The secret life of Miss B

The Marvelous Miss B made a startling announcement the other day: she no longer likes Disney Princesses.

I know! Shocking. Although she amended that. She likes Jasmine and Mulan, but that’s it.

Her new aspiration is to be a teenager. This is far better than being a princess. The evidence:

As a teenager, she is in charge of 2-3 younger siblings. (Where these siblings come from, I have no idea. The ether, perhaps.) She has car keys and “driving lessons.” She has a best friend named Casey. They talk a lot on the cell phone. The one-sided conversations go something like this:

“Oh, Casey, that’s just great. That’s really great. Oh, I know … that’s just great, Casey.”

Apparently, things are going great with Casey. And no matter who is on the phone, she ends the conversation with: “Love you, bye.”

And, Miss B has a boyfriend. His name is Jason, because that’s a “cool” name. He has flat hair and bangs (also cool) and possibly a boy necklace.  Once, when Jason called, she looked at me, then pulled out her phone with a sigh.

“He always calls me,” she said in a he’s a boy, what can you do about it kind of way.

But perhaps the best part of Miss B’s secret life is her brother is the younger sibling. This drives him crazy, even when I explain to him how she longs to be older, stronger, bigger–just once.

And in her secret life, she is.

Me at 35,000


Your Personality at 35,000 Says…

Deep down, you prefer spending time alone to spending time with others. You enjoy thinking more than talking.
So true.
You don’t spend much time thinking about your place in the world. You are who you are – and people can just deal with that!

Yeah. Just deal.
 
Your gift is having a way with words. You know how to express yourself well.

That’s going to make this whole writing thing so much easier.

You are inspired by what is unknown. You are drawn to the exotic.

 It’s why I’m a technical writer.

 It’s very easy for you to feel happy. You can find peace with any situation.

Peace out. 

I don’t talk about it that much

So, the other day, the Marvelous Miss B pulled out some paper, arranged herself on the floor, and pulled out a pen (one of my Uni-ball Vision Elites). Then, ankles crossed, she started writing. Here’s what she said about that:

“I’m writing this book for my agent. My agent looooves this book.”

Uh, I don’t talk about my agent (!!!) that much. I don’t. Honest.

But apparently, the life of a writer is pretty boring, because a moment later, she drew lines across the page, gathered up ten or so stuffed animals, and school was in session.

Why do I get the feeling that I’d just been schooled?

Only a writer would think this

So yesterday, thanks to rain and traffic, I ran out of audio book during my commute. I was, tragically, reduced to listening to drive-time radio. You know something’s out of whack when you voluntarily channel surf to Radio Disney because, you know, they might be playing something better.

And is it possible for a station to play a block of Tom Petty songs and NOT include Free Fallin’?

I didn’t think so. That song always makes me think of the movie Jerry McGuire (“You had me at hello.”), which makes me think of Tom Cruise. Then I think of Tom Cruise jumping all over Oprah’s couch like a maniac, like a crazy person, enthusiastically. 

But I digress. One station is sponsoring a “50K every workday” contest. So, did I hear this and think:

“Wow. 50,000 dollars. That’s a lot of money.”

No. I did not. Sad to say, the first thought that crossed my mind was:

“Wha–? They’re giving away 50,000 words?”

I’m not making this up. Besides, they could give away 50,000 words. After all, there are all those NaNoWriMo novels out there.

Lush (green, electronic) life

So, some people celebrate a sale with champagne and dinner out (well, we did go to Stinky Feet Burger King play place). We celebrate with small, electronic devices:

This is the Eee PC. Very small. Very light. And yes, I did ask for the “lush green” version. I was thinking maybe the blush pink, but Kyra is coveting that one (when she’s older, when she’s older, although she already knows the difference between a play PC and a real one).

I kept the Linux operation system on it. You can load XP. But. Meh. More trouble than it’s worth. The Eee PC comes with OpenOffice and that’s all I need for writing.

So far, the only drawback is the tiny keyboard. It’s even smaller than a Mobile Pro keyboard. And my biggest complaint about that is instead of right shift key, I kept hitting the up arrow key. But I’m training my fingers to use it. Of course, I have bony thin fingers, and that may make a difference.

Overall, it’s working very well. And if Stinky Feet Burger King play place had WiFi, I could log on there, too.

Where I’m at

Sitting on the bleachers at our local high school gymnasium, waiting for the district-wide orchestra concert to start and surfing the ‘net on my Eee PC. No, I won’t actually surf during the concert, but last year we waited, and waited, and waited for it to start.

This year, we decided to tag team it since last time, Miss B nearly went insane. And normally, she’s very patient when it comes to watching Andrew’s various activities.

It’s noisy and chaotic, but the music is actually pretty good, for a 5 – 12 concert.

But truthfully, I’m just psyched I can log on and access the net. I’m thinking I could blog the Golden Heart and Rita finals this year with this thing.

See? The uses are endless.

Weekend update

So, we promised to take the kids to the dollar store that’s next to their swim school. Or rather, was next to their swim school. Now it’s a mattress and furniture liquidation place. To make up for that, on Saturday, we went to stinky feet Burger King play place. Yeah. I know. The high life. Someone make it stop.

Those who live in big plastic bubbles shouldn’t throw cheeseburgers. Shilling for Burger King unintentional.

I bought Andrew a pair of new spring shoes since he totally blew out the original pair I bought. I. Mean. Totally. But he’s undecided. So, today I asked if they’re his or mine. Because, get this, we wear the same shoe size. I would totally wear those shoes.

I finished my short story, Speechless. It came in just under 5,000 words. Anyone want a 5,000 word YA short story in first person, present tense that manages to combine speech team, vanilla chai deodorant, and dead sexy class clowns? Yeah, I didn’t think so. (Earlier today, Bob asked if I were writing about him; given the above list, I’ll let you answer that yourselves.)

And, last, but hardly least, I think we may have spring here in Minnesota. Shhh. We don’t want to scare it away.

So, what do you do now?

Sell a book, what’s next? Write another one. Well, we could. Or I could just go take a nap, which is what I did on Saturday afternoon.

I haven’t taken a nap in ages, but I seem to have some spring cold/flu/undefined ailment, so I though a nap might help. Of course, I’m not sure it’s really a nap if you have a five-year-old nursemaid in constant attendance, soothing your brow, patting your arm, and adding glittery lip gloss to your lips (I might be sick, but I’m still fashionable).

I wanted to thank everyone for all the kind congratulations yesterday, but even though I didn’t “nap,” I was still feeling under the weather. Ditto for today. Only no lip gloss, so I’m not nearly as fashionable.

But I am here to say thanks and thanks again. Darcy and I really appreciate it.