Suburban Goddess

Misha Defonseca just came out to say her best-selling Holocaust memoir is a fake… yet one more writer who decided to cross the line into fiction. My question is, why didn’t you just start out in fiction to begin with? At least that way you’d still have your reputation as a writer…

I write here for fun. I enjoy writing. I’ve always harbored a secret desire to write professionally, and this is the best of both worlds; I can write whatever I want (sort of) but my livelihood does not depend on it. Therefore, I will not starve. However, the more I peruse bookstores, the Internet, and other various forms of media, I’m starting to think that maybe, just maybe, I might be able to do this. I know that my English is far from flawless, but I know it’s better than some of the CRAP I see being distributed to my door daily. And the other thing; some of these writers don’t even CARE if their facts are straight…. well, hell, I can write fiction just as well as anyone else at the Chronicle.

I know that writing is an art form; once you get the basic strokes down, true talent lies within the ability to move the observer. I know that some people will not like my stories (especially when they recognize themselves in them, lol)… but I have a broad imagination. I think I could come up with unique plotlines that don’t follow a canned formula (sorry, John Grishom).

Someday…. soon.

Today’s quote on my calendar:

“When you have no problems, you’re dead.” – Zelda Werner

So I was thinking a great deal about this because I seem to have quite a few, um, “conflicts” at the moment that at times have become overwhelming this week… and I came to the conclusion that even on a really bad day, I’d still rather have a ton of problems than be dead.

And suddenly, life became clear again.

Okay, I know I am part of a very, very, VERY limited group of users who prefer the MacIntosh platform. But I am a “CREATIVE,” one of those mysterious and elusive people who prefers to dress in black, sip espressos and memorize the Pantone color for every object in existence. (Not to be confused with UNIX people, who just hole up in their server rooms playing online games and mumbling incomprehensible jibberish about Perl, Ruby, and other crap that I have no comprehension of).

I do not consider myself “elite” because of my platform; I choose it for the EASE of USE in my PROFESSION. I like to drag & drop. I am a VISUAL person. I do not want to navigate a million menus to get something done, and I certainly don’t want to try to design from a COMMAND LINE.

I happen to prefer the simplicity of a MacIntosh, because it sums up my goals in life; to be simple, elegant, and productive. The interfaces aren’t cluttered, the instructions are simple, and as long as you follow the rules, it will crank on FOREVER (unless you’re running Creative Suite, because anything Adobe is a monster resource hog, but I will forgive simply because a software engineering feat like Photoshop is pure genius, and obviously the programmers had greater things on their plate like curves, layers, and press algorithms to worry about instead of something trivial like system resources…)

Here lately, I seem to be defending my poor little Mac devices more often than I used to. I can’t help but wonder why that is; they function without fail unless there’s some user error involved… can you Windows people say the same thing? (And R, you just stay out of it because 99% of the Windows population doesn’t even have a clue what Unix/Linux is!)

Why all the Mac hating? Seriously? I feel no love….

Text message exchange after my “Upgrade” post:

D: Sadly… Vista is something of a downgrade… I dealt with it last year on a new machine

Me: I don’t do Windows… You KNOW this, D.

D: Thats right… the right click is just waaay to complicated for you simple mac users

Me: And artistic concepts like SPELLING are waaay “to” hard for you Windoze users…

When I picked up Alex today, I was informed she had a fever and a cough. My heart immediately sank; I just took a week off work between my vacation and my bout with the flu… I am out of time.

It’s times like this I realize how truly vulnerable I am.

I called home, having one of those moments where all I wanted was my mom. My dad heard the tone of my voice and immediately asked me, “Do I need to send your mom?”

The tears welled up in my eyes… it’s funny how they just know. No matter what, I can always, ALWAYS depend on my parents. I try my best never to take advantage of that, and save the calls for true emergencies, but I know in my heart that it doesn’t have to be an emergency. All I ever have to do is say, “I need you,” and they will be there.

I will never pretend not to know how incredibly lucky I am for this. Nuclear families are rare these days; and many people don’t have either parent to turn to anymore. I know that I will not always be able to call them… and I pray that day is a long, long time away, because right now, I just don’t know what I’d do without them.

I wish I could find a man in my life that I could count on like that.

