I haven't read many YA novels in a while, so I had forgotten about how the tone in them is different than the tone in a novel written for adults. It's hard to put your finger on what it is exactly, but the closest I can come to explaining it is to say, remember that thing you used to hear from your English teachers about how you should show, don't tell? Well, there's a lot of that kind of telling that goes on in YA novels, particularly if they are written in the first person. YA protagonists are always telling you how they feel and explaining crap to you. The funny thing is, this is something I was really trying to cut down on in my work because it seemed like a weakness to me, and I still don't want tons of it there, but I think what's there can still work because of the audience for whom I'm writing (I almost said "market" instead of "audience" there -- perhaps I am beginning to think of this in business terms after all!) I don't ever want to talk down to my readers, but then again, teens are not going to be analyzing the subtext...

From My Imaginary Mailbag

Tracie, I noticed some interesting titles on your list of the books you've read this year: Topping From Below, and All's Fair in Love, War & High School. The first one sounds dirty, and the second one sounds like something girls in 6th grade would love. Weren't you an English major in college? What gives?
- Curious

Curious - I'm glad you asked this question. Yes, I do have a degree in English, and you're right, these titles are kind of outside the norm for even my eclectic reading habits. But I have good reasons for having read these titles, and here they are.

Topping From Below sounds dirty because it is -- the novel is about kinky sex. I'm not a prude but I don't usually read kinky sex books. I read this one because a friend of mine gave it to me -- she knew the author and actually appears as a very minor character in the book (the main character runs into her at the grocery store), which is set in the part of Davis where we live. It wasn't a very good book, but I enjoyed all the references to streets and businesses in Davis that I know. I could have done without all the stuff about without all the stuff about dripping candle wax and nipple clamps though.

In case you're curious, the term "topping from below" is part of the domination/submissive lexicon, and refers to the sub trying to control what's going on. It is not considered a good thing in terms of dom/sub relations, as in "oh, you don't want to get involved with that guy -- he tries to top from below." And before you ask, I didn't know that before I read the book.

All's Fair in Love, War and High School is one of the books I'm reading in the name of market research. I'm looking at different young adult books that deal with relationships to see what's out there and how my own work compares. So far I haven't been overly impressed with what I've read, which makes me think I have a pretty good shot at this whole thing. All's Fair actually was kind of a cute book -- it didn't strive to be anything more than it is -- Chicklet-Lit? -- and it had some pretty funny parts, so I enjoyed reading it. The other one I've read so far, Hard Love, tried for more serious issues, and didn't fair so well in my eyes.

Next up: another YA title (RX, about a high school brain/drug dealer), and a reread of an old favorite (Tim, by Colleen McCullough, my choice for book club this month).

Goodbye and Good Riddance...

... to the month of March 2006.

Everyone in our house was sick at least once, even Mermaid, who has the immune system of a small horse. I went to the ER twice. Enthusio had to take a break from school and now he's home being taught by his less-than-qualified, less-than-patient mother. I went without my meds for three days and discovered what a bitch it will be to stop taking this particular medication at some point in the future. Reasonable Man set a record for hours billed in a month at his current firm, working on project he does not find to be the least bit enjoyable. Yesterda, my meeting at the school to discuss Enthusio's issues was transformed by my least favorite bureaucrat into a debate about whether Enthusio should repeat 2nd grade next year -- a decision that had already been made. And the icing on the cake -- my grandmother ended up in the hospital Thursday night with congestive heart failure, which has been frequent problem for her in the last few years. We visited her in the hospital yesterday, and thankfully, she is doing well and will hopefully be released today. Unfortunately, her hospitalization caused my parents to have to cancel a fun weekend at a cabin in the mountains that we had all been looking forward to. I guess I'm not too surprised -- that's just the way things have been going for us lately.

In addition to all of that, this has been the wettest March in about a zillion years, and everyone around here is SICK of the rain. I don't know how people in the Northwest put up with it.

Anyway, here's to a better April....

Where I've Been

Okay, so I know I haven't posted here in a while. I'm going to attempt to summarize the events of the last 3 or 4 weeks of my life, which have been a bit crazy. I could make this a huge long post, but I think we all know what would happen if I did that -- I'd never finish it, and then I still wouldn't have posted anything, and I'd still feel guilty posting the little bits of nothing that have been popping into my brain lately without explaining my month-long absence from the blogosphere, so I wouldn't post those either, and basically I wouldn't get back to posting here for even longer. So here is the briefest possible recap of the last four weeks of my life.

- The week of March 1, I put in about a zillion hours doing paperwork for the auction at the kids' school, which was coming up that weekend. That same week, Enthusio got sick with a bad cold and was out of school for three days.

- That weekend, I spent Saturday afternoon helping to set up the auction. That evening, we went to the auction and had a great time. It made a lot of money for the school too!

- Sunday, I went over to the school and helped set up the Scholastic Book Fair with my 4 fellow book fair chairs.

- Monday, I worked at the book fair from 2-5 pm, by the end of which it was clear that both Mermaid and I were sick. I mostly just had a cough, but she had a bad cold and stayed out of school the next two days.

- I continued putting in a lot of hours at the book fair and was exhausted all week.

- Thursday afternoon, I went to a conference with Enthusio's teacher with low expectations and didn't even have those met. I was informed that, in a nutshell, the entire month of February had been miserable. They hadn't called me a single time about any of this, but now they wanted to know what they could do to help him. I was PISSED. They'd let the situation deteriorate for an entire month without letting me know what was going on, and now they wanted to know how to fix it? Reasonable Man and I discussed it and decided we would pull him out of school and have him do independent study for the rest of the year.

- Friday morning, I kept Enthusio home. By 10 am, it was clear that I was ill, and soon I started vomiting. I couldn't keep anything down for the rest of the day, and that night at 10:30, Reasonable Man took me to the ER, where they gave me IV fluids and an injection to make me stop vomiting. We went home.

