So my sister-in-law, Kelly, like me, doesn't have a landline, and like me, lives in California, not a battleground state, so she, like me, hasn't been getting robocalls. She did, however, this week get a call on her cell phone from the No On Proposition 8 (for those of you out of state, and even some of those of you in state, "No" means you're for gay marriage, and you're saying "No" to no gay marriage, and "Yes" means you're against gay marriage, and you're saying "Yes" to no gay marriages) and she told the caller to go on, that if this were a different issue, she'd be pissed about them calling on the cell phone. So she talks to them, and ends up volunteering to do some phone calls of her own.
And now she's going to UCLA on Saturday for an information session where they prep you to take a shift outside one of the polls during election day, clarifying Prop 8 to people. She asked if Ian and I want to do it too.
Short answer is: no, not really. I've given money to the Human Rights Campaign for the fight, and towards the No On Proposition 8 group specifically. I'm not rich, but I have more money than time. At least that's what my initial reaction was, until I started thinking about it. One shift on election day on an issue that's important and relevant to me. Kelly has a busy life too, but she's managed to find time to fight for my rights.
So, grudgingly, I'm tagging along it seems.
Guilt: a positive motivator.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
Always Sweat The Small Stuff
Any big project, like a novel or adopting a baby, can seem overwhelming from the start, unless you begin with the easy, fun parts so before long, the progress you’ve made makes the whole of the project less intimidating. The downside is that the last 10% of the project takes twice as long because it’s the shit you never wanted to do in the first place.
On the novel, it’s been this terrible Chapter 3. Chapter 1 and 2 were about introducing characters and the situation, and they went pretty fast. Chapter 3 through 20 brought everything to a climax, and they went pretty fast. Chapter 3 is about making sense of the stuff that I wrote, trying to explain how any of this stuff is possible. In other words, it’s exposition, and it’s a drag to write in a way that makes it not be a drag to read.
On Saturday, I went to a pumpkin carving party at my little brother’s house and there was a psychic who had me roll a pair of dice as an answer to a question. I silently asked about the novel and got a 4 and a 5 which interpreted as, basically, pay attention to the details. Do sweat the small stuff.
The paperwork we’ve been putting off on the baby front is the short answer questionnaire which asks questions like “What are you limitations?” (One and a half lines to fill in the answer), “Describe your saddest day?” (Two whole lines to describe it), “How do you handle stress?” (Three lines!). I know that the agency is just doing their due diligence that I won’t fill in answers which say I like to do heroin every night, crying children make me want to bite things, and I enjoy sacrificing small, cuddly animals on an altar to my dark god. But I want them to like me, and think I could be worthy some day of a Greatest Dad In The World coffee cup, so I struggle. The usual bullshit answers don’t apply. In an interview for a job, we know “Describe your weakness” is always best answered as “I’m a workaholic” or another typical make-vice-into-virtue replies. But you don’t want to give a child to someone who says he’s obsessed with perfection, or phobic about disease, or anything that screams Daddy Dearest.
In the details and the limitations, I might just have to do the unthinkable and Be Honest.
On the novel, it’s been this terrible Chapter 3. Chapter 1 and 2 were about introducing characters and the situation, and they went pretty fast. Chapter 3 through 20 brought everything to a climax, and they went pretty fast. Chapter 3 is about making sense of the stuff that I wrote, trying to explain how any of this stuff is possible. In other words, it’s exposition, and it’s a drag to write in a way that makes it not be a drag to read.
On Saturday, I went to a pumpkin carving party at my little brother’s house and there was a psychic who had me roll a pair of dice as an answer to a question. I silently asked about the novel and got a 4 and a 5 which interpreted as, basically, pay attention to the details. Do sweat the small stuff.
