Mandajuice

Kindergarten

Alex starts Kindergarten in two weeks. I know! I can't believe it either. Wasn't it just yesterday he was still attached to me at the boob?

[Funny boob side story: Today on the way to camp, Genoa proclaimed that the car smelled, "LIKE BOOBS!" and I asked, because I couldn't resist, "What do boobs smell like?" She answered, "Like MOMMY, of course." OF COURSE. I guess smelling like boobs is better than smelling like a DUDE.]

[I feel like I'm talking about my boobs a lot, what with the best bra reference the other day, etc., but let me say this in my own defense: WHAT DO YOU EXPECT FROM A BLOG NAMED AFTER MY BREAST MILK?]

Anyway. Kindergarten. My feelings on the subject can be summed up as follows:

MEH.

I know I'm supposed to be all bleary-eyed and nostalgic about it, but I'm just... not. Alex has been in some kind of school or another since he was barely three and now at almost six, it just doesn't feel like a big deal. It actually feels like a monumental pain in the ass.

First, I could rant AT LENGTH about the utterly ridiculous schedule, (Tuesday, Friday and every other Wednesday. Full days.) but I've done that already. Second, the PAPERWORK. Registration packets are more blood-draining than ZOMBIES because at least the undead respond kindly to the hot end of an AK-47. Registration paperwork, on the other hand, responds only to ball-point pens and TIME. Time I'd rather spend doing just about ANYTHING else. (Like blowing up zombies.)

Third, and the reason for today's hasty RANT: Immunizations. This was the VERY LAST THING on my Kindergarten to do list (well, I suppose I still need to buy him some clothes, but no one has to yank my handle too hard to get my ass into an Old Navy). I thought all I needed to do was go down to the doctor's office and get the form signed saying he was up to date.

But, lo, the child was not up to date on his immunizations. He needed FIVE SHOTS.

Which he got this afternoon.

WITHOUT A SINGLE TEAR.

If nothing else indicates his readiness for a sturdy public education, his bravery in the face of THAT MANY NEEDLES does. He was amazing!

Far more amazing than I was since all I could do was bitch and moan about how we had a 12:30 appointment and didn't end up leaving until ALMOST 2:00! Which was so far beyond Genoa's nap time that I would have sold her to the receptionist for the price of a Popsicle.

THEN we had to go to the store because Mommy needed to order checks at the bank and Daddy does occasionally like to open the fridge and find actual nourishment inside of it. Now we're home and trying to survive and there is exactly one hour, thirty minutes and 23 seconds left until cocktail time.

NOT THAT I'M COUNTING OR ANYTHING.

On pitching a novel

If I'm going to call myself a writer, I should be able to think up at least a few similes to illustrate what it's like to pitch your novel to an agent or an editor at a writing conference. The most gruesome of these metaphors involve words that probably shouldn't really go together:

Like 'human skin' and 'potato peeler.'

Or 'public' and 'nudity.' Add in 'stretch marks' if it suits you. (It certainly suits me.)

Mostly, pitching a book feels like speed dating: you have ten minutes to get a phone number.

Actually, you only have TWO minutes.

Seven sentences.

Make them count.

My first pitch for GRAVY got rejected before I even had the chance to get the whole thing out of my mouth. And I'm a FAST talker. But I could see the agents' eyes glaze over the moment I followed the words "contemporary romance" with "affair." In spite of being rejected and told, literally, "Romance novels can't have infidelity in them. You should put this one to bed and start writing your next project," I LEARNED from that pitch. I learned that my book isn't a romance novel after all. I'm not exactly sure what my genre is, but I started calling it "sexy housewife fiction" after that. When I pitched it here in Portland at a pitch practice session before the conference began, the three agents on the panel dubbed it "Saucy Momma Fiction," and that's what stuck.

Part of me was relieved to get that first rejection. It was inevitable! ALL WRITERS GET REJECTED. Often. It won't be the last time I  hear the words, "I'm going to have to pass." But I was understandably bummed and when I saw my brand-new friend Kathy in the hallway, she dragged my ass to the hotel bar, made me order a beer and then proceeded to completely re-write my book pitch with me.

Kathy is a fellow writer, one I met in the elevator at the airport Hilton in Seattle (was it the elevator? neither of us can remember, but our connection was IMMEDIATE and lasting. We're already burning through long-distance minutes.) She also happens to be a professor of English Literature and someone whose opinion I value immensely.

Since Kathy helped me re-write it, my pitch has yet to be rejected. Not everyone loved it, (one agent said, "I still have no idea what your book is about!") but I was able to squeak requests out of even the most reluctant agents and editors. A pitch is really meant to be a teaser, the kind of thing you'd read on the back cover of a book. It's a hook - a catchy blurb that makes you flip open to the first page and start reading.

I owe Kathy big time because I now have seven standing requests for my manuscript.

I am TERRIFIED.

The best AND worst thing about a successful book pitch is that PEOPLE WANT TO READ YOUR BOOK.

It should have made me ridiculously happy and at first, it did. I was thrilled! But it turned out to be more of a Holy Shit moment.

Holy. Shit. Now I have to send out my book.

The metaphors only get worse from here.