- Saturday I didn't feel better. I had a horrible headache and still couldn't stand the idea of eating anything. By 2 pm, I was vomiting again, and Reasonable Man insisted on taking me back to the ER. This time, in addition to IV fluids and anti-nausea medicine, they also gave me morphine, which didn't really help the headache that much. Nevertheless, I left the ER that evening feeling like I was finally feeling better, and I was able to eat a PB&J, drink some Gatorade, and take a couple of Tylenol that night.

- Sunday I alternately overdid it around the house with laundry, dishes, and general tidying up, and sat around on the couch, feeling completely wiped out. Monday, I drove on a field trip with Mermaid's class to the state capitol and the California History Museum, by the end of which I was completely wiped out.

- Tuesday, we met with the principal, who proposed having Enthusio do independent study for a month and then seeing if he could come back to school and function okay in the classroom. Since the teacher who is more of a problem will be out on maternity leave after that time, we agreed that it might work. We left that meeting feeling good about her being willing to work with to insure that things improve for Enthusio at school.

- Wednesday I felt strong enough to go back to the gym for a short work-out. Thursday was Enthusio's first official day of independent study. We are supposed to do 4 hours a day of school work. It became clear very quickly that he is able to sit and do his work without getting too distracted when he's someplace he feels safe and comfortable.

- Our new IKEA in West Sacramento opened in West Sacramento on March 1st. I went over and picked up a kitchen catalog, and also downloaded their kitchen design software, and spent about 10 hours designing the new kitchen I want. Monday we went over to IKEA to order it all, but it turned out to be more of a fact-finding mission, and we are now in the process of arranging things with a contractor. We're hoping to get the kitchen done this spring.

- I finished editing my Nanowrimo novel from this past fall and passed it along to a few friends and relatives to read for me. This got me excited about finally pursuing publication, and this past week, I've been doing lots of research about literary agents and working on my query letter summarizing the 3-novel series that I've now finally completed.

In short -- school events, illness, home-schooling, and obsessing about a kitchen remodel and becoming a published novelist. That's where I've been.

Newsflash

I can't believe it's taken me this long to realize that I now have a new favorite Jake Gyllenhaal movie. It used to be "Bubble Boy" and now it's "Brokeback Mountain."

We Now Return To Normally Scheduled Brain Activity

Well, thank God the Olympics are almost over. No wonder I didn't get anything done in the 90s -- skating comes on and it's all I can think about. Not good. Considering how much other crap I've had going on while 99% of my mental energy is focused on things like whether that girl had a good free leg position on her layback spin, it's kind of amazing I've continued to function at all.

Anyway, now all that stuff is over (till the World Championships next month!) and I can concentrate on important things like writing in my blog.

I want to wish a very happy birthday to the Bride, who had, like, a totally radical 80s party to celebrate last night. Normally I don't get too into the whole theme thing, but this one, as you can imagine, was right up my alley. I don't even want to tell you how much of my non-skating brain power went to working on my outfit this past week. Reasonable Man got into it as well, and we were quite pleased with ourselves when we were ready to leave:
A few notes:
1) I am not pregnant, but I'm pretty sure only pregnant women dress this way nowadays. I will confess that I totally would have worn this outfit back in the 80s.

2) Yes, those are stirrup pants. What a hideous fashion they were! I think even girls with skinny little hips must have looked dumpy in these things.

3) You can't see my jewelry very well in this picture, so I want point out that I was wearing two different dangly earrings and a big sparkly pin at the collar of my shirt.

4) Reasonable Man says he doesn't remember people wearing Converse All-Stars back in the 80s, but he grew up in the boonies, so whatever.

It was really fun to see what people came up with 80s gear at the party. My mom, as well as the Bride's mom, went for the whole workout/Olivia Newton-John "Physical"/Flashdance thing, while the Bride herself was rocking a Madonna "Like a Virgin" black mesh deal. There was lots of big hair, one really scary mullet wig, and a whole lot of spandex, blue eyeshadow, and sweatshirts with the collars cut out. A tubular time was had by all. And I'm keeping my outfit for the next time I get invited to an 80s party :-)

Also:

I was a lot more impressed with the level of skill on "Skating With Celebrities" before I watched the Olympic pairs competition last weekend.

Great, Now I'm Pissed Off About Ice Skating Again

You may not know this because I'm pretty sure I've never mentioned it in this space before, but if I was ever addicted to anything, it was figure skating from the mid 90s to the early 00s. I got addicted during the 1994 Olympics, like a lot of people did, but not because of whole big Tonya-Nancy beatdown. Yes, there were things about that whole mess that were undeniably delicious, but the reason I personally became such a skate junkie in 1994 was this guy you see here above. His name is Elvis Stojko, he won three World Championships and two Olympic silver medals, and I've had a big whopping crush on him for about 12 years now. I once met him at a reception following an ice show in Vancouver, and he was very nice to me even though I talked his ear off and he kind of looked like he wanted to call security.

Anyway, in the years following the 94 Games, they started showing tons and tons of skating on TV during the winter. And I watched all of it. Unfortunately, most of it was pro skating, which tended to be the same 10 or so skaters "competing" against each other every weekend, skating the same programs you had already seen them skate 50 times or so. After a while, it got really boring. What was never boring was the amateur, or Olympic-eligible competitions. In these competitions, there were actual rules about what you could or couldn't do, and the skaters were young and many weren't established, and there was the actual sense that what was happening was really important. In the men's competition in particular, there seemed to be a real battle raging about choreography and the way the sport was changing. Guys like my friend Elvis were skating to music that wasn't classical, using choreography that wasn't based on ballet. They were skating to rock and to the musical scores from action movies and that kind of thing. The judges weren't always buying it, and there still seemed to be a preference for the more traditional ballet-influenced style skated to classical music, but a few skaters (Elvis, Todd Eldredge, Michael Weiss, Timothy Goebel, and the 2002 Olympic champion, Alexei Yagudin) won competitions by emphasizing the more athletic side of the sport and skating with a more masculine edge.