The paperwork we’ve been putting off on the baby front is the short answer questionnaire which asks questions like “What are you limitations?” (One and a half lines to fill in the answer), “Describe your saddest day?” (Two whole lines to describe it), “How do you handle stress?” (Three lines!). I know that the agency is just doing their due diligence that I won’t fill in answers which say I like to do heroin every night, crying children make me want to bite things, and I enjoy sacrificing small, cuddly animals on an altar to my dark god. But I want them to like me, and think I could be worthy some day of a Greatest Dad In The World coffee cup, so I struggle. The usual bullshit answers don’t apply. In an interview for a job, we know “Describe your weakness” is always best answered as “I’m a workaholic” or another typical make-vice-into-virtue replies. But you don’t want to give a child to someone who says he’s obsessed with perfection, or phobic about disease, or anything that screams Daddy Dearest.
In the details and the limitations, I might just have to do the unthinkable and Be Honest.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Body, Soul, and Fingertips
Since the last blog entry, we’ve completed some more paperwork and done our LiveScan, where to the tune of $20 per finger, Ian and I sent our prints in to the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (wasn’t one of the recommendations of the 9/11 commission report to get the intelligence agencies working closer together, and that’s why the department of homeland security was invented? And they can’t share my fingerprints?). I had this little fantasy that my prints would be matched to some unsolved cold case file, but no one’s come knocking on my door, so I guess I turned out to be not at least a known criminal.
The big expense still to come is putting a fence around the pool. We haven’t found anyone to do it for better than $2500, so that’ll be the one we’ll probably go with. Sure does suck to drop that dough before the holidays.
I will say that one result of this whole adoption home study is that I’ve become a much healthier person. Not only have I quit smoking, but as a result of my doctor’s recommendations (I had to go in to have a physical, and I hadn’t been to a doctor for anything in years and years), I’ve been eating better and exercising, and dropped 30 lbs. So that means I’ll be one of those slim, non-smoking dads? What fun are they?!
About the novel, I’ve finally gotten to a stage on the accursed Chapter 3 where it’s moving along. The tricky part is that I set it up that it is a series of flashbacks happening during a church service in January. I came up with a little sermon for my priest to give from the Second Letter to the Corinithians, Chapter 5 which would be appropriate for the flashbacks I wanted to give, and I got into the first of the flashbacks, and then I made the mistake of talking about the chapter to my brother and his wife, people who actually go to church. They reminded me that there are certain readings from certain chapters delivered at certain times of the year in the church calendar, at least according to the Episcopal church. I really hope that January is a fine time to read from the Second Letter to the Corinthians, or I can make the church a Presbyterian church or some denomination with a more relaxed view about when to read certain books of the Bible. I wrote to their minister for advice, but evidently she has more important religious duties than helping a non-religious novelist work out his Chapter 3 because it’s been a couple weeks and I haven’t heard back.
So, as usual, I assume it’ll all be fine and plod on.
Sometimes people mistake that for optimism when it’s just laziness.
The big expense still to come is putting a fence around the pool. We haven’t found anyone to do it for better than $2500, so that’ll be the one we’ll probably go with. Sure does suck to drop that dough before the holidays.
I will say that one result of this whole adoption home study is that I’ve become a much healthier person. Not only have I quit smoking, but as a result of my doctor’s recommendations (I had to go in to have a physical, and I hadn’t been to a doctor for anything in years and years), I’ve been eating better and exercising, and dropped 30 lbs. So that means I’ll be one of those slim, non-smoking dads? What fun are they?!
About the novel, I’ve finally gotten to a stage on the accursed Chapter 3 where it’s moving along. The tricky part is that I set it up that it is a series of flashbacks happening during a church service in January. I came up with a little sermon for my priest to give from the Second Letter to the Corinithians, Chapter 5 which would be appropriate for the flashbacks I wanted to give, and I got into the first of the flashbacks, and then I made the mistake of talking about the chapter to my brother and his wife, people who actually go to church. They reminded me that there are certain readings from certain chapters delivered at certain times of the year in the church calendar, at least according to the Episcopal church. I really hope that January is a fine time to read from the Second Letter to the Corinthians, or I can make the church a Presbyterian church or some denomination with a more relaxed view about when to read certain books of the Bible. I wrote to their minister for advice, but evidently she has more important religious duties than helping a non-religious novelist work out his Chapter 3 because it’s been a couple weeks and I haven’t heard back.
So, as usual, I assume it’ll all be fine and plod on.
Sometimes people mistake that for optimism when it’s just laziness.
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