my overalls, stumble into the muck and try to string together a couple of sentences that make sense. I'm here today and I promise to come back tomorrow. At this point, I'm ready to get my hands dirty. You never know where this opportunity might lead me next.

Nothing to Say

Some days, there's just nothing to say. Nothing interesting or happy or sad to share. Nothing colorful or whimsical to describe. Nothing worth writing down or typing up. Today is one of those days.

One of these days I'll have to go through my old creative writing notebooks and find some writing prompts for these kinds of nothing days. But for today, I will just say that I have nothing new to say.

Little Things

I got to spend the day with one of my two most favorite people today, my 3-year-old son Jackson. He patiently -- for a 3-year-old -- watched cartoons and played with his new toys this morning while I cleaned the bathroom and mopped the kitchen then got dressed for the day's outing.

The first stop was the library, where I picked out books for us to read together at bedtime while he played games on one of the two computers in the children's section. Normally, kids are lined up waiting their turn to use the computers, but today was a slow day, so we hung out and played games for a while. Jack giggled at the silly noises and danced to the music he created on the xylophone and drum games and I laughed with him.

Next, we went shopping at Target for a few odds and ends and shelves to organize his old toys in his closet so that we could make room for his new toys on his bookshelf. He was being so good and patient that I tempted fate and dragged him around Macy's for a few minutes to see if there were any good after-Christmas deals.

The kid was cracking me up all day. Telling me as we walked through the parking garage, "I'm going to do something funny," then stopping to shake his little body and make silly noises. He was right; it was funny. In the women's section, we were playing hide and seek between the clothing racks and he was being good and not getting so far away that I'd lose track of him. Then, when we were back downstairs, he said, "Mom, you're my best friend." I told him, "Thanks, buddy," and I was grinning from ear to ear.

The last stop before home was lunch . And, for once, he actually devoured his entire lunch without me having to plead with him to eat it. Before I was even half-finished with my sandwich and salad, he'd eaten his entire PB&J, except for the crusts, of course. And while I finished, he sucked down his yogurt! I couldn't believe my eyes.

There were no tantrums for the entire day out and he took an hour and a half nap when we got home. It was amazing! Of course, now I feel like I'm really in for it tomorrow. This much good kid karma can't keep going for an entire weekend, can it? I guess we'll find out soon enough. We're thinking about going to Mission Bay to play in the sand and ride his new Radio Flyer scooter -- or "rooter scooter" as Jack likes to call it.

It was a pretty ordinary Saturday, but it seemed extraordinary. Sometimes it's just the little things that make a day special.

Christmas Wish Fulfilled

I got my Christmas wish. After spending the morning unwrapping presents with my husband and son and the afternoon eating and visiting with my extended family, I'm home sitting in my office with my feet up and enjoying some peace and quiet.

I had a fun day with my boys, watching both of them open their presents with wide eyes and smiles on their faces. Then we drove to my uncle's house in a semi-rural area of San Diego County, where we hugged and talked to our aunts, uncles and cousins, ate too much food, played with the chickens and dogs, and checked out my uncle's recent work in his art studio.

Worn out from all the day's excitement, my 3-year-old fell asleep in the car and stayed asleep when I laid him down in his bed to finish his nap. My 34-year-old began snoring on the couch within minutes of lying down, even while I was a few feet away talking on the phone to my dad in Alabama, getting instructions on how to reheat the "redneck meat" he sent us for Christmas -- smoked sausage, smoked pork loin and smoked bacon-wrapped quail.

And now I'm sitting in my office enjoying the sound of nothing except for the hum of my computer, the tapping of my fingers on the keyboard and my husband's heavy, slow, sleepy breathing from the other room. The TV's not on, my son's not yelling for a fresh cup of milk and my husband's not saying, "No Jackson. Stop Jackson," because our Jack is jumping on him again.

I got just what I wanted -- some quiet time to myself. Time to write. Time to read. Time to relax. Thank you. Merry Christmas.

Battle of the Christmas Bulge

It's a good thing the economy is still in the tank, because that means most companies aren't sending out baskets of snacks, bottles of wine and boxes of chocolate for Christmas this year.

I usually get a couple of Christmas gifts at the office, but this year the holiday greetings were limited to a half dozen cards from people feeling good enough about 2010 to shell out 44 cents for a stamp and a slew of e-cards from the majority of companies that are still unsure about where the economy is headed. (I admit I had to go to the postal service Web site to look up how much a stamp costs these days; I thought it was 47 cents.)