I haven't watched much skating in the past four years. Not because of the judging scandal in the pairs competition at the Salt Lake Games -- that made me sick, but I wasn't particularly surprised by it -- but because Elvis has retired and no one else has really caught my attention in the same way, and also because my life is a lot busier. Due to having school-age children and an actual social life, I no longer have the time or the inclination to do geeky things like spending hours every day reading and posting on the figure skating Usenet group with all the other psycho skatefans like I used to. This is a good thing. But this year, I enjoyed watching U.S. Nationals, and although I didn't really understand the new scoring system, I looked forward to seeing it and all the new young skaters in action at the Olympics.

Imagine my disappointment when the first two events, pairs and men's, went to Russians I consider mediocre at best, both earning scores that left them so far ahead of the field that everyone else was merely competing for the silver and bronze.

From what I can tell, the new judging system is ten times worse than the last one. It masks the nationalities and potential biases of the judges on the panel, and makes it possible to justify placing one skater ahead of another based on a complicated system of points.

I will admit right up front that I have always disliked Evgeny Plushenko. It's not just because he's homely, has had a series of terrible haircuts, and usually wears ugly costumes. The same arguments could be made about Elvis in his heyday, sad to say. But Plushenko's supposed "artistry" has always looked like a lot of unnattractive arm-waving to me, and I don't think a furrowed brow and lots of posing right in front of the judges adds up to intensity or passion. I've never understood how he became the next great thing in men's figure skating. I went to the 2001 World Championships, where he won his first world title, and hoped his appeal would be more evident in person. It wasn't. Nevertheless, having not seen him skate for a couple of years, I sat down to watch his winning freeskate from this past Thursday night trying to keep an open mind. He's older and I hoped his skating would have matured. He even seemed to be wearing better costumes than I've seen him wear before.

He proceeded to skate the most poorly choreographed figure skating program I've ever seen. What commentators Dick Button and Sandra Bezic said, that it wasn't really a program and that he jumped, waved his arms around, and then jumped some more, were right on. His spins were sub-par to decent, his footwork was non-existant, and nothing he did seemed to have anything to do with the music. Yeah, he jumped a lot, and maybe he landed more jumps than anyone else, but so what? Almost everyone else actually had choreography. Imagine that.

Then he walked off the ice and earned scores that put him so far ahead that none of his competitors could touch him. I will never understand this. The skater who followed him -- the Swiss guy in the odd zebra/tiger costume with the blue sleeves -- skated a great program with weirdly awesome choreography and also did the same quad-triple-double jump combination Plushenko had done, only better. He didn't land as many jumps as Plushenko did, but the rest of his program should have more than made up for that. The second- and third- ranked American skaters both laid down terrific, clean programs. Every skater in the competition should have had a shot at beating Plushenko, based on choreography alone. But apparently, this year it was all about jumps, and so Plushenko was the shoo-in.

The thing that really gets me about this situation is that, back in the 90s, Elvis was the jump guy. He was the first man to land a quad-double combination and a quad-triple combination. Every time he competed, everyone wondered if he was going to do that quad. But he was criticized for his choreography, his spins, his lack of footwork, and even the way he landed all the amazing jumps he landed (yeah, I'm bitter). He worked on those things, and put together complete programs. You didn't have to love the guy, but at least you could see that, you know, he was doing all the stuff that were supposed to make up a program. The judging in the recent Olympic men's competition would indicate to me that none of this stuff counts anymore as long as you jump a lot and are, for whatever reason, the favorite coming into the competition. Given the fact that Russian men have now won the last 5 Olympic golds, I have to think being the top-ranked Russian guy is not exactly an impediment either.

To me, the question here isn't whether Plushenko has the whole package as a skater. He might, but he didn't put it out there on the ice on Thursday night. It could be argued that he's figured out what scores big under the new system and planned his program accordingly. My question is this: is a scoring system that rewards the performance Plushenko gave on Thursday night good for the sport of figure skating? If we're going to reward the big jumps above everything else, isn't it time to dispense with the rest of it and just hold a jumping competition?

I guess I really thought that the way the sport seemed to be changing 10 years ago was going to make a difference long-term. Now I'm just sad that the changes that have been effected seem to be moving things in a direction that will only serve to hurt figure skating in the eyes of the public, causing even more people out there to watch a competition, scratch their heads and say "how is this a sport?"

I'll watch the rest of the skating this Olympics, but I'll be doing so to enjoy the performances, not to see who ends up on the medal podium.

It's All Dr. Phil's Fault

Occasionally, if I see a commercial for an upcoming episode of Dr. Phil, I'll tape, and this past week, I taped one focusing on "Extreme Packrats." I had taped it upstairs in my bedroom, so when I started watching it, I was sitting on the bed not doing much. That changed pretty quickly.

I'm afraid of clutter. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a phobia, but it definitely can make me anxious. I wouldn't say my house is ever immaculate, because I don't have any anxiety about dirt and grime, but I do a lot of picking up and putting away. And other than the times when we have people coming over, any tidying and/or organizing I do is fueled by compulsion. I don't separate things into piles, throw things out, loads bags of things to give away and the like because I really want to -- I do it because I have to. Fortunately this compulsion to organize, to tidy, and to purge my home of items we don't want always has positive results, so I'm not unhappywhen it happens.

I have to have a lot of compulsion going on to tackle some of the bigger projects. For instance, our bedroom closet has needed cleaning out for probably 2 years. I'd done the floor a couple of times, but I just couldn't seem to make myself take everything off the shelves -- don't ask me why. I'm not going to try to claim any of this makes sense. It just hadn't gotten done.

Well, I watched that episode of Dr. Phil for less than ten minutes before I threw open the closet door and started pulling stuff out and putting it on the bed. Before long, the closet shelf was empty and the bed was full. I was ruthless as I decimated my completely out-of-control purse collection, tossing a good five of them into the donation pile, and I also finally went through the things hanging in at the end of the clothes bar that were left over from when I used to work in an office over 11 years ago, were way over-sized even then, and were never going to come back into fashion no matter how much I want them too.