How come every time I upgrade my OS, I lose my hard drive? Thankfully, I backed up, but what a pain…

About a week ago, a series of events shook my faith. It shook my faith in God, in a person that I loved, and the ability to trust. Because for quite some time, I’ve been trying to live life openly, honestly, and without regret.

So far, so good.

Then came the event in question, and suddenly everything I was sure of was cast with the black shadow of doubt, and all the old fears and insecurities came racing back. For a few days, I was distraught, not sure what to do… Sometimes the silence is deafening…. but then, life has a way of just happening, and all things return to their natural state, despite your best efforts to rend them in a different way.

I just keep letting go… and like a boomerang, here it is again.

Shortly after returning home, I fell ill. Extremely ill. In fact, it came on with such a vengeance that I went immediately to the doctor. After looking around every opening in my head and listening to the rattle in my chest, he looked at my chart before looking back at me.

“Ms. MacLaughlin, did you have a flu shot?”

“Um, no.”

“That’s too bad. Because that might have kept you from getting the flu.”

I can’t believe I had to pay for that abuse.

Alex & I flew home with a layover in Nashville, where she managed to make friends with two little girls in the terminal who were heading to Chicago… as the girls ran back and forth the concourse to the opposing gates, I had a little game of sign language with the girls’ father. Look, they’re coming your way. Where did mine go? There, under the chairs. Hand sanitizer okay? Sure, no problem. And so forth…

While Alex learned the value of single-serving friends, my mind started to wander how long it’s been since I had a celebrity on my plane. Considering I was flying Southwest, I doubted very seriously that I would encounter that today… and lo and behold, an entourage of glitter, denim and guitars rounded the corner and I was standing next to Bucky Covington.

Okay, so he’s not exactly ‘A’ list, but people knew who he was. I watched with interest how he reacted to his fans; gracious, accommodating, and always polite. I’ve never been the type to go insane when I encounter a celebrity (at the end of the day, I believe your worth is measured by much more than your recognition factor) so I opted out of bothering the poor guy for a picture despite the fact that I knew that would bolster me to “semi-cool” with my staff.

As the attendants called for the boarding of our plane, I forgot all about Bucky as I tried to explain to my daughter why her new friends couldn’t get on OUR plane… and ended up with a 2-year-old tantrum on my hands (which is another story entirely, how RUDE people are to people with kids in an airport)… I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to board early, so I literally heaved her over my shoulder and carried her aboard like a sack of potatoes. Only imagine that the sack of potatoes is screaming and kicking.

We fell in two seats behind the “celebrity,” who was, again, the last thing on my mind as I tried to reign Alex in. The flight was relatively quiet, and ten minutes before the plane landed, she fell sound asleep. As the wheels touched down on the runway, I said a quick thank you prayer that we had made it THIS far (because I HATE to fly), then attempted to wake my daughter to beat the mad rush to the plane door. As soon as we pulled into the gate, everyone jumped up immediately, including Bucky. Not paying attention, I pulled my groggy child into the aisle…

… where she promptly ran into Bucky Covington’s butt.

And that, my friends, is my daughter’s first brush with celebrity. Literally.

Sometimes I’m plagued by guilt. I attribute that to my lovely Catholic upbringing; I don’t even need someone to MAKE me feel guilty, I can do it ALL BY MYSELF.

But sometimes I think the guilt I lay on myself is much more harsh than anyone could lay on me from the outside.

In life, the high road is usually pretty easy to find; if it sucks, then that’s the high road. Granted, sometimes it only sucks for a little while because good things are not supposed to come easy… you have to work for them. I’ve gotten pretty good at taking this road. In the past few months, the high road has lead to some amazing things.

But what happens when you’re not sure which one is the high road anymore? When you start to enlist the opinions of others, when your loyalties are swayed by outside sources, suddenly everything that was once crystal clear becomes a big old muddy mess… and you’re left wondering if you’re going the right way… or worse yet, you’re stuck in one spot, knowing full well you can’t go backwards, but you can’t really go forward, either.

The road ahead of me has a fork in the path. Unfortunately, I can’t see past all the dust in the air to know which way to go. But I know either way, there are bumps ahead at a time I long for smoother asphalt…