But there was that one 2 lb. box of chocolates from that new construction company that's getting a lot of work. I offered a few pieces to some co-workers and brought the rest home to share with my husband and son. I'm pretty sure I ate at least a pound of it on my own though.

Then there was the cupcake at the daycare Christmas party, the leftover brownies from the gift boxes my company purchased for our regular customers (I had two) and the cookies and brownies I baked today (two brownies and six cookies eaten, so far).

And tonight when we get together with my parents, siblings and their children, there will be beef bourguignon, bread, pie, cookies, chocolate and wine. I can't wait!

Then there will be Saturday morning, Dec. 26. That's when the scale will tell me what I already fear: that I've gained 2 or 3 or 5 lbs.

Every year, I think, I'm going to be good this year. I can be disciplined enough to make it through a couple of weeks without giving in, can't I? Sure, it's easy to think that way when I don't have 2 lbs. of chocolate sitting on my desk and before I'm too tired from shopping to make dinner so I stop by Arby's on my way home. By mid-December, I usually decide it's OK to splurge and eat the chocolate or cookies. Christmas only comes once a year, after all. Thank God.

That's what New Year's resolutions are for, to get rid of those 5 lbs. gained over the holidays (and the other 20 or 25 I'm planning to lose any day now). And that's what I'll be telling myself a week from now, when I'm celebrating New Year's Eve with my friends, eating my third cookie and drinking my second glass of wine. Here's to a slimmed down 2010! Cheers!

Christmas Without Snow

Knowing that I was from the South and the West, my friends in Minnesota always wondered how you could have Christmas without snow. I will admit that snow adds a little extra ambiance to the season, but I still think I'll take my Christmas without the cold, wet, white stuff -- especially this year when our friends and relatives in Minnesota and Iowa are preparing to be buried under a foot or two of snow.

I suppose one day we'll have to visit the in-laws in Iowa at Christmas time so that our son can experience real snow, not the slush we get every now and then in the mountains surrounding San Diego. But Jack has experienced precipitation of any kind so few times in his three-and-a-half-year existence, that he's actually kind of afraid of rain. At least I can say he knows what snow is. We have a book about it and he giggles when I read it as if it's a mythical phenomenon.

But the truth about Christmas is that it has very little to do snow or candy canes. In our little family, it's not even so much about the birth of Jesus. Christmas is the time of year when we huddle together for warmth of a different kind, the warmth of knowing that we love each other. I'll take that over a down coat and mug of hot chocolate any day.

Good Quote for Writers

I read a great quote by Jack London today: "You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club."

That's why I started this blog. I can't sit around waiting for something to inspire me to write or to inspire me to do anything, really. I've got to try new things, new paths and see where they lead me.

I'm trying to keep my eyes open for things that inspire me and write about them here. Some things are going to fall flat and some things will rise to the top of the heap and some things will be just the beginning of something else that I might adapt elsewhere.

This blog is my online journal. Instead of writing my ideas down in a notebook where nobody else will see them and have the opportunity to give me feedback, I'm dumping everything here on these virtual pages. I'll let my readers, whoever they may eventually be, help me filter the good from the bad.

Right now, the quote that is running through my head is from my favorite yoga video. The instructor says, "You're on a journey and on that journey you have to pause and check in with your vehicle, your body." In terms of writing, this blog is the vehicle for my writing journey, so I'll keep checking in on a regular basis to see how I'm doing and I hope you'll help me with my maintenance plan too.

I Hate the Gym

I am not one of those people who goes to the gym with a smile on my face, ready to great my fellow exercisers. I don't like going to the gym. I'd rather be at home sleeping or reading or shoving bamboo shoots under my fingernails. I only exercise because a) I sit in front of a computer all day (and for while at night), b) I don't want to regain the 50-plus lbs. I lost a while ago, c) I hope it helps to control my blood pressure and d) I hate to admit it, but it does make me feel better.

I go to the gym at 5 a.m. four days a week, which means I wake up at 4:30. I have exactly an hour to divide between cardio, weights and stretching, so that I can get home shortly after 6:15 to take a shower and be at work by 7:30. If I don't go to the gym before work, the chances are higher that I won't go at all. At night, it's too easy to say, "I'm too tired to exercise today," especially when I have other things on my agenda at night, like spending a few minutes with my husband and son, cooking dinner, washing and folding clothes, packing my lunch for work the next day, and doing a little writing here and in other places.