(I will say that today I am mournng the loss of my bright green over-sized blazer with the shoulder pads, which would have been a brilliant part to the outfit I'm planning for the Bride's 80s-themed birthday party at the end of this month. Then again, I can always go down to the SPCA Thrift Shop this coming week and see if I can buy it back. It's hard to imagine they will want more than five bucks for it. Otherwise, everything that went in that pile was good riddance. I love the SPCA Thrift Shop. They'll take anything, and when I'm driving away I always have the urge to punch the accelerator and yell "Ha ha! Suckers!" out the window.)

Eventually I came to the pile of manilla envelopes growing on the floor on Reasonable Man's side of the closet. I have a very simple acounting system, in which all the bills, receipts and check duplicates we acquire are put into a manilla envelope bearing the month and year. These pile up. A few years ago, I decided we could probably part with everything corresponding to any year that started with 19, and set out to burn roughly 6 years worth of paper. Since it was spring, I would throw papers into the fireplace and then close the doors -- at one point, a great burning mass of them fell against the glass and one of the doors exploded across the room. I fortunately was a ways away and not in the line of the trajectory to be hit at the time, so I didn't get hurt. The incident did, however, cause to me feel this was probably not the ideal way to dispose of my documents in the future.

I do realize that a device called a paper shredder has been invented to deal with this sort of issue -- I just never thought I really needed one. My friend Sue has never been able to believe that I don't own a shredder -- she can't live without hers, and merrily shreds practically every scrap of paper that has the misfortune to come to her house. I could always see how it could be handy to have one, but I was never moved to actually buy one until this past week.

It so happened that on Thursday, the day I gutted my closet, Mermaid had what I will indelicately refer to as a shitload of homework. Lest you think I exaggerate, I think by the time she was finished, she'd had literally spent nearly 4 hours working on it. It was a bit ridiculous. Anyway, in addition to the two years worth of receipts, etc. I finally decided it was time to get rid of, I also found a shoebox full of check registers both empty and full and several books of unused checks with our old San Luis Obispo address on them. So while I sat and helped Mermaid deal with her pile of homework, I took on the mindless task of shredding the unused checks by hand. This, in a word, sucks. My thumbs quickly cramped up and it just generally wasn't pleasant. And it took a ridulously long time, considering that it was maybe 5 or 6 books of checks.

The pile of manila envelopes full of paper bits that needed shredding filled my laundry basket. In a box out in the garage, they weren't bothering me, but in a pile in my laundry basket, they had become clutter and needed to be dealt with immediately. My thumbs were still sore from ripping up checks the day before, so I decided the time was ripe, and I hit Office Max yesterday to buy a shredder. It was more expensive than I had expected, but it works very well. And so I got to work a-shreddin' all those paper bits.

(By the way, I do realize it's foolhardy to store financial information of any kind in my garage, which is left unlocked all the time. The stuff I have left over is safely stored in the house now, and no, I'm not going to say where in my blog.)

But here's the thing. Efficient as my shredder is, it still takes a long time to shred two years worth of receipts, bills and check duplicates. And you can't do a whole lot while you're doing it. You can't really read anything -- you need to keep your eyes on what you're doing. You can't really watch TV -- the shredder is too noisy to be able to hear it, and you can't watch it either. And so I have settled on the option of listening to podcasts, which are somewhat more engaging than just listening to music.

And this is why I am now listening to all the podcasts done so far this season by Tim Gunn, the guy on Project Runway who comes in and bosses the designers around and tells them that their designs have him "concerned" and basically makes them feel worse when they're probably already feeling rushed and stressed out. How awesome is that? I love the internet. And I'm even beginning to love this shredder for giving me an excuse to sit here and listen to this silly stuff.

Finished At Last

I did it. That's right. The novel is done, man. It might rotten eggs but it's done. It's 65,764 -- 8,554 of those words were written in the last 36 hours, and approximately 11,000 of them will probably be thrown in the trash heap before I deem it readable by anyone other than myself. But anyway. It's done, and I'm feeling pretty damn happy about that right about now.

My Strategy Is Working

I wrote almost 6,000 words yesterday and passed the 60,000 mark. That's great, because it means this novel will end up being as long as the other two in the series -- with both of them, I wrote over 60,000 words and then editted them down to around 55,000. I knew there's a lot of stuff that will need to be cut out of this latest work, and I was really afraid that it would be so short that cutting it down would turn it into a really long short story.

I basically need to write one more short chapter to wrap it up, and then the arduous editing process begins. Amazing.

I'm Hoping If I Tell Enough People, Maybe I'll Actually Follow Through

This weekend I am going to finish my novel. I have two major scenes left and I have them more or less mapped out in my head -- enough of running through them mentally -- time to get them into the computer and be done with it already. The Princess of Whatever shall be completed, if in rough form, by the time I go to bed tomorrow night.

Adventures in Parenting #1377

Enthusio is having a rough week. Monday he came home from school, and when I asked him how his day had gone, he said it was fine, just like he always does. When he came closer to tell me about something else (probably about a video game -- I hear a lot about video games lately), I noticed his little face was looking tear-stained, so I asked him if he'd been crying. He said he'd had a tough day, so I hugged him and told him I knew he probably didn't want to talk about it, but that I was there if he did. He said he didn't, and within a few minutes he was playing the Gameboy and enjoying himself. He was kind of obnoxious throughout the afternoon and evening, which isn't unusual when he's stressed out.

Yesterday, I collected him and Mermaid outside his afterschool Spanish class, and he was tearstained again. When I asked him what was wrong, he dissolved into tears and said he just hates it when he gets out in Musical Chairs, which they'd evidently been playing in Spanish class. Later on, he fell completely apart when he discovered the show he'd been saving on the TV hadn't gotten saved, and generally the emotions were hanging out pretty close to the surface the whole afternoon and evening.

I feel like dealing with everything that's going on with him is like a great big knot that I'm slowly unravelling. I have a basic scenario in my head of the way things work at school. Something about being there makes him very anxious. Sometimes he copes and is himself -- other times, for whatever reason, work is put in front of him or some kind of minor frustration with another kids comes up and he just loses it. These outbursts happen often enough so as to alienate the other kids in the class, and I think they also inspire some of the more mean-spirited kids to push his buttons when they get the chance, in order to provoke another outburst, which I guess is fun for them to watch.

