Things I thought I could be a Grown-up About…

But I just can’t.

* The fact that someone stole my i-Pod from my desk on the Friday before Thanksgiving Break. (Pisses me off and hurts my feeling, every single time I think about it.)

* Bringing home papers to grade over the break. (The cat LOVED them. Loved to SLEEP on them, that is!)

* Having ice-cream in the house. (Must. Eat. Chocolate. Ice. Cream. MUST!)

* Going to the yarn store with money in my pocket. (Cause and effect disconnect, I sweartadog.)

* Telling old stories about students who have graduated. (Isn’t piercing your scrotum with a safety pin in the bathroom on a bathroom pass AND THEN showing all the girls AND a substitute teacher what you’ve done, some sort of guaranteed admission into the ‘Stupidity Hall of Fame’? I mean the location of the piercing alone should guarantee the guy a slot in the Darwin award’s DNA elimination challenge event, right?)

* The fact that Sarah Palin LOST. (Still dancing whenever I think about that one.)

* Scoring a point in my ongoing verbal sparring with my daughter. (She’s vowed to disown me if I ever do my funky chicken dance in public.)

* The big “How to handle the family Christmas present” decision. (My mom told my sister and I to make a decision. We did. We were promptly over-ridden by my mom’s best friend, who also gets a say.)

* The suggestion that the family calendar was NOT made more charming by the smutz on the faces of the short people. (I thought it was more charming, and I live with short people and smutz all day. I think mom was just being difficult.)

* The direct statement that mom and dad get enough calendars and that a family calendar was not a suitable gift. (Seriously, what crawled up her arse and died anyway?)

* The ‘WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SMELL!!’ problem in the staff lunch room. (Considering the fact that the bathroom opens into the lunchroom, what does it say about my sensibilities that a malfunctioning HEATER is the thing giving us the biggest case of the fits! Well, for one thing, it probably says that the room smelled like it was ABOUT TO BURN DOWN!!!)

* The fact that I still think dog farts are funny as hell. (I swear I’ve got the maturity of a four year old.)

* The fact that I started our day back from vacation with a movie. (Okay–in my defense, I promised them one, and for the most part, they were REALLY very good that last week before Thanksgiving.)

* Going to bed on time so I’m not a total zombie princess in the morning. (But I don’t really start to write until after 11:00 pm!!)

* The fact that I will, in all probability, receive a rejection letter in short order from Loose-Id, where I submitted ‘Yearning’ and hope to submit ‘Waiting’. (Why don’t they like me? Why? Why? Whyyyyyyyyyyyy?)

*Stephanie Meyer–who wants to bet that SHE didn’t have to choose between publishing HER next book and buying the kids Christmas presents this year? (If was really a grown-up, I would have let this go, wouldn’t I? Failure is probably my karmic response to this very thing, I can tell!)

* The fact that, even though I will, in all probability, receive a rejection letter from Loose-Id, I have already spent the theoretical (and probably very small) advance they might have given me if they accepted ‘Yearning’. (Dammit, it’s Christmas, and we have no money, and I want to spoil my kids!!!)

* The fact that even though I will, in all probability, never, ever, ever, be a writer for a traditional press and I should probably throw in the towel right now because this insane obsession of mine can’t possibly be good for my family or my physical or mental health, all I can think about, like a constant wail in the back of my head, is that I don’t have enough money to publish Bitter Moon II right now. I just edited it again–most times EVER on a manuscript. I think it’s very possibly really, really good. (How narcissistic am I, that this breaks my heart? I can’t even answer that question objectively, I just can’t.)