So, since I'm barely awake at 5 a.m. and cranky because I am at the gym, I'm not particularly social when I'm there. I stuff my ear buds in my ears, turn my iPod up to drown out the annoying health club music and focus on my workout.

I don't go to the gym to socialize. I'm there to get in, check my hour of exercise off my to-do list and get out. If I saw me, I'd think, "This girl means business. I better not bother her," but for some reason my unfriendly demeanor doesn't dissuade those annoying people who love going to the gym and are happy about it even when they're there an hour before the sun comes up.

I'm not an unfriendly person, but that doesn't mean I want to chit-chat while I'm dripping in sweat and counting the minutes until I'm back in my car with the heated leather seat warming and soothing my stiff back. Still, there's always a couple of people who are convinced they need to be friends with every other person crazy enough to be at the gym that early on a regular basis.

They smile when they pass by and say, "Good morning. How are you?" or something along those lines. At least, I think that's what they're saying. I can't hear them, because of the aforementioned loud music filling my ears, a fact that seems to be lost on these people even after they ask me something three times without getting a response when I can't see them smiling in my direction and mouthing their questions as if I were deaf. They're determine to start a conversation and I'm determined to avoid one.

I don't hate these people. I admire their dedication to their health, because I know how hard it is to drag yourself out of bed before the crack of dawn to run in place on a treadmill next to other sweaty strangers with bizarre exercise and hygiene habits. Is it really that hard for some people to wash their gym clothes once in a while?

I don't like being rude to nice people, but my time at the gym is precious. I try to at least smile back, but I'm not very good at the fake I-don't-know-you-but-I'm-going-to smile-because-I-don't-want-you-to-think-I'm-rude-for-not-smiling-back smile. Then again, I've been going to this gym for almost a year and these people don't seem to have caught the hint. I suppose one of these days I'll actually remember their names. I guess another friend wouldn't hurt.

Lazy Day

There's a load of laundry sitting in the dryer since yesterday that needs to be folded, the bathroom needs a good scrubbing and the kitchen floor needs to be mopped, but even though I haven't expended a lot of effort today aside from going to brunch at a friend's house, I don't think I'm going to get any cleaning done tonight. Sometimes it's good to take it easy for no good reason. It's going to be a busy week starting tomorrow, so I guess I should store up some energy today.

Vivid Imagery

There is a moment from my early years in Alabama when I was about seven years old that stands out in my mind, so much so that I've written about it a few times in the past. Even thought it's been a while since I put pen to paper regarding that memory, I can still smell it and feel both the physical and emotional texture.

My granddaddy Jackson used to take us out on his boat. The men would fish -- and the women too, I think -- and I would wander around the boat, eating, drinking Dr. Pepper and trying not to get sick. Inevitably, I would throw up at some point. I'm thankful that the last time I felt motion sickness like that was when I was seven or eight, although my mild morning sickness when I was pregnant four years ago felt similar.

That one day when I was seven, we'd caught a bucket full of Spanish mackerel. Once we were back on shore, granddaddy went to clean the fish before we drove home and I went to help him. At the end of a long wooden pier, there was a covered area with counters where people cleaned their catch. I don't remember specifics about the covered part of the pier, except that there was a lot of dark wood, although it may have appeared dark because it was waterlogged.

Granddaddy, a tall man with a mostly bald head and humongous hands, grabbed one of the mackerel out of the bucket and put it on the workspace to scrape off the scales. I wanted to help, but there was no other knife, not that he would've let me use it if there were. I can see his kind face smiling but concentrating on his work. I can smell the water and the wet wood.

Standing there in my blue, white and gold bikini with my hair in pigtails, watching granddaddy work, I picked up one of the slimy, scaly mackerel and held it ready for him. The pungent scent of fish beginning to dry out and die was strong in my little nose -- and pricks at my brain even today -- but I was proud to be there helping him in the small way that I thought I could.

I don't know how long I stood there, taking a new fish out of the bucket after he took the one I held in my hands. It seems like it was a long time, but when you're seven years old even five minutes stretches on for eternity.

When we were done or when I gave up on the chore, I ran back down to the start of the pier covered in fish scales and slime. Granddaddy, grandmother or my mom made me jump in the water and swim around before I changed into my clothes for the ride home. I'm pretty sure I still smelled like fish anyway until washed off the stink later that night in the bath. I washed away all remnants of the day except for my memory of it.