Of course I want to think that if all the other kids would just be nicer and more accepting, some of his anxiety would dissipate, and he would make friends and just have an easier time at school. But there are other issues too. This is going to sound pretty harsh, coming from his own mom, but he's annoying. Seriously. He asks questions constantly, and if you answer one, he will keep asking them until you tell him to stop. He's also impulsive, and it seems like once he follows an impulse to do something, it's hard for him to stop even if someone is yelling at him to do so. One of his teachers told me that a week or two ago, a boy in the class was telling everyone that he'd gotten hurt the day before and had stitches in his head. Enthusio's response was to start rifling through the poor kid's hair, looking for the stitches, and even with the boy crying out in pain, it still took the teacher telling Enthusio to stop several times before he did. It was pretty eye-opening to hear that story, to say the least. I mean, if he has a reputation for doing things like that, no wonder kids don't like him.

Again, I think the pressure of school aggravates his tendency to be impulsive and highly emotional. Still, there are obviously things going on within Enthusio himself that need to be addressed and dealt with. School is going to be there, and he needs to learn to cope. That's going to make life better for everyone. Today I will be working in his classroom for the first time, so I'll get a chance to see how things are going firsthand. We will continue with his psychotherapy, and we will probably pursue getting him some occupational therapy. We will be pretty aggressive about having a hand in his classroom placement for next year as well.

In the last few weeks I've spent some time exploring the issue of whether he's being bullied. The conclusion I've come to is that yeah, sometimes he is. When kids zero in on the fact that it's easy to get a strong reaction out of someone and say mean things to elicit that reaction, that's bullying, and when Enthusio tells me about these incidents, you better believe I report them to his teachers immediately. Last week I had a long talk with the school psychologist about my concerns, and we may go to the principal as well. Sadly, I suspect parents of the victims spend a lot more energy dealing with the issue of bullying than the parents of the bullies themselves. It makes sense -- your kid is being pushed around? You're pissed off and getting in people's faces to get it stopped. Your kid is the one being mean? Well, he has lots of friends, and he told me he didn't mean it to be mean. Right? Who wants to deal with the idea that their kid is the problem? I've sat and watched more than one good friend of mine see her child treat another child badly with a look of helpless exasperation on her face, as though she is somehow not empowered to jump in and use that moment as an opportunity to teach her kid how to be a better human being. I'd love to do a poll of parents to find out the correllation between the opinion that kids should be allowed to "work things out themselves" and how likely one's kid is to be a bully or a victim.

That said -- Enthusio has issues, it's our job to deal with them, and I am back to my original opinion that we can't change other kids -- we can only help Enthusio learn to react to them differently. I won't deny there is a certain bitterness to my acceptance of the fact that Reasonable Man and I carry most of the burden for making school a happier place for Enthusio to learn and grow. Still, I'd rather have him for my son and have his issues to deal with than have some mean little asshole with dozens of friends as my child. If that sounds like a harsh thing to say about a second grader -- well, I can make a list for you of some of the things that have been said to my son this year and last, and you can think about whether you'd want to hear that your kid had said them. I'm doing everything I can to work on my child's issues -- shouldn't everyone else be doing the same?

Speaking Up

I wanted to post a link to this column by Mark Morford in the San Francisco Chronicle about "Brokeback Mountain" and the Samuel Alito Supreme Court confirmation hearings. I really liked what it had to say.

I am also adding a link on the right side of the screen to a blog I really enjoy, Yeah, But Houdini Didn't Have These Hips. I came across it several months ago, lost the link, and then started reading it again when its author, Sarahlynn, responded to a comment I made in her guestbook. Sarahlynn is a mom as well as liberal and a feminist who posts a lot of interesting stuff about current events pertaining to women's rights and lots of other pertinent issues, and she has inspired me to do more of the same in this space. God knows I've got opinions! It's easy to get caught up in my own dramas and it's fun to rant about movies and celebrity doings and whatnot, but it's also important to speak up about the issues that matter to me, and how lucky am I to be living in the age of blogs, where I have my own little forum to say whatever I want?

Tracie Reviews a bunch of movies that weren't as good as "Brokeback Mountain"

Before I left for the theater on Saturday, I was dreaming up a post about all the movies I've seen lately. In it, I was going to mention the three movies I've seen in the theater in the past month that most people have some familiarity with, giving a brief comment on each, and knowing that I was going to like "Brokeback Mountain" the best even though I hadn't seen it yet. Then I was going to go on and write about the movies I've watched on DVD lately, which are mostly those indie types that 99% of the population hasn't even heard of. This post was going to be called "Tracie Reviews Movies You've Never Heard Of," and I had the thing half-written in my head (along with about 50 other posts that never end up getting written).

Then I went to see "Brokeback Mountain" and was moved by it beyond all reason and I had to give it its very own post. I hate it when the actual experience of life disrupts my plans for a blog entry!

Anyway, I'm still going to write about all the other movies I've seen recently, because some of them were pretty good, even if they didn't deserve their very own gushing post like "Brokeback Mountain" did.

(Before I start, a quick refresher of my patented Film-Movie-Flick rating system. Films are great, Movies are okay to mediocre, and Flicks are just bad. "Brokeback Mountain" blew me away so much that I forgot to give it a grade -- hopefully it goes without saying that I give it the coveted and rare Film +.)

