Melissesages

It’s Saturday morning, and the is the first chance I’ve had to post since I got here Wednesday night. I can’t believe the conference is only half over; it feels like I’ve been here a week. This probably has something to do with being busy every second of the day, and not sleeping much at all. For those of you who are fuzzy on the definition of “irony,” here’s an example: I was kind of excited to leave the baby, because it meant I’d finally be able to get a decent night’s sleep. But now that I’m finally away from that sleep-stealing infant, I’m getting even less, maybe 5 hours a night thus far. Bam! Irony.

All right, so let me back up a minute to make a formal complaint against United. United is the abusive spouse you keep going back to even though you know better. I have yet to have a perfectly normal, uneventful trip on United, and this trip was no exception. I was supposed to fly from Madison to Chicago and Chicago to New Orleans, with only about a 50-minute layover. I rushed like hell to my gate, only to find they’d overbooked the flight and the last three there - including me - were booted. Just booted. It would have meant missing almost the entire first day of the conference, but luckily, ONE person decided to take the incentives and fly out the next day. The couple was before me in line, and there was a nail-biting moment while they were deciding whether or not they were willing to split up. They were not. I managed to make the flight, no thanks to stupid United. Chicago is the closest major airport to Madison, and that’s United’s hub. Still, I know better, and every time I swear I won’t do it again.

Oh, and then they lost my luggage. Assholes.

Poor airline choice aside, the big disappointment of this week was that the agent I was supposed to meet with ended up calling in sick with a broken elbow. No agent meeting for me. I will get to do a phone meeting with her, but I was definitely crushed when I found out: I know this makes me sound like a ditched prom date, but I had a new outfit and everything.

Now, here was the big, awesome conciliation prize: Dennis Lehane. Lehane’s been on my favorite author list for years and years, and I’ve been honest-to-goodness nervous to meet him - me, who has interviewed celebrities and been to the Oscars. He’s definitely one of my heroes, and one of those writers whose work convinces me that I’ll never be more than a hack. But, you know, in a good way.

Anyway, he was scheduled to speak last night, and while I was leaving the panel discussion BEFORE his talk, he suddenly popped out of an elevator in front of me and said, “Excuse me, do you know where this ballroom is?” Did I! I said, “Come on, I can show you,” and he followed me; though he did not seem to pick up my subtext of “you’re the coolest person ever and if I wasn’t already attached to my firstborn I’d give them to you.” We chatted on the way, I was very cool and not at all gushy (I’m pretty sure), and then he proceeded to give one of the most entertaining and informative Q-and-A’s I’ve ever been present for. They say you should never meet your heroes, but Dennis Lehane was everything a fan could want: funny, articulate, modest but not falsely so, insightful, thoughtful, etc. After he spoke I blew tomorrow’s lunch money on one of his books, and took it to him to sign. I joked that he should sign it “Thanks for showing me the way” - and he did. It was so cool!! Afterwards I was geeking out about it for a good 45 minutes. I haven’t geeked out that much since…well, it’s been years.

Last night was also notable in that I finally started to make some friends - most of this conference I’ve been pretty alone, but there was a faculty-writers meet-and-greet with an open bar and live music. I was exhausted (did I mention every day I have to be here at 8:15 AM? And that it takes almost an hour to get here and park?), but I went, and started talking to people, and was so glad I did. When I left the party at 11:30, two different people had offered to let me crash on their couches rather than drive back. I know this is New Orleans and people are friendly, but that’s still progress for me. I’m not the world’s greatest friend-maker.

Obviously there’s plenty of other stuff going on, and I haven’t even started on the amazing French Quarter or the truly bloodthirsty cost of parking ($30 yesterday! I’m almost out of money, and I’ve only bought one book!), but I need to get back. Next time I post I promise to be a little more lively and awake. Probably.

Being a new mother means my life is plagued with an unsuspecting force of mayhem: the Involuntary Nap.

Picture this: You’ve been running errands all day, you’re tired, and the baby has finally fall asleep (yay!). You sit down to read a book, delighted to receive the unexpected gift of a few minutes of free time. The baby begins to fuss, so you groan and pick her up, trying to get her back to sleep. Two hours later, you wake up late for work. Duh DUNNNNN.

It’s a real threat, people. Could happen to anyone. With a baby.

This has been my first week of working only one job, and a few things have changed. I don’t have to wake up early, I’ve been staying up really late (I work until 12:30 AM two or three nights a week, which makes it harder to get to bed much earlier on nights I don’t work), I’ve had time to play with Mattie and start thinking about things like her eating schedule and how to get her to nap, and I’ve run about 30 errands that had been piling up for weeks. I’ve also felt just a little bit clearer than I used to: I’ve mostly lost the feeling that I was walking around with, the sense that I wouldn’t remember any of this when I woke up.