Granddaddy died the next spring and there were no more fishing trips on his boat. His death and my first funeral gave me another memory for which the details are still strangely embedded in my brain -- his pale emotionless face as he laid in the coffin without smiling at me like he always did when he saw me -- but I prefer to let the other smelly, scaly, smiley memory float to the surface.

Some Thoughts on Race

I was looking through one of my old journals the other day from a creative writing class I took in high school and intrigued by the number of things I wrote about racism. I've always been sensitive to inequalities that I see around me based on sex, sexual orientation and especially race, but it seems like the older I get, the less passionate I am about such things.

I can't decide if it's because I'm just older and have more responsibilities and am focused on things like working and raising a son or if it's just become less of an issue in the world around me. I mean, I live in San Diego, where my race is the minority, and I have a family that is blended racially. My stepbrother and stepsister are Filipino and my brother recently married a Taiwanese woman.

Even when I lived in Alabama, where the racial tension was palpable, I always had the understanding that you don't treat somebody different because of the color of their skin. I don't recall anyone in my family ever teaching me that, I just knew it -- even just shy of my 10th birthday when we moved away from Alabama. I do remember feeling the racism all around me when I left California during the summers to visit my dad in Birmingham and it felt like black men were afraid to even look in my direction. In San Diego, they'd hit on me and neither one of us gave it a second thought.

Then when I lived in Naples, Italy, and went to a high school for employees of the Department of Defense, I was reading things like "Soul on Ice" by Eldridge Cleaver and was the only, or maybe one of only a few, white members of the Black Student Association. I don't think I went to very many meetings, but I remember feeling scared that the other members would think I was somehow intruding on their conversations and very determined at the same time to let them know I "got" it -- whatever "it" was.

On the flip side of that, I spent my junior and senior years of high school in a suburb of Minneapolis and I have a very clear memory of walking around the school on my first day thinking, "Where are all the black people (and Filipino and Mexican people, for that matter)?" I'd never lived anywhere so white before. Maybe that's where I began to be desensitized.

Or maybe I just decided I couldn't handle the intense emotions that racism brought out in me anymore. I went to college at St. Cloud State University, about an hour north of Minneapolis, because of the good Mass Communications program there and because my best friend and boyfriend -- now my husband -- went to school there. I found out after I started going to school in St. Clous that the town and college were nicknamed White Cloud for a variety of reasons.

During my senior year, a freshman woman, who happened to be black, found swastikas and other remarks written on the white board on her dorm room door. The university's administration, to its credit, did not take the incident lightly and neither did I. As co-news editor I was insistent that it was an important story and I covered all the twists and turns in the case for months. I followed up soon after with an Indian professor who had swastikas carved into her car door.

It was a difficult story for me, because of the subject matter and the emotional toll that it took talking to the student and the professor repeatedly about how these things made them feel. I thought I understood how they felt -- as if someone had carved these marks into their skin for all the world to see and judge -- and I felt ashamed and hurt, because I knew the perpetrators were white. After three or four months, I told my fellow editors I'd had enough. Someone else was going to have to take over, because I just couldn't take it anymore. And a few months later, I graduated and moved on.

Now, I reflect on race in subtle ways. I was at a commercial real estate function a few years ago where an economist made some sort of comment about fast food jobs being the only means of employment for young black men and the words pierced my brain like an ice pick. I imagined for the one and only black man in the audience, who was trying not to visibly react to the blatantly racist observation, that it was like a blade right through the heart. When I saw him leave before the end of the presentation, as many other people did to get out of the hotel parking garage before it jammed up when the event officially ended, it took a lot of strength for me not to run after him and ask him how he felt about what we'd heard. I wanted to complain to the event's organizers, but of course, it got lost in the shuffle of the 20 other things I had to do that day.

But, I can't be the only one who feels the way that I do. Many of us must think, "Oh, things have gotten better. We all have the same opportunities now. It's not like people are getting lynched." But, I still see it. I see it in the socio-economic separations between races, even in a diverse place like San Diego. I see it when a black man and his white wife draw stares from other couples who are not mixed-race. Sometimes I still think to myself, "They are brave."

What I hope is that the mixing of races that we see at an increasing pace and achievements by young people who feel uninhibited by their race will change things so that by the time my son is old enough to think about these things, he won't have to. He won't know what racism means and won't be able to fathom someone hurting another person just because of the color of their skin -- or gender or sexual orientation. I hope.