I've been to the theater two other times in the past month. The first was over Christmas vacation. Let me explain that, while Enthusio tells us he wants to see virtually every movie aimed at kids he sees advertised, Mermaid only gets it in her head that she wants to see a particular movie maybe once a year. Since it's so rare, I like to honor her requests, but unfortunately, the movie she picks is almost always something really awful-looking. This year was no different -- she really wanted to see the remake of "Yours, Mine and Ours," because there was a girl who plays the saxophone in it. Fine -- she and Enthusio and I trooped to the theater to see it one day. Even with extremely low expectations, it was hard to sit through. I groaned out loud at least three times. And of course it didn't help that Renee Russo scores really high on my Jennifer Love Hewitt Scale of Actresses Who Annoy the Crap Out of Me. She's always tossing her head back to laugh, which is bad enough, but in this movie, she was playing the "free spirit" parent, so she did it more often than usual. Also, what is with her mouth? I'd say she's had a lot of work done, but since when is having your mouth sink further and further back into your face something you would have done? Grade: Flick

The other movie I saw in the theater was "The Family Stone." I didn't have high hopes for this one either, having read bad reviews and heard from at least one friend it was pretty bad, so it was a pleasant surprise when it turned out to be interesting and watchable. It still wasn't good, but it was never boring, and I definitely wanted to see how it would come out. Generally, I think the actors did a good job fleshing out interesting, three-dimensional characters, but the script had all of them behaving in ways that they just wouldn't. The climactic scene had the whole family getting all distraught and offended at something that just wouldn't have caused that reaction, and the resolution of the story was ridiculous. Some really interesting performances, though. Grade: Movie

I've been watching lots of movies on DVD lately. One of the better ones, which Reasonable Man and I watched together, was "Spellbound," a documentary about seven or eight kids who participated in the national spelling bee in Washington D.C. a few years ago. We have some friends whose son went last year, so after seeing them and hearing about their experience (including the dad's observation that a lot of the kids participating were a little scary), we finally got around to renting this one. I really enjoyed it, though it was hard not to feel bad for some of the kids, both the ones who were eliminated early and the ones who seemed to have no life outside studying the dictionary in the months leading up to the bee. Overall, the kids were more normal than I expected, although some of the parents were awfully intense. Grade: Movie +

I picked up "A Slipping Down Life" for several reasons. One: it's based on a book by Anne Tyler, one of my favorite authors, two: it stars Lili Taylor, one of my favorite actresses, and three: it's exactly the kind of quirky little independent film I tend to enjoy. It's been a long time since I read the book, but I remember liking it, even though it was sad. It was written in the 60s, and the movie updates it to the present. Between that and the fact that, while I remember the characters as being quite young in the book, the actors who play them are in their thirties, I didn't think the movie really worked. Lili Taylor was wonderful as always, and Guy Pearce, playing the local musician/heartthrob, was also very good, but I didn't think the tone was ever quite right, and they switched the sad ending from the book for a happier, more Hollywood finish, and that didn't really work either. Overall, this was a disappointment. I say read the book instead. Grade: Movie -

Okay, I'm just going to say it: I love Topher Grace. I always thought he was the best thing about "That 70s Show," cuter and funnier that Ashton What's-His-Face, and I'm glad to see him doing movies. I was excited to watch "In Good Company" on DVD a few months ago, and while I ultimately didn't think it was all that good a movie, Topher Grace's performance? Oh my God -- put him in a bowl and give me a spoon. I mean it. So you can imagine how much I looked forward to watching "P.S.", in which Laura Linney plays a lonely, divorced college admissions director who believes an applicant, played by my crush, might be the reincarnation of her late high school boyfriend. As with "In Good Company," the movie wasn't very good, but Topher was adorable in it. He has an ability to play cocky and arrogant that we didn't see during all his years playing more of an Everyman on a sitcom. The plot of this movie unfortunately gets bogged down with all kinds of unnecessary subplots involving Linney's character's brother, ex-husband, and crazy best friend/adversary from high school, and ultimately the relationship between her character and Topher's gets short-changed. The movie ends with us having no idea what it means that this man has come into her life, or what may come of it. Disappointing. Grade: P.S.: Movie - Topher Grace: Film -

Finally, there's "Camp," about a group of kids who attend a theater camp one summer. I really enjoyed it, though, as with a lot of movies with ensemble casts, I felt that there wasn't enough of each character for us to get to know any of them. But it was adorable, and I loved the scenes where they were performing. The best scene was one where some of the students just got together, informally, and performed a song written by their washed-up playwright teacher -- I loved the song, "Century Plant," so much that I immediately downloaded it and put it on my iPod. The cast of unknowns was a lot of fun, and I loved how they all worshipped Stephen Sondheim (I was so glad it wasn't Andrew Lloyd Webber!). Grade: Movie +

Brokeback Mountain

Yesterday, I went to see "Brokeback Mountain" with a friend. Reasonable Man and I have been wanting to see it, but hadn't made plans to do so, so when Jacki invited me the other day, I jumped at the chance. Truthfully, I could go to the movies a lot more than I do -- we could go to the movies a lot more than we do. The kids aren't little anymore and we know plenty of babysitters who are more than happy to stay with our kids and make some dough. I don't know why we don't make plans to do it more often. In any case, Reasonable Man and I will be going to see "Brokeback Mountain" soon -- sometime this week if we can swing it -- because I know he would like it and I'm dying to see it again.

It was absolutely wonderful. It was heartbreakingly sad, and I spent the last half hour tearing up again and again. I can't remember the last time I watched a movie that affected me so deeply.

I'm not embarrassed to say that there is nothing I enjoy more than a good passionate romantic story, whether I'm watching it, reading it, or writing it. On screen, the combination of good writing, well-drawn characters, and hot chemistry between the actors is sadly in short supply. I can think of only a handful of movies that I've seen that get it just right. Most of your typical romantic comedies don't really hit the mark for me, although I'm occasionally surprised ("Notting Hill" nailed it). In any case, I wasn't sure, going into the theater yesterday, whether a romance between two men could affect me the way some of my favorite romantic movies have. I was open-minded about it being a love story, but I didn't have any idea how amazing I would find it.

One review I read said the supporting cast deserved equal credit, and I did think both Randy Quaid and Michelle Williams were very good, but I don't think there was anything to compare to the performances two lead actors. They make the movie. The moment Heath Ledger speaks for the first time, you know his performance is transformative. Not that he doesn't make it look effortless -- it's just that he inhabits the character so completely -- it's not just a voice but a whole unique appearance and posture he uses to show us who Ennis is. Jake Gyllenhaal hasn't gotten nearly the same buzz, but I found his performance equally remarkable. He is the more open and talkative of the two characters by a lot, but he ages more effectively. In his final scene, the way he held his body alone convinced me that he was an unhappy, frustrated middle-aged man.