Sending a submission off is like the second date. It gives the editors and agents the chance to cop a feel and see if they REALLY like you.

I've been editing and revising my ass off all week. If anyone's getting to second base, I better be wearing my very best bra.

Silly girlfriends and hopper-doodle-doo's

I know I'm overdue to share what happened to me in Seattle and how the pitching process went and I definitely want to talk about it, but I'm not quite ready yet. The short of it is this: it's far more terrifying than I expected it to be and every bit as exhilarating. This weekend I'm doing it all over again - I have appointments with SIX editors and agents here in Portland - so I'm going to wait until it's all over before I work up the courage to write about it.

I may even decide to share the pitch itself.

In the meantime, Twitter is broken and I have two quick kid stories that need a permanent slot in this their everlasting babybook of undeletable Google cache.

ONE

Yesterday when I picked Alex up from camp, Haile (pronounced Hey Lee), my favorite teenaged counselor, stopped me and leaned in conspiratorially to ask, "Did I tell you about Alex's girlfriend yet?"

"No," I answered. My eyebrows would have shot up at the thought, but this is my son and this is not a surprise, so my eyebrows stayed put.

"He came up to me yesterday and told me Ashley was almost his girlfriend." Then Haile leaned in closer to me and raised her eyebrows. "And when I asked him 'why almost?', he said that if he got her to be silly one more time, then she'd definitely be his girlfriend." 

My five-year-old playa.

When I brought it up with him later, I asked, "So why do you want Ashley to be your girlfriend?" and his answer was sublimely simple.

"Duh, Mom, because it's easy to make her get silly!"

Duh, indeed.

TWO

Yesterday I was trying to get Genoa ready for her nap and she was reading a book to quiet down. Specifically the Dr. Seuss Alphabet book. (A - American Ants...) When she got to "K - Kangaroo with keys," she couldn't remember the word kangaroo, so she looked up at me and said, "Look mom! It's a hopper-doodle-doo!"

A hopper-doodle-doo. From now on that's what I'm going to call them.

Have I mentioned I love that girl? Good lord.

Mary

So I arrive in Seattle late Thursday afternoon and before I can even change my mustard-stained skirt, I find myself immersed in a session about how to write and deliver a book pitch. I have one written, but it's not great, not really finished, and certainly not memorized. It's a lot harder than I thought it would be.

I feel overwhelmed and a little lost and when it's over, I head back to my hotel room to wash my hair and change my skirt. I consider ordering room service before the evening session begins, but it's so quiet in the hotel room.

Already way too quiet for me.

But I'm hungry and still looking for my bearings and it turns out I find them downstairs in the hotel bar, where I take the last available seat, which just happens to be an open slice of couch next to one Mary Smith. She's wearing her name badge and she's an aspiring writer. Just like me.

I slide in next to her and reach for the cocktail menu. I plan to order something fancy. For $13, I want a martini that makes me moan with delight or at the very least nod my head in approval with the first few sips.

I order a pomegranate martini. Mary orders a second vodka tonic.

I like her already.

Mary and I chat with the people around us. We start with the basics. She's from California. I used to be from there. She used to be from Oklahoma. She used to be an interior decorator, a good one too, but no one redecorates when their house is in foreclosure, so she prays about it as hard as she can and goes to bed. The  next day she wakes up and starts writing a book.

I tell her how I saw a hot guy at the pool with a mole next to his belly-button and the next day I woke up and started writing a book. Same thing, right?

I like making her laugh.

I find out she loves Sarah Palin and I like her even more. In fact, hearing that makes me put my arm around her for the first of many, many times.

She's given birth to eleven children.

11.

Only four of them are still alive.

She lost her only daughter to a lung infection when the girl was four years old.

Mary has spent the rest of her life praying that she's a good enough soul to make up for it. For her daughter. 

The protagonist of Mary's novel is a four-year-old girl.

I'm dying to read it.

We sip our cocktails and wait for our dinner to arrive. Mary asks us all to guess how old she is.

I take a moment to give her a second look. She has straight white hair and she wears it in the kind of chic pixie cut you'd find on a French woman. A quick glance at her clothes makes me want to raid her closet, except she's about half my size and nothing would fit. Maybe I could borrow her shoes.

And she's beautiful. High cheek bones and deep-set eyes. My grandmother would say she has exquisite bone structure. Her smile is feminine and knowing and kind, but mostly her face is full of mischief. I try to imagine how she looked when she was my age and can only assume that men used to cross the street just to see her up close.

She's alone. At a writing conference. She flew to Seattle from Southern California. She's brave. Brave enough to still look at the years in front of her and have ambitions about them. She wants to get her book published. I already know it will be.

I guess 73.

She's 80.

I want to be her and every chance I get for the next three days, I pull up a chair and squeeze in next to her. She fills my ears with her life story and we talk like old girlfriends, about love, men, marriage, motherhood, and sex. I've never talked about sex with an 80-year-old woman and doing so makes me realize that she has to be one of my soul mates.

Now that I'm home, thinking about Mary Smith makes me want to cry. I can't really say why except that I might not ever get to see her again and knowing that feels a little bit like drowning.

I don't believe in God. I might never. But if I ever do, it'll be because I want to be more like Mary Smith.