Book vs. Movie

Whenever a book is made into a movie, the people who've read the novel usually say, "The book was better than the movie."

I saw "The Devil Wears Prada" three years ago when it came out and even own the DVD, but I've never read the book. I have a friend who said when the movie came out that she liked the book better. Looking for something interesting to read, I recently decided to buy it and read it myself. Now, I'm struggling to get through it.

Maybe it's because I just happen to really like Anne Hathaway, the actress who played the main character Andy Sachs, but 107 pages into the book, I like the movie better. Andy in the novel is too neurotic for me. As I read, I think, Yes, your boss is crazy, but you're the one who took the job, so just deal with it! She turns every deranged request by her boss -- like flying the as-yet-unreleased copy of the latest Harry Potter book via private jet to Paris -- into a "poor me" melodrama that makes me want to tell this pathetic girl, "Get over it, already!"

As I read, I can see why the screenwriter made the choices she made. Andy is more relatable as the confident, strong-willed woman she is made out to be in the movie, instead of the whimpering girl who agonizes over every little detail that causes her anxiety about her job.

And instead of her boss, Miranda Priestly, spending the first month in the book out of the country and barking orders to Andrea over the phone, she appears within a few minutes of the storyline in the movie. That was a wise screenwriting choice, because Andy may be the main character, but the over-the-top controlling fashion magazine editor Miranda is what makes the story so delicious.

The tension between Andy and the other Runway magazine employees for the first half of the movie is also more interesting and makes more sense than the way they accept and befriend Andy right away in the book. I know the novel is semi-autobiographical, but I find it hard to believe that the beautiful people who work at Runway and dress in thousands of dollars worth of designer clothes every day for their jobs would take to Andy -- who wears basic white button-down shirts and skirts from the Gap -- so easily.

I hope that as I observe the choices that other writers make it will inform my own writing. Not that I plan to ever write a novel that will be turned in to a movie, but I am trying to put more thought into my words as they filter from my brain to the page or computer screen. It's a start, right?

A Peevish Little Guide ...

I was just looking through some of my old notes from writing classes I took when I still lived in Minnesota and ran across a handout with the title "A Peevish Little Guide to Prose Style for Creative Non-Fiction Writers" and it has some quirky writing tips. Here are a few of my favorites:

"If creative writing were like 'Wheel of Fortune,' you should have to buy adverbs."

"If you don't know why you are writing in incomplete sentences, you probably should complete them."

"You never outgrow your need for a thesaurus."

"Strunk and White are still all right."

I feel better now. I still own a copy of Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style," though I can't remember the last time I opened it. And I sometimes grab the paperback thesaurus out of my desk drawer at work or off of my bookshelf at home out of desperation to replace a word I've used too many times or to find a word that's on the tip of my tongue but not flowing through my fingertips to the keyboard.

I miss The Loft in downtown Minneapolis where I took this class on creative non-fiction writing. It was a cool haven for writers of all types, with a little coffee shop and a bookstore that stocked books by local writers. The classes were all in a really cool old brick building remodeled with exposed brick and duct work -- very industrial-chic.

Guilt

I was writing on deadline today at work and had only one story to turn in by the end of the day. It wasn't a terribly complicated story, but I needed to turn it in and shut down my computer by 2:30 so that I could get to my son's Christmas party at daycare by 3 o'clock and take pictures of him sitting on Santa's lap. The self-imposed early deadline should have been easy to make.

Then, of course, I had a breaking news story that didn't have to be written right away, but my main source was available today, not tomorrow. And every time I got into a groove on the story that was due today, my phone rang. And then, before I went back to writing, I'd take a look at my e-mail and have a couple of messages that needed attention. So, when I finally got back to writing again, my phone would ring, and the vicious cycle continued.

At 2 p.m. when I still wasn't done writing, the mommy guilt started to kick in. Oh no! I'm going to be late! I'll miss Santa's big entrance! Santa was scheduled to arrive promptly at 3 p.m. Parents were instructed to show up by 2:45 so that we could get in position to see the kids' reactions -- and snap the requisite photos -- at the precise moment they heard Santa say his first, "Ho, Ho, Ho!"

I filed my story and turned off my computer at 2:35 and ran to my car thinking I'd have plenty of time to get there. It was too early in the afternoon to run into traffic, right? Oh, but of course there was traffic. Argh! If I hadn't checked e-mail and Facebook and read the newspaper while I ate my lunch, I'd be right on time! I gripped the steering wheel and gritted my teeth and willed the stop-and-go traffic to part like the Red Sea -- or like the scene in Bruce Almighty where Jim Carrey gets the traffic to part so that he can make it to work on time.