The script and direction are very good, but the chemistry between the two actors takes center stage. Those who know definitively that they're uncomfortable with the whole idea of a sexual affair between two men should stay away, but I recommend this movie wholeheartedly to anyone else. There is really just one sex scene, Ennis' and Jack's first encounter, and after that, it's mostly just a few kisses. We're definitely not talking gay porn here -- the vast majority of the scenes between the two characters only involve talking by a campfire. But it's done so effectively, and if you're open to the story, the longing between these two men, who really know true acceptance and intimacy only the few times a year they are together, and who know that to live together might get them killed, is devastating.

Am I gushing? Do I sound overwrought? Sorry. But seriously, it's that good. Go see it.

"Sick Day"

Once upon a time when I was in junior high, I asked my dad to write me a note to get me out of participating in P.E. that day, and he wrote the following: Dear (Whoever the hell was my gym teacher at the time): Please excuse Tracie from P.E. today. She is "ill." I conveyed to him that I found his use of quotation marks to describe my ailment inconvenient, probably in the shrill, eye-rolling manner that 13-year-old girls all over the world use to let their dad know they are the lamest creatures on the face of the earth. My dad rewrote the note without the "s, even though I obviously didn't deserve it and he clearly didn't believe there was anything wrong with me. Thanks for that, Daddy!

And so today, Enthusio is home "sick." He's had a little cough and a bit of a snuffly nose for the past few days, not that it's been enough to slow him down. This morning when I woke him up to get ready for school, he was eager to draw my attention to the dried bits of snot that had encrusted the outer parts of his nostrils, and the fact that he was kind of stuffed up. I have no doubt that if I'd sympathized and then told him to get dressed for school, he would have done so without any arguing. But instead, I asked him if he wanted to stay home, and he said he did. And so here he is. He's dressed and has watched a Harry Potter movie and now he's playing the Gameboy, so it's not like we're doing any particular bonding or anything like that. I know he's well enough that if I decide there are errands that need to be run, he's not to sick to go out and do them with me.

Still, I don't mind. Probably for the same reason my dad didn't care about rewriting that note for me -- because everyone can use an extra day off every once in a while. Think about it -- haven't you ever called in sick to work when you actually just couldn't stand the idea of letting that place feed on your soul on that particular day? I know I used to do that sometimes. Well, kids don't really have that option, do they? I guess what I'm saying is that a little bit of crusty mucous about the nostrils seemed like as good an excuse as any to give the kid a mental health day.

Besides -- it got me out of goingt to the gym. Score!

Television is a Dangerous Thing

Item # 1: Over New Year's weekend, I watched so many episodes of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" that last week I had a romantic dream about Vincent D'Onofrio. Sure, his quirky performance as Detective Robert Goren is slammin', but I still think that this cannot be healthy.

Item #2: I've been getting way too worked up over commercials. When they show ads for that horrible looking movie "Hostel," I go all Moral Majority and start ranting about how they shouldn't be showing those things before 9 pm. And every time I see that Weight Watchers commercial with the Cher song playing in the background, I start composing a letter to WW in my head, demanding to know what they think they're doing, using a song sung by a woman who's had ribs removed to be thinner to advertise a healthy method of weight loss?

Item #3: I have a new reality TV addiction: "Project Runway." I've never watched any of the "profession" reality shows (Apprentice, American Idol, Top Model, etc.) but I watched 5 minutes of this show about bitchy wannabe designers and I was hooked. Anyone know how I can get a hold of season one?

Item #4: I've gotten myself sucked into another season of "Real World/Road Rule Challenge," and that's never a good thing.

Item #5: I keep ordering DVDs of "Little House on the Prairie" from Netflix. Season 6, where Almanzo Wilder came on the scene, if you want to know. I knew that season had lots of kissing, but who knew it also had the episode where Mary's husband Adam got pinned underneath a stagecoach, and Mary had to go wandering around blind in the wilderness, trying to get help? The drama!

Item #6: After 3 or 4 weeks or reruns, they are showing new episodes of "Starting Over" everyday again, starting this week. There's an hour of productivity every week day gone once again. Oh well....

New Year's Resolutions

2005 was the first year I have ever gone about thoughtfully setting resolutions that were important to me and then working hard throughout the year to keep them. First, I resolved to be more assertive. This one I feel was largely sucessful. On the one hand, there are still many times when I want to speak up and don't, but on the other hand, I can think of at least two times this year when I've spoken up about things that were really bothering me, in situations when I was really upset and intimidated, and that was major. What I learned was that being assertive will probably always be hard for me and not what I naturally tend toward, but that it's definitely worth it to make the effort. It will continue to be a goal for me.

My other resolution for this year was to stop living my friends' problems. This one was fairly successful too. I did get into the middle of a fairly major issue between two close friends this year, which would seem to violate the spirit of the resolution, but looking back, I did what I felt I had to do, I think the result was positive, and I preserved my friendship with both people. Other than that, I think I've been able to worry and stress less about the things going on in the lives of my friends this year, and that's a good thing. It doesn't mean that I care about them less than I used to, just that I am no longer carrying their problems around with me the way I used to.

For the coming year, I will continue with my goals from last year and add a few more. In 2006, I resolve to get healthier and more fit. In the past, to the extent I've made body-related resolutions, it's always been about shedding pounds, and that hasn't worked for me. Stepping on the scale has gotten confusing -- one the one hand, currently I am the heaviest I have ever been without being pregnant. On the other, I wear the same size I did when I weighed 20 pounds less than I do. That and the fact that I can do things I couldn't used to do, like going for an hour-long run without stopping, indicate to me that a) I've been doing something right in the exercise department for the last year or two, and b) the scale is no longer an accurate measure of my fitness. Yes, I would like to be considerably slimmer than I am now, but dieting to lose weight hasn't been successful for me the numerous times I've tried it in the past three years. Therefore, my goal for the year is to become healthier and more fit, and to hope that becoming slimmer will follow. I want to develop better eating habits rather than to diet, and I have signed up with a personal trainer to help me learn to make the most of my workouts. I am also resolving to run more. It's something I enjoy and know is good for me, but something I talk myself out of doing whenever conditions aren't absolutely perfect (it's too hot out, it's too cold out, I didn't get a solid night of sleep, I don't have time to do my usual 3+ miles, etc). I've already done pretty well with this this past week, and I'm going to keep working on it, because I think it can make a huge difference in my level of fitness if I do it enough.

