“Done”?

The USPS is ferrying the revision to the publisher who requested it.

I can breathe a sigh of relief. At least for a day or two, maybe longer considering it just took 5 business days for my last Netflix rental to wing its way to me. (Sweeney Todd — seen it? like it? hate it?)  Another Johnny Depp film actually brings me to the point of my post:

“DONE” is a fluid concept. Years ago I sat in on an early screening of Sleepy Hollow. To this day, I really couldn’t tell you whether the movie was any good because I was too busy watching Tim Burton (yes, Tim Burton the director) who was sitting across the aisle, two rows down, watching the audience, watch his film. (There were also a lot of men in suits watching Tim and watching the people).

Mr. Burton perched awkwardly in his movie theater seat, never removing his sunglasses. From his body language I could tell when he was pleased with the reaction of the audience, and when he was unhappy.

No doubt, after the screening, he went back and tweaked the “finished” product.

I don’t think that as the creator of a work,  we ever think a product is “done”. It’s always up to someone else to push it out of the nest. That’s the only way anyone will ever know if it has wings.

Looking for a HOT summer read?

Then check out the anthology Midsummer Night’s Steam: Sand, Sun and Sex featuring my pal Jennifer Colgan and other talented authors.  www.jennifercolgan.com

“I am your brother…

your best friend forever…”

That damn song is stuck in my head (but the singer IS adorable!)

Drip…drip…drip

Another reason I don’t like to give blood is that I have low blood pressure (on a good day it’ll register at 90/60).  My resting pulse hovers around sixty. This always causes the admitting nurse concern or confusion. They always check it at least twice even though I tell them that it’s “normal” for me.

The, oh-that’s-gonna-leave-marks of the blood pressure cuff is not the problem. The problem is that once they’ve successfully stuck me,  I only have a finite amount of time to fill the donation bag with my blood. My blood just doesn’t “flow” fast enough no matter how fast or hard I squeeze the little ball they shove into my hand.  Once the staff realizes this, my donation turns into a three ring circus (considering I’m a shy person, I am NOT happy to receive the attention of everyone in the place).

One person grabs my needle-free arm and begins lifting it up and down like they’re pumping a well at a campground site. Another person starts chanting “Cough. Cough. Cough again!: (they tell me this raises blood pressure). A third person then starts the countdown, “She’s only got two minutes left…90 seconds…a minute…”.

I often wonder what the other people donating blood think of my flailing-around-TB-coughing self who is apparently going to expire at any moment.              

Donating Blood

I’ve been getting almost daily emails from my local Blood Center begging me to give. There was a time when I donated blood on a regular basis, every eight to ten weeks like clockwork, but I haven’t given in almost a year. There are a couple reasons for this, not the least of which is the fact that  I’ve got lousy veins.

I know this because the technicians who stick people all day, have told me so. Repeatedly. They ask “Which is your better arm?” I give them my right, because I’ve done this dozens of times and I actually know my own body. They tie the rubber band around it and poke. Furrows form between their brows. They poke harder. They ask me if I’m sure this is the better arm. I say it is. They don’t believe me. They tie a band around my left arm and poke. The furrows deepen into canyons. They return to the right arm.

Now the reason this is a big problem is that in my State (not sure what the rules and regs are in other parts of the country) they can only stick me once with the needle (as opposed to when I go for lab tests and they can stick me until they finally get it right).

If the Blood Center misses the vein on that first try, they have two choices: they can say “sorry” and tell me to come back again in eight weeks to try again (because now, according to their system I’ve “donated” even if I haven’t spilled a drop) OR they can dig around under the skin in the hopes they “might” get lucky and actually find the vein (this can hurt a lot, trigger shock, and/or cause massive bruising — I know all this from experience.)

Still, every time I get one of their begging/pleading/a teenage girl needs daily transfusions emails, I’ve been feeling guilty about not donating.

 

In training X 2

Olympian Dude (read yesterday’s post if you don’t know who I’m talking about) was back in training yesterday evening, but he wasn’t hefting rocks solo this time. Yesterday, he had a partner in crime. The new guy was stronger and faster (yeah, a regular 6 Million Dollar Man). I know this because I watched the fools while the Dog of Death barked and growled at them.

I need to get out more…

In training?

Yesterday afternoon when I was sitting at my desk, trying to work on the revisions of my novel, I had to stop what I was doing and just stare. One of my neighbors, I’ll call him Olympian Dude, was working out on the stretch of street that runs parallel to my window. (This drove the Dog of Death crazy and he started barking at the Dude which is how I ended up watching this freak…I mean “neighbor”).

Olympian Dude went into the woods and came out with two large rocks (bigger than bricks), balanced them on his shoulders and ran up the hill.  A couple minutes later Dog of Death started up again and I looked out the window again. Yup, OD was back. He still had the rocks, but now he was using them to do bicep curls. Then he threw the rocks on the ground and did jumping jacks (yeah, I was pretty much blocked on my rewrite and spent waaaayyyyy too much time watching). He picked up the rocks again and ran back up the hill. He repeated the sequence for over forty minutes.

I admit that my imagination got the best of me. About twenty minutes in, I decided he was a serial killer who was buffing up before going off on his hunt. This means I’ll be giving OD a wide berth….

SWISH

It’s the official release date for my pal Joel Derfner’s memoir, “Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever”.  If you like David Sedaris, you’ll love Joel! Check it out wherever fine/good/funny/poignant books are sold.

Gray matter

DH, who is a wonderfully supportive and patient guy, recently gave me a new toy.

It’s a stress ball in the shape of a brain. As I struggle through this rewrite, I find myself literally squeezing my “brain”. There is something oddly therapeutic about that…though I might have enjoyed a chainsaw more…

Which way is up?

I’m struggling through requested revisions right now and I swear it’s harder than writing the actual book. Okay, maybe that’s not quite true, but it feels that way since I’ve got a ton of personal stuff going on too.

Since I’m having trouble stringing together coherent thoughts, today’s post will just serve as an arrow –>

Check out my pal Maggie Jagger’s brand-spankin-new website: http://www.maggiejagger.com/