By the time I pulled off the Interstate at five minutes until 3 o'clock I was cursing myself. Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! And then I parked, grabbed my presents out of the car and hopped onto the sidewalk just in time to see Santa standing in the driveway talking to the daughter in the mother-daughter team that runs the daycare.

Ta da! I hurried into the house before Santa could make his way inside. And when I heard Jack shouting in excitement, "Mommy!" I felt all that guilt slide right off my shoulders -- even the guilt I felt at the start of the day when I informed my editor, who's working while on vacation, that I would be leaving an hour and a half early on a deadline day. Jack didn't care if I got there after almost all the other moms and dads; he just cared that I showed up.

I'm still proud that I made it there just in the nick of time, but I felt the guilt begin to pile on my shoulders again when we got home and I went to my computer to check the e-mail I missed after leaving work early.

The point, I guess, is that whatever choice you make, when you're trying to balance work and family and friends and your own well-being, is going to leave you feeling guilty for slighting one of those elements to satisfy one of the others, so if you focus on what's really important then all of the other things will somehow fall into place. The work will get done somehow, as it always does, but you can't make up for those little moments that make everything else seem unimportant.

The Best (and Worst) Compliment

One of the best compliments I ever received came from my professor and advisor in the St. Cloud State University Mass Communications program. He and I and a couple of other students were at a bar. I think it was after some sort of event on campus where a professional journalist came to speak at our university. He said, "One day we'll all be saying we knew you when."

He probably had a couple of drinks in him by then and he probably doesn't remember saying it, but since the compliment came from someone I admired, it stuck in my head. What a great endorsement! What a curse! How do you possibly live up to something like that?

And 11 or 12 years later, every time I write a story that I think turned out really well or win an award or hear from a source about something I wrote, I think, "There you go. That's what he meant." But then there are the times when I'm struggling with a story or an article doesn't turn out as well as I'd hoped and I feel unworthy.

I earned bachelors' degrees in English with a writing emphasis and Mass Communications with an editorial emphasis. I wanted to be a writer, a real journalist -- the kind who uncovers fraud or tracks criminal cases. If not that, I wanted to be a newspaper columnist in the metro section, giving my opinion about issues under discussion at city hall or highlighting interesting people in the community. I always thought it would be fun to have a day-in-the-life column for which I'd follow people around at work and report my observations about their jobs.

Eleven and a half years later, I still don't really know what kind of a writer I want to be, other than a good one. Will I always be a journalist? I don't know. Will I ever write a book? I never thought I would, but now I feel like it's not completely out of the question. I mean, after resisting online forums, I now regular check Facebook and post random comments. And, I started this blog. I even have a Twitter account, though I never use it. Don't try to talk to me through Twitter, by the way, because you'll never get a tweet back. There are only so many hours in the day.

Speaking of time and the limits of it, I've now spent three hours writing this post, because I've also been cooking dinner, eating dinner, writing out a few last Christmas cards and reading books to my son before bed. Now I'm tired and I want to work on another project before I get too tired to write a coherent sentence. Maybe if I multi-task and write enough different things, I'll come up with something that makes me feel like I'm living up to that tough standard my former professor set for me a long time ago.

My very first blog post

My promise to myself: to write something in this online space every day.

Why am I doing this? Well, because sometimes I want to write about something other than commercial real estate, even if I don't know what or where. This blog will, I hope, make me accountable. And if I ever have any readers, I hope you'll keep me accountable too.

Will this blog have a theme? No. It will be random essays, thoughts, columns, one-liners, opinions, statements, stories, dreams, anecdotes, theories, wishes and memories. There is no agenda, no message that I'm trying to put out there. Hopefully, what will appear in this space will be somewhat interesting or thought-provoking or, at the very least, occasionally funny. I'll write about life, work, family, friends, experiences and maybe even a little politics.

Why should any of you care? I don't know. I hope you'll care enough to stop by every now and then to see what I have to say or what I'm working on. I hope you'll give me feedback every now and then or at least say "Hello" once in a while. And I hope you'll send me things you're writing about too. After all, what's the point in any of us writing anything if nobody's going to read it?

Am I scared? You bet. I am putting myself out there in a way I never have before in the hope that I'll get much more out of it than I put into it. What have I got to lose?