So I was surprised to notice that I’m still falling asleep pretty much whenever. I am stalked by the Involuntary Nap. Mostly it’s because more sleep isn’t the same as enough sleep, but I’ve also come to a conclusion: having a baby means that even when you’re not busy, you’re busy. If I had this work schedule two years ago, I’d be getting 9 hours of sleep a night and watching about six hours of TV. My house would probably be almost as messy as it is now (okay, maybe not quite) but I’d have more books read, more movies watched, and I’d just generally be…brighter. More relaxed, and without the sense that every moment of free time is grotesquely limited. I’m not unhappy now, and I’m certainly grateful to have more time not at work, but I’m always busy.

This has also manifested itself in my new inability to be punctual. I used to be a person who was always on time. I thought punctuality was tied to responsibility and respect, and I paid attention to it. In other words, I thought of being on time as something I had the option of doing, and I did it. Now I feel like being on time is something elusive that I’m always chasing. I always intend to be on time, but at the last moment Mattie decides she’s hungry or I realize I need to pack more bottles, and everything gets delayed. Or i get distracted and actually (gasp) lose track of my schedule, a quality I used to despise in other people. Last night one of the last thoughts I had before I fell asleep was to remember my chiropractor appointment this afternoon. This morning after I woke up I thought of it several times, reminding myself to pack up the diaper bag so I’d be ready. At 1:45, I was half a mile from the house, walking Mattie around in the nice weather, and I realized the appointment had started 30 minutes earlier. Fabulous.

I now wish I could go back and un-judge all the people I’ve known who couldn’t arrive on time for anything. Well, maybe not all of them, but certainly the ones with kids. I’ve never been a fan of the expression “it’s always something” - I think it has gotten tossed around to the point of meaninglessness in our culture - but I’m starting to realize that it really is always something. Or it was always something, 20 minutes ago but you forgot about it. Plus, at any moment, it’s entirely possible that y- zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…..

I think I may have made a mistake with the editing process. I spent all my good amateur editors on the first round.

As we know, a month or so ago I finally finished my first draft of The Book. I went to Kinko’s, had five copies made, and sent them, along with a questionaire, out to volunteers - friends of mine who promised to be honest and thorough. To help them with that, I even arranged for me to receive the questionairess anonymously. And now I have them all in, and there’s some really good comments, and it occurred to me- I’m going to have to do this all over again.

I’ve been writing in some form or another for a long time, and I think I have a decent understanding of the writing process - or at least, my optimum writing process. I write for as long as I can, and then I need to go away for awhile. (This is not necessarily a draft, since “as long as I can” may only produce two paragraphs.) I come back to the work, reread what I’ve got so far, make whatever changes I want, and then keep going. Repeat until finished. When I’m sure I’ve got it right, I try to go away for awhile again, and come back and look at it with fresh eyes. If I still like it, then I really am done.

The book, though, is proving to be different. First, in how I wrote it all in the first place: in fits and starts, leaving it for months at a time, and sometimes writing 15 pages in a day. The weird thing is, I did do a lot of rereading as a wrote, which SHOULD mean that the beginning is the best part (like, if the book was 10 pages long, as I was writing page 3 I would reread pages 1 and 2, and as I was writing page nine, I would reread 1-8. Get it?) But I became a better writer while working on this book, and in some ways the end is much better written than the beginning. It’s kind of all over the place, which is not a feeling I’m used to with my writing.

This has made my questionaires extremely helpful, but I’m on new territory here. Already, I’ve completed a “second” draft, which is mostly just copyediting from the first - fixing spelling mistakes and grammar problems, rearranging a few sentences, etc. Now I’m going to start editing for content, and then theoretically I should make new copies and have new people read them. If I can find anyone. But how long do I have to do this? Exactly how much am I going to be spending at Kinkos?

It doesn’t help that part of me has moved on, away from this book. I’ve been kicking around ideas for my next project, and I’m torn between starting the sequel to this project and starting something new, maybe an urban fantasy. On the one hand, I’d really like to start fresh, create new characters and work in a different genre. On the other hand, my character in “Identity Crisis” just had a baby, so I feel like I should be writing about baby-having while it’s all fresh in my mind.

What do you think, blog readers? Start a sequel, or start over?

Ladies and Gentlemen, this will be my last post on “Melissaesages.”

Not because I’m done blogging, mind you. In fact, I’m going to be writing more than ever, but I’m splitting it into three unique blogs: “Maternally Challenged,” which is about parenting, an entertainment blog called “Bemused Amusement,” and finally a blog about writing called “Ballpoint Keyboard.” You can choose to read/subscribe to all three, or just one or two, but a new post will appear in at least one every single day. And there’s still a main page that displays all three. Neat, huh?

So, if you have this blog bookmarked, or if you subscribe to the RSS feed, YOU MUST RESUBSCRIBE TO THE NEW BLOG(S). Just go to Melissaolson.net and click on Blog at the top. Then you can decide what you want to be reading. As always, I welcome comments, and as always, please feel free to subscribe. And check back daily!

Melissa out.

Today I took a stab at organizing Mattie’s clothes.