My other resolution, that I hesitate to utter in a public place because I'm so intimidated by it, is to work on becoming a published novelist this year. Once my Nano novel is done, and it's close, I will be the author of 5 completed novels, including a series of three young adult novels. It's time to get to work on this.

2005: All the other stuff besides books

I know, I've been a bad blogger. Like you all even care what all I read last year. I'm not especially motivated to post at the moment (or write at all, which would account for the fact that I still haven't finished my Nano novel from November -- argh), but I thought I would randomly recap the rest of my year -- you know, just for shits and giggles. Or whatever. To actually post something. So here goes...

Most Unexpected Development of the Year: I became one of those moms who is frequently seen marching around my kids' school in a self-important way, doing stuff. I always swore I would not become a PTA mom, and I maintain that I have yet to set foot in a PTA meeting since the inaugural one at the school when it first opened more than 4 years ago. Nevertheless, this year I am a co-chair of the Scholastic Book Fair, a committee chair for the Parents Night Out auction fundraiser (though that title is a bit misleading since my entire committee is made up of me), and I will have my own event at the end-of-the-year carnival. These things all came about as a result of my becoming friends with people who run things and my either being asked to do things or just being volunteered for them (thank you, Crazy Karin!). For the most part, I actually kind of enjoy it, so far (we'll see how I feel about running that event by myself though!). Anyway, like I said, unexpected.

Lowest Moment of the Year: I don't even having to think about this one. Throwing up and having to be taken back to my room in a wheelchair on the Bachelorette Cruise, by a landslide. This is a situation I did not expect to find myself in a month after my 35th birthday. It is something I hope to never repeat.

Best Moment of the Year: Lots of good stuff this year! Watching my BLB and the Bride get married, and being part of their wedding. Watching Mermaid sing in the school talent show, swim 60 laps in 60 minutes in a swim-a-thon this summer, and perform as the Witch of the East in "The Wizard of Oz," also this summer. Listening to her "get" playing the saxophone and get better and better. Watching Enthusio perform in "Winnie the Pooh" in the summer and "The Polar Express" in the winter, and seeing him make friends with the kids who moved in across the street. Frolicking in the ocean waves in Maui with Reasonable Man and the kids. Seeing Enthusio sitting with a book, reading to himself. Spending lots of time with friends, having dinner, shopping, playing Bunko, discussing books at book club, and just hanging out. Going running and feeling that peace of mind wash over me. Hitting 50K words before the end of November.

The Year in Parenting: As any regular reader of this space knows, with regard to my primary vocation as a stay-at-home mom, it's been kind of an up-and-down year. My daughter Mermaid is living a normal life as an 11-year-old girl in spite of her autism. She goes to school, plays the saxophone, swims on a swim team, does homework, rides her scooter around the neighborhood, has friends, goes to Girl Scout meetings and participates in life in a way I never would have imagined for her back when she was in preschool and things like toilet training and basic language skills were huge hurdles for us. I'm so thrilled to see the person she is becoming, especially knowing how far she's come.

Enthusio has had a rougher time of it. School has been a difficult and stressful place for him, in spite of his being very bright and doing well in academics. This year I had to face the fact that knowing what he was going through and loving him as much as I do weren't enough to fix the problems he was having with peers at school, and we got him a therapist. I feel good about the progress we're making, but it's so hard to see him struggling with feeling accepted and valued by kids his age. Still, I feel good about the person he is. I know if we keep working, we can find a way make things better for him. I'm as proud to be his mom as I am to be Mermaid's.

The Homefront, Literally: This year, we finally managed to plant a tree in front of the house that will eventually provide some shade and make summers more bearable in the west-facing side of the house. It only took us six years --way to go, us!

The Homefront, Less Literally: Other items accomplished around the house include having a gas line installed to the fireplace so we can have a gas-powered fire; new vinyl flooring in the upstairs bathrooms (that means the last of the pink-accented linoleum is gone!), and painting and redecorating the kids' bathroom. On a more depressing note, I've had the paint and most of the new decorative items for the master bathroom since the summer, but have yet to do anything with them. Boo!

Best Movie I Saw This Year: "The 40-Year-Old Virgin." "Sideways" was a very close second.

Best Family-Friendly Movie I Saw This Year: "March of the Penguins."

Favorite Celebrity Gossip/Event of the Year: You know it's Tom Cruise going batshit crazy. Isn't that everyone's favorite? Oh, how the mighty have fallen. I didn't see his stupid "War of the Worlds" movie either. Really, I just feel sorry for Katie and the crazy-spawn.

Second Favorite: Nick and Jessica split up. Only because I just want them to be over all ready.

Technology I Embraced in 2005: A jump drive to go on my keychain.

Technology I Rejected in 2005: A PDA. When I realized my little 2-year calendar wasn't going to cut it anymore, everyone told me to just get a Palm Pilot or something like that. You know, I wasn't even tempted. Well, maybe a little bit. But I said no! The list of pieces of technology on which I'm already stupidly dependent (DSL, laptop, wi-fi, satellite TV, DVR, mp3s, iPod, etc.) is long enough, and guess what? I'm a housewife. I'll get a Palm Pilot when I get a career. I searched high and low for one of those "bigger than a wallet/smaller than a Trapper Keeper" organizer-type things that you used to see everywhere, and guess what? They don't make quite as many of them as they used to. But I found one for ten bucks, and three months later, it's still working fine for me. It even has a handy little zipper pouch for loose items -- I've never seen one of those in a PDA!

I can't think of anything else right now, so I guess that's it....