It would not be exaggerating to say that Mattie has more clothes than I do. It would not even be exaggerating to suggest that she has more clothes than me a couple of times over, especially now, when I still only fit into a tenth of my wardrobe.

I completely understand how this happened. When someone’s having a baby, it’s hard to know just what to get them. And if you can’t afford the big-ticket items from the baby registery, then an easy, smart solution is to go for clothes. “Every baby needs clothes,” you think to yourself. “And they go through them so quickly! I bet this would be a huge help!”

And, when you think that, you’re not wrong. The problem comes when EVERYONE thinks that. We have gotten so many clothes for Mattie that I honestly don’t think she’ll be able to wear them all. This is where my inherited sense of efficiency comes to bite me in the ass. If Mattie doesn’t soil an outfit during the day, I leave it on her (why not? She doesn’t sweat, or get grass stains, or even throw up much yet). And, whenever I do laundry I insist on doing a full load. We do more laundry now than ever, because when Mattie does poop through an outfit, you want to get that clean quick, so the result is a small supply of frequently-worn clothes that’s sort of been whittled down by convenience. For example: zippered sleepers are better than the button ones, which take forever to fasten. I’m much more likely to put her in outfits that have been given to us by someone we see regularly, like Tyler’s mom, than outfits from, say, Tyler’s friends that live in Chicago (yes, this is also an etiquette custom inherited from my mother: try to let people see the baby in the clothes they’ve given her, when possible).

Anyway, the baby has just started to outgrow some of her newborn (0-3 month) stuff, which prompted me to sit down today to go through the enormous pile of clothes that I ignored when she was too teeny, and weed out some of the newborn stuff that she no longer fits into. Basically completely reorganize her dresser. To my dismay, I discovered two things: first, that thanks to my efficiency there are some newborn clothes she’s never even put on, and second, that I have no idea what’s going to fit her now.

Sidebar: dear major baby clothing companies: please standardize your systems so we mommies don’t go nuts. Carters, for example, has sizes NB, 3 months, 6 months, and so on. Oshkosh has 0-3, 3-6, 6-9, etc. Occasionally you even see a 0-6, 6-12 month company. Which one is it? If Mattie is, say, 6 months old, I could feasibly put her in an outfit that’s labeled 6 months, 6-12 months, 3-6 months, 6-9 months, or 0-3 months. Sigh. These are all wildly different sizes; how am I supposed to know what will work? Can’t these companies just all use the same system? And a better system, at that?

Argh. Anyway, I feel really guilty that Mattie’s never worn some of these beautiful outfits, or only worn them once (how many times does the baby have to wear a dress outfit so you’ve gotten your money’s worth? Three times? Four times?). It feels like wasting to me, though putting her in a new outfit every day just to get through the rotations seems pretty darn wasteful, too. Seriously, I am like wrought with guilt over this. And today when I was organizing the next size up of clothes, I couldn’t help but notice that, given my laundry-washing habits and continued sense of don’t-waste-fullness, I have way, way more clothes than she’ll be able to wear while she’s in the roughly 3-6 month size. (I have learned that this is the most popular size to give when it comes to baby clothes, because some newborns never even wear 0-3). This means that the NEXT time I sit down to organize a new crop of clothing, I’m going to go through the same thing. I’m trapped in a vicious cycle of guilt and waste, people!

Okay, so please don’t take offense, those of you who got us clothes for gifts, but I decided to do something really bad: I’m putting away a bunch of these new clothes, tags on, to regift. I know that’s a tacky thing to do, but since nobody gave me gift receipts, it’s the only way to try to get these clothes used. I have a plastic Children’s Place bag of shame that I’ve been filling up with these pretty 3-6 month clothes, and the next time someone I know has a baby, I’ll wrap some up as a gift. And the time after that. And the time after that, and so on.

Ah, but now I’m weaving a web of lies: I have to be really, really careful to never give anyone the same clothes they gave us, or even the same clothes that someone at the same shower or party gave us. And it does occur to me: what if some of the clothes we got were regifted in this same way, like the proverbial fruitcake that gets passed, uneaten, from family to family every Christmas?

Why is this so complicated? I know I should be grateful for the very nice clothes that everyone got us, and I am. But I can’t help wishing that I just had say, seven identical sleepers in different colors that I could just keep washing and throwing on the kid. I’m not a “dress your infant up” kind of girl. Mattie has never left the house wearing a headband, or barrettes, despite having the hair to pull it off. I never put her in dresses (it’s cold out, people!), and I rarely bother with anything that, say, buttons up the back or, God forbid, needs to be ironed. I see babies at my mother-baby group decked out in their finest, and I think “Mattie has outfits like that with the tags still on. Am I a bad mother?”

This pressure to prettify the kid is ridiculous. Dressing a baby is hard enough without worrying about the number of outfits and where they came from. (Whose idea was it to invent baby clothes that button up the back, anyway? I’ll tell you who: